July 2025: Composers

My thinking about this is to read a book by or about a real composer: i.e. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, etc. But if you want to pick a book about a fictional composer, I'm not the one to say yay or nay! This could also easily tie into the quarterly theme, 18th century.

Here's a list just for fiction to give you some ideas: https://www.artinfiction.com/blog/44-novels-featuring-famous-composers.

I will likely read a short biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for this: Johann Sebastian Bach (Rowohlt Bildmonographien). I do love the link you shared, though! I'll save that for the future.

I have Die Kardinalsmotette in mind which is about Josquin des Prés, a Flemish Renaissance composer.

Hopefully I can get to The Life of Haydn, in a Series of Letters Written at Vienna: Followed by the Life of Mozart, with Observations on Metastasio, and on the Present State of Music in France and Italyby Stendhal

I can recommend this work of fiction: The Woman in the Moonlight by Patricia Morrisroe It's about how Beethoven came to write the Moonlight Sonata.

I am planning on reading Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell.

I have a few about real composers, but I'm most likely to go fictional with Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus.

I plan to read The Life of Mendelssohn by Peter Mercer-Taylor. I also have a much longer biography of his sister (and composer), Fanny Mendelssohn by Francoise Tillard, which I may dip into alomg the way.

I must admit this is not an area in which I have a great interest, but thanks to your list WelshBookworm, I realise I do have Sarah Quigley's The Conductor so I will read that :).

There's a recent book about Tchaikovsky out, Tchaikovsky's empire: a new life of Russia's greatest composer, which I hope I can read. Unfortunately, it's still on order at my library, so who knows when it will come in and I'll get a copy. I may be late finishing this month's challenge.

If someone is interested in an unorthodox biography, Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life is worth checking - even if you are not usually a poetry reader.

I have today finished The Conductor by Sarah Quigley. While I have no particular interest in the lives of composers, I am fascinated by Russian history and have visited Leningrad/St Petersburg.

This novel concerns the performing by conductor Karl Eliasberg of composer Dmitri Shostakovich's famous Seventh or Leningrad symphony. This composition was designed as a morale booster during the darkest days of the terrible siege of Leningrad in 1941-42, when the city was cut off by the advancing Nazi armies, and devastated by starvation, albeit that total collapse was averted over the horrific winter of that year by some supplies being able to reach the city over the frozen Lake Ladoga.

The author describes well the breaking down of Leningrad society as preparations for invasion and then for encirclement and slow strangulation of the city exert their baleful effect on the musical fraternity and their loved ones. In the face of the increasing cold, darkness and starvation as rations are cut again and again, they continue in their endeavours to rehearse this piece, including after Shostakovich and his family are evacuated to the relative safety of the town of Kuibyshev in southern Russia. Many orchestra members die of starvation or cold but the survivors carry on. This was an act of enormous moral courage, though it might also be seen by some as almost robotic indifference to the fate of themselves as individuals caught between the totalitarian behemoths of communism and Nazism. Orchestra member Nikolai Nikolayev's nine year old daughter Sonya was probably my favourite character and I was so pleased she survived. In general I felt there was a particular strength and nobility in the leading female characters such as the two Ninas, the composer's wife and the conductor's (future) wife. I was slightly surprised to see this was apparently the best selling work of adult fiction in New Zealand (the author's home country) in 2011.

I have finished Das Mozart-Mysterium, a historical mystery where Leopold Mozart is invited to join a learned society for musicians. But first he must solve 13 riddles, which he attempts with the help of David Stark, who studies the violin with him.
This takes place in 1755 in Salzburg, and we learn much about the most important churches and monuments in the city, so the book could serve as a guidebook at a pinch. The mystery falls rather flat, and the author never succeeds at transporting you into the 18th century. I was annoyed with the typos, the modern language, and a general feeling of a rush job. Or maybe lack of editorial input? Anyways, there is much historical fact in here, but the various parts never come together to make a satisfying whole.

I have finished Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard of Bingen

I thought this novel was probably true enough as historical fiction. I have loved her music for years, and the poetry of her writings, but there is much about her life that I did not know. However, I felt that this book reduced her life to the horrors of being an anchorite, having to fight for the rights and recognition of women within the medieval church, and her relationships with two particular women - Jutta of Sponheim and Richardis von Stade. What I didn't get was any sense of how her visionary theology developed, how did she learn music, all of her scientific and medical writing, her traveling and preaching (later in life), and how did her visions inform all of her creative process. She was such a remarkable woman, and this didn't do her justice in my opinion. But perhaps that is an impossible task.

I was hoping to read Tchaikovsky's empire: a new life of Russia's greatest composer for this month, but the book was on order at the library, and I had no way to know when it might come in. Then I remembered that I had The Instrumentalist on my wishlist. The library had a copy on the shelf, so I checked it out. I had a couple of other books that I needed to finish first, but I finally got to it. Odd that like >11 LibraryCin:, it is about Vivaldi and the Ospedale della Pietà. I had not heard of The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice before this.

The main character in The Instrumentalist is one of the orphans, Anna Maria della Pietà. She was a real person who was recognized for her musical ability and eventually became famous. She wound up living her whole life at the Ospedale. The novel is based on the few known details about her life, and develops an elaborate story about her growing up and becoming part of the Ospedale's famous orchestra as a master of the violin. Vivaldi is their music teacher and orchestra leader. Constable imagines a very dramatic story for Anna Maria, and portrays her as extremely ambitious, but also afraid of losing her place in the orchestra. The story was compelling and drew me in, but Anna Maria is not always likeable. She grows up by the end of the story and has to come to terms with the not always happy results of her actions. Vivaldi does not come off too well in the end. Nevertheless, I thought it was an interesting read.

>15 atozgrl: I'm going to take a look at this one!

(Anna Maria is a character in "The Four Seasons", as well.)

>16 LibraryCin: It would be interesting to compare the two stories. Maddalena and Chiaretta didn't show up in The Instrumentalist. Constable wrote mostly about the girls studying instruments, and didn't have much to say about the singers.

>17 atozgrl: I don't remember if the author of "The Four Seasons" might have said something about changing some of the timelines a bit, so maybe Anna Maria and Maddalena and Chiaretta weren't around at the same time... or maybe they weren't as close in age as the author of "The Four Seasons" made them. I believe (I've read a few too many other books in the meantime, so am already forgetting some of the details!), in this story, Anna Maria and Maddalena were friends.

Doesn't look like I'm going to get to this month's reading. I'd been planning on Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus but, although I think I know where my copy is, it's so buried under a pile of storage that I might injure myself getting to it! Maybe I'll do it as "Reader's Choice" for December.

Meanwhile, I'll do something of a French nature for the third quarter (I've got bios of both Voltaire and Rousseau I want to get to), get cracking on the August "Don't Get Checkmated" read (and thanks to Cindy for picking up on this for me) with a reread of Wonderland and Looking Glass but using Martin Gardner's annotated edition that I've never read, and then catching up on some of my TBRs that I've been letting slip while I've been in and out of the hospital.

I finished The Life of Mendelssohn by Peter Mercer-Taylor (2000). In a little over 200 pages, the author does an excellent job of narrating Mendelssohn's family background, his life, his relationship with his family and his major compositions and achievements in his brief life of 38 years. It was accessible and liberally sprinkled with excerpts from his many letters. I was unaware of how young he was when he first became an important musical name in Germany and England.

Less well covered was his married life and children; missing was a chronology of his life and a list of his major compositions. A good basic intro to Mendelssohn the performer, conductor and composer, but left me wanting more.

Finally finished reading Mozart's Sister. Here's my review:
This was really good. I can't quite give it 5 stars, since it took me four months to read it! But, to be fair there were many other books and deadlines competing for my attention. I did think it dragged a bit in the middle, when Nannerl was so wrapped up in depression and anger. But her childhood with Wolfgang was fun, and the last section was good, when Nannerl finally finds some happiness for herself. Indeed, I thought the last part was all too short. I would love to have read more about her marriage to the Baron, her children, and her life after the death of Wolfgang. But what we had was a fascinating imagining of the life of a woman forced to be totally subservient to her father and her brother, her own enormous talent quite squashed. She internalized her feelings to the point of illness. I really enjoyed the part about Ebony the horse. Caring for it gave her a purpose and a reason to want to live again. The Baron with his awful poetry was quite comical. I loved the relationship between them, and sorry it took Nannerl so long to appreciate both his humor and his dedication. If anything, Ms. Charbonnier really shines with her characters. They all came to life - Wolfgang as an impertinent boy, his long-suffering mother, even the servants are well fleshed out. I wouldn't mind coming back to this sometime and reading it again. At the very least it makes me want to read more about Mozart and his sister.