The Nightingale's Sonata
The Nightingale's Sonata

Author: Thomas Wolf

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1643131621

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*Winner of the Sophie Brody Medal* A moving and uplifting history set to music that reveals the rich life of one of the first internationally renowned female violinists. Spanning generations, from the shores of the Black Sea to the glittering concert halls of New York, The Nightingale's Sonata is a richly woven tapestry centered around violin virtuoso Lea Luboshutz. Like many poor Jews, music offered an escape from the predjudices that dominated society in the last years of the Russian Empire. But Lea’s dramatic rise as an artist was further accentuated by her scandalous relationship with the revolutionary Onissim Goldovsky. As the world around them descends in to chaos, between revolution and war, we follow Lea and her family from Russia to Europe and eventually, America. We cross paths with Pablo Casals, Isadora Duncan, Emile Zola and even Leo Tolstoy. The little girl from Odessa will eventually end up as one of the founding faculty of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, but along the way she will lose her true love, her father, and watch a son die young. The Iron Curtain would rise, but through it all, she plays on. Woven throughout this luminous odyssey is the story is Cesar Franck’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano.” As Lea was one of the first-ever internationally recognized female violinists, it is fitting that this pioneer was one of the strongest advocates for this young boundary-pushing composer and his masterwork.

The Hydrogen Sonata
The Hydrogen Sonata

Author: Iain M. Banks

Publisher: Orbit

Published: 2012-10-09

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 0316212385

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The New York Times bestselling Culture novel. . . The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, provably, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization. An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence. Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted -- dead, not alive. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely to prove its most perilous. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata

The Prague Sonata
The Prague Sonata

Author: Bradford Morrow

Publisher: Atlantic Books

Published: 2018-02-01

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 1611859379

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Pages of a weathered original sonata manuscript - the gift of a Czech immigrant living in Queens - come into the hands of Meta Taverner, a young musicologist whose concert piano career was cut short by an injury. The gift comes with the request that Meta find the manuscript's true owner - a Prague friend the old woman has not heard from since the Second World War forced them apart - and to make the three-part sonata whole again. Leaving New York behind for the land of Dvorák and Kafka, Meta sets out on an unforgettable search to locate the remaining movements of the sonata and uncover a story that has influenced the course of many lives, even as it becomes clear that she isn't the only one seeking the music's secrets.

The Sonata
The Sonata

Author: Thomas Schmidt-Beste

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-03-10

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0521762545

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An introductory survey of the most enduring and popular genre of instrumental music, perfect for students, teachers and performers.

The Gustav Sonata: A Novel
The Gustav Sonata: A Novel

Author: Rose Tremain

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2016-09-27

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0393246701

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Winner of the 2016 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction A poignant tale about the enduring friendship between two men under the shadow of the Second World War. Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo. An only child, he lives alone with Emilie, the mother he adores but who treats him with bitter severity. He begins an intense friendship with a Jewish boy his age, talented and mercurial Anton Zweibel, a budding concert pianist. The novel follows Gustav’s family, tracing the roots of his mother’s anti-Semitism and its impact on her son and his beloved friend. Moving backward to the war years and the painful repercussions of an act of conscience, and forward through the lives and careers of the two men, one who becomes a hotel owner, the other a concert pianist, The Gustav Sonata explores the passionate love of childhood friendship as it is lost, transformed, and regained over a lifetime. It is a powerful and deeply moving addition to the beloved oeuvre of one of our greatest contemporary novelists.

Twelve Women in a Country Called America
Twelve Women in a Country Called America

Author: Kelly Cherry

Publisher:

Published: 2017-02-28

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781941209554

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Kelly Cherry's tenth work of fiction delivers twelve compelling stories about women of the American South. These are women struggling to find their way through the everyday workings of life while also navigating the maze of self. From a young woman's nightmare piano lesson to an elderly woman's luminous last breath, Twelve Women in a Country Called America takes readers on a journey sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always enlightening.

Autumn Sonata
Autumn Sonata

Author: Ingmar Bergman

Publisher:

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9780394736778

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The plot follows a celebrated classical pianist and her neglected daughter who meet for the first time in years, and chronicles their painful discussions of how they have hurt one another.

Sonata Forms
Sonata Forms

Author: Charles Rosen

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 9780393302196

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"Nobody writes better about music .... again and again, unerring insight into just the features that make the music special and fine."--The New York Review of Books

Beethoven's Piano Sonatas
Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

Author: Charles Rosen

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 030019613X

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Beethoven’s piano sonatas form one of the most important collections of works in the whole history of music. Spanning several decades of his life as a composer, the sonatas soon came to be seen as the first body of substantial serious works for piano suited to performance in large concert halls seating hundreds of people. In this comprehensive and authoritative guide, Charles Rosen places the works in context and provides an understanding of the formal principles involved in interpreting and performing this unique repertoire, covering such aspects as sonata form, phrasing, and tempo, as well as the use of pedal and trills. In the second part of his book, he looks at the sonatas individually, from the earliest works of the 1790s through the sonatas of Beethoven’s youthful popularity of the early 1800s, the subsequent years of mastery, the years of stress (1812†“1817), and the last three sonatas of the 1820s. Composed as much for private music-making as public recital, Beethoven’s sonatas have long formed a bridge between the worlds of the salon and the concert hall. For today’s audience, Rosen has written a guide that brings out the gravity, passion, and humor of these works and will enrich the appreciation of a wide range of readers, whether listeners, amateur musicians, or professional pianists. The book includes a CD of Rosen performing extracts from several of the sonatas, illustrating points made in the text.

The Enchanted Sonata
The Enchanted Sonata

Author: Heather Dixon Wallwork

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 9781732831520

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A retelling of The Nutcracker Ballet with a dash of The Pied Piper. Clara Stahlbaum has her future perfectly planned: to marry the handsome pianist, Johann Kahler (ah!) and settle down to a life full of music. But all that changes on Christmas Eve, when Clara receives a mysterious and magical nutcracker. Whisked away to his world--an enchanted empire of beautiful palaces, fickle fairies, enormous rats, and a prince--Clara must face a magician who uses music as spells...and the future she thought she wanted.