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A recommendation from ZUBIN MEHTA: “It gives me great pleasure to recommend Boman Desai’s book. He has dramatized the story of the Schumanns and Brahms in the form of a novel, citing their original correspondence of 43 years among his sources. He has researched this most romantic of stories thoroughly, but writes so compellingly that it is like discovering the story anew. The great composers of the age make appearances when their lives intersect those of the trio, and I was glad to see that Desai presents them to us, warts and all, with the deepest sympathy and understanding. It is perhaps his greatest achievement that they appear as fullbloodedly as if they might have been his neighbors.”
"I loved and admired this book." Diana Athill, editor of Norman Mailer, John Updike, Jean Rhys, and V. S. Naipaul Boman Desai has skillfully woven philosophical, sociological, and humanistic concerns within the setting of a novel with a historiographical bent. No fine intelligence can fail to see this work’s beauty with its heavenly length and breadth. Be prepared to be moved, touched and inspired by Trio. Farobag Homi Cooper, music director of the Chicago Philharmonia MORE TRUTHFUL THAN THE HISTORIANS "Desai’s novel should be considered a fully truthful and scientific account of the historical figures and conflicts he depicts. Even in those cases where he consciously deviates from the historical record – dutifully noted in his 'Author’s Note' – he remains faithful to the ideas of the protagonists, and his portrayal of the battle of ideas during the period he depicts, just as in Shakespeare’s Histories, is truthful in a more profound sense than a merely accurate record of historical events could be. "However, the most striking achievement of this novel, is to provide a compelling glimpse into the emotional world of the artists, the quality of passion required to create and interpret real art, and the world-historical sense of identity that arises from that passion. Desai shows us how this sense of identity varies with different philosophies of art, contrasting the Schumanns and their allies, with their factional opponents, the “futurists” such as Liszt and Wagner. These latter might be viewed as useful clinical studies, in contrast with the paradoxical Robert Schumann, who went mad, but was philosophically the sanest of them all." Abelard2 (creator of Davidsbundlertanze, a Schumann website) The following are responses from readers who learned about the book on the Internet and were kind enough to email their comments to me. I have printed the comments in lieu of mainstream reviews because there were no mainstream reviews. Mainstream publishers had two problems with the book: (1) They wanted me to cut it from 823 to 400 pages (impossible if I wished to maintain the integrity of the work); and (2) they weren't sure whether to market it as Fiction, History, Biography, or Music, and what is not easily categorized is not easily marketed. I solved the problem by publishing it myself, which is the reason I am particularly grateful to the following Reader Review which were entirely unsolicited and greatly appreciated. FROM A READER IN MEXICO Dear Mr. Desai, I got your book TRIO and I cannot put it down, I shall finish it very soon, and I am aware it is but Book One out of, how many? I can’t seem to find this information. When will the next volumes of TRIO be out? To be honest, when I discovered there were no books in Spanish on the Schumanns and Brahms, I thought of trying to write one myself, so that is why I looked for the biographies. When I started reading your book (I began with yours) and when I saw how thick the volume is, I was afraid you would take forever in petty and uninteresting details, but let me tell you, I was immediately impressed with the pace of your writing and the amount of detail you include (only the necessary to set the atmosphere perfectly). I also love the way you capture the personalities of the characters. At this point, I would not even dream of going through all the research you have done and I know I could not ever write a novel as good as yours, but I would be thrilled to translate it. TO THE PUBLISHER GENTLEMEN: This is an inquiry to seek the information concerning the publication of Volume 2 of TRIO by Boman Desai. I thoroughly enjoyed Volume 1 and look forward to ordering and reading Volume 2. Thank you very much for any information that you might send by e-mail. Paul Pollei Founder/Artistic Director, Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation FROM A MED STUDENT AND PIANIST It is, quite simply, a work of genius. I am so moved by the final pages. The decline of Robert, the struggling love of Clara and Brahms as they lose the common bond of Robert, the wanderlust of Brahms and the neediness of Clara. These are things I will remember forever. FROM A RANDOM READER I’ve been reading your novel, Trio, and am rapidly nearing its finish, despite the deliberate delays people erect when they don’t really want a story to end. I’ve long been fascinated by Schumann, especially, so I was happy to find you’d devoted so much time to creating this work. FROM A SCHOLAR AND SINGER I have just finished your novel, “Trio,” and found it compelling and illuminating. As a scholar [professor of aesthetics at Harvard for 20 years] and sometime singer, I fully appreciated the immense scholarship and empathy that went into it. Would that the reading public could appreciate such a story as well told. It’s a story that Tolstoy might have told in similar terms, and I do hope that it eventually gets you the recognition it deserves. FROM A RETIRED LIBRARIAN Your book, Trio, made quite an impression on me. As a result of my profession [music librarian at San Jose State for 30 years], the period about which you wrote is one I know a great deal about and being a pianist – and at one time, a mediocre cellist, I know a lot about the composers you brought so effectively to life. The neurasthenia of Chopin, the incredible musical and personal integrity of Mendelssohn, the Brahms that truly existed beneath the curmudgeon he presented to the world, and on and on. Of all the biographies I’ve read of these men, and the definitive one on Clara Schumann, I think you brought me closer to their essence than anything I’d yet read about them. I am glad I bought the book because now I can read it again as I surely will. I look forward to reading the second volume and while it grieves me to think of the death of Brahms under any circumstances, I’m sure you’ll do that singular event justice. I think you are doing something so good that it has been a long time that I’ve been so affected by a work, and especially a novel as I seldom read them. There are scenes in your book that are still with me. I think Schumann’s disfunction was not overkilled and I admit to prejudice (in the good sense) but I love to read about Mendelssohn and if there’s any composer I’d have loved to have known it would be Mendelssohn. Mr. Desai, you are definitely on to something. Don’t give it up. |
TRIO
TRIO (a summary)
Nine-year-old Clara Wieck is a formidable pianist, the peer of most adults, many of whom are too intimidated in her presence even to criticize her – except Robert Schumann, nine years her senior when they meet at a party at the home of a mutual friend of their fathers. Robert convinces Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, also her teacher, to take him on as a pupil, and moves from Heidelberg where he’s studying law into the Wieck household in Leipzig. Wieck is convinced of Robert’s talent, less of his discipline, but agrees, only to regret his decision almost immediately. Returning from a tour of Paris with Clara, the Wiecks find that Robert has damaged one of his fingers permanently in an attempt to strengthen it with a mechanical device, spelling the end of his career as a piano virtuoso. Robert sees it instead as a sign that he was not meant to be a pianist, but a composer. While Wieck respects Robert the composer he cannot imagine how he will make a living. Robert begins a music journal, the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik [which, incidentally, has been published continually since its inception in 1834], and sinks his efforts into his journal as much as his compositions. He also falls in love with Clara though he says nothing about it until her 16th birthday. Unfortunately, Wieck has been permanently alienated by this time and entertains greater hopes for his daughter than a penniless composer, a duke or count would be more appropriate – but Clara is now in love with Robert. As ensuing events unite the lovers Wieck not only threatens to shoot Robert, but contests the marriage in a court of law though in vain. The marriage is happy in the early years, but as the number of children grows (eight, one dying in infancy, not to mention two miscarriages) Clara is forced to give up her own career in deference to Robert’s though she can earn more in three months onstage than Robert in a year of composition. Clara the performer and Robert the composer are continually in conflict; she cannot even practise at home for fear of disturbing his concentration. The situation grows continually worse though always interspersed with moments of happiness until Robert’s first nervous breakdown which precipitates a move from Leipzig to Dresden in search of better prospects, and from Dresden to Dusseldorf where Robert attempts suicide, jumping into the Rhine – only to be rescued, and committed instead to an insane asylum in Endenich on the outskirts of Bonn. In the meantime, the Brahms family in Hamburg has discovered a prodigy among them. The middle child, Johannes, has perfect pitch and has invented a system for notation whereby he’s composed a number of songs by the age of four. He’s given as good a musical education as possible though the family’s means are limited. When he’s thirteen he begins playing piano in taverns along the docks to add to the family coffers. Unfortunately, the taverns contribute to a psychological disintegration from which he never recovers. Prostitutes, plying their trade, play with him as a kind of sexual toy with which they bait the sailors. He also plays piano in the homes of the wealthy in Hamburg where he meets a flashy Hungarian violinist refugee, Eduard Remenyi, with whom he undertakes his first tour. Remenyi introduces Brahms to Joseph Joachim, the premier violinist of the age, who provides them with an entree to Franz Liszt in Weimar. Unfortunately, Brahms finds himself unsympathetic with Liszt’s music and falls asleep during a recital by the great man. Remenyi is outraged and the two separate. Brahms returns to Joachim who provides him with another entrée – to Schumann. Five months before Robert is admitted to the asylum Brahms knocks on his door. Robert and Clara are fascinated by his pianism and compositions. Robert writes his last essay for the Zeitschrift proclaiming the advent of Brahms in messianic terms incurring the wrath of just about every other struggling musician. Brahms himself, uncomfortable with immoderate praise, feels expectations have been raised immeasurably, but remains nevertheless grateful to Schumann. Brahms also falls in love with Clara, but the circumstances are hardly favorable. The best way to show his love is to help her through the crisis with Robert, to become their go-between (Clara fears she’s driven Robert to the asylum; Robert fears he’s failed her). Robert dies two and a half years later in the asylum. Clara sees him for the first time since his incarceration the day before he dies. Strangely, now that Clara is free their passion dwindles. Clara is fourteen years older, the mother of seven, and sees Brahms as a devoted son. Brahms has yet to find his way in the world, and the two and a half years before Robert died have exacted an emotional toll. Nevertheless, they remain committed to each other for the rest of their lives, each other’s helpmate and closest friend. Clara and Joachim are foremost in spreading the gospel of Brahms through Europe. The story of Book One stretches from 1828, the year of Clara’s first concert, to 1856, the year of Robert’s death. The great composers of the century have their entrances and exits; the music of Schumann and Brahms and others informs the novel in sensuous rather than analytical terms; and the ghosts of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert are never distant. AUTHOR'S NOTE TRIO is different from my other novels in many ways: (1) Contrary to appearances it is NOT a historical novel. A historical novel places fictional characters and plots in a historical context, but there are no such fictional characters and plots in TRIO. It would more accurately be called a dramatization of three lives – or, still more accurately, a novelization of three lives. More than anything I wanted to present a clear understanding of the characters, and reveal how they were shaped. The bibliography exceeds eighty books, but the most helpful were easily the voluminous correspondences, Brahms and Clara’s alone (1853 to 1896) comprising a thousand pages. In the days before telephones and other such modes of communication entire lives were preserved in letters. I incorporated much of the information from the correspondences into conversations assuming conversations more dramatic than correspondences. In this respect, the conversations were invented, but not the subject of the conversations, and not the context in which they occurred. (2) It was in part this indeterminate status of the manuscript (not quite biography, not quite historical novel) that prompted me to publish it myself. I was told by agents and publishers that there was no call for a 1,000 page manuscript about classical music. One offered to read it if I cut it to 400 pages, but that would have made it a different book – and, in fact, two novels of about that length were published dealing with the story of just Robert and Clara (not Brahms, and not even Clara after the death of Robert), one taking liberties with the historical record, the other incomplete. (3) Since I published the book myself with an electronic publisher (for whom I have no words but the best for their courtesy and attention to detail), I had to dispense with the iron bones of the all-too-important publicity machine of a mainstream publisher. I would not publish any of my other novels this way because I am relatively unknown as a writer, but I am counting on the Schumanns’ and Brahms’s reputations to spread the word about the book, and to some extent the strategy appears to be working. I have received welcome e-mails from readers letting me know they have enjoyed the book and asking when Book Two will be published. Book One of Trio concludes with the death of Robert. I plan to publish Book Two, concluding with the death of Brahms, in 2006. I wished originally to publish both books in a single volume, but finally made the division because the electronic publisher couldn’t publish books exceeding 700 pages. The book grew like a beanstalk, but more slowly, beginning as a life of Brahms, growing into a life of the Schumanns as well, and the more I read about Liszt and Wagner the more I wanted to include their lives as well, but I chose to keep my sanity instead. It would then have taken about 3,000 pages (Wagner alone would have demanded as much). It helped that I have more admiration than affection for the music of Wagner, and hardly even that for the music of Liszt, but I couldn’t avoid their appearances when their lives intersected those of the trio – not to mention the lives of Mendelssohn and Chopin. Amazingly, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Wagner were all born between the years 1809 and 1813, living for the most part in close proximity in Germany – Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, and Clara, all Leipzigers for the longest time, the Schumanns and Wagner Dresdeners together as well for a while. Verdi was another great contemporary, born in 1813, but of course he lived in Italy. |
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