One of The Observer's best new novelists for 2024 on telling the story of a female violin virtuoso in Vivaldi's Venice, plus her top three books about music
I'll be very interested to see how this compares to Jessica Duchen's historical fiction about music, since she also switches backwards and forwards between journalism and novels ... very successfully, IMO. Harriet's description of her immersion in violin-playing and how hard it is to absorb the essence of a skill that performers have developed since childhood reminds me of the process my friend Helena Attlee went through researching her book Lev's Violin, as a non-musician who was captivated by a particular instruiment and player and wanted to tell their story. And thanks for the reminder about Gone, which I coud easily reread now that I've forgotten the details. I remember being very impressed by it.
I'll be very interested to see how this compares to Jessica Duchen's historical fiction about music, since she also switches backwards and forwards between journalism and novels ... very successfully, IMO. Harriet's description of her immersion in violin-playing and how hard it is to absorb the essence of a skill that performers have developed since childhood reminds me of the process my friend Helena Attlee went through researching her book Lev's Violin, as a non-musician who was captivated by a particular instruiment and player and wanted to tell their story. And thanks for the reminder about Gone, which I coud easily reread now that I've forgotten the details. I remember being very impressed by it.