The Prague Sonata

I received The Prague Sonata book as an unintentional Christmas present one year from Amazon. I had ordered a number of books as presents for members of my family and had considered this book as a possibility, but I didn’t actually order it. Then it showed up in my package from Amazon. So....Thanks Amazon! I think I didn’t order this book originally (even though I love interesting books about pianists and musicians) because I have been disappointed in the past with some books that simply use a piano teacher or musician as a character in an otherwise uninteresting story or it becomes evident to me that the author doesn’t really have a good understanding of music in general. When I read reviews of this book, the subject matter seemed promising, but the biographical details of the author were mostly about his distinguished literary credentials and I was worried that the book wouldn’t have enough musical credibility. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the book a great deal. The writing was clear and the narrative moved along at a good pace. The characters were interesting and the story was absorbing enough that I was able to pleasantly spend time totally immersed in my fictional setting. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes their fiction to include musical elements.

According to an interview with the author , Bradford Morrow, the plot is a quest epic. During the Nazi invasion of Prague in 1939, a woman named Otylie Bartošová is forced to break up a treasured eighteenth-century musical manuscript, a handwritten piano sonata she inherited from her father. Much later, a young New York musicologist (and former aspiring classical pianist) named Meta, comes into possession of part of the manuscript and begins a quest to locate the rest. Meta’s journey takes her to Prague and other places in search of the other movements. I found the story very convincing for the most part, however if I’m going to nitpick:
1. The evil musicologist was a bit of a stretch for me. I guess the author felt Meta needed an antagonist to make the “quest” a little more difficult.
2. The romantic interest in the novel being a journalist seemed fine for me, but it seemed a little self-conscious to have him taking secret notes about writing a book about his experience with Meta at the same time.
3. Although the novel does not really mention a timeframe, I found it difficult a bit difficult to believe that so many of the original people involved with the manuscript from WWII were still alive during Meta’s quest.

I think the part I enjoyed the most about the book was its setting in Prague as well as the plausibility of an actual lost sonata by a great composer as presented in the book. I have previously visited the beautiful capital of the Czech Republic and it was great fun to recognize landmarks like Lobkowicz Palace, where we also saw rare musical manuscripts as a tourist. I also agreed with descriptions of the Nazi occupation and the Velvet revolution that were part of the story. During my personal visit to Prague, I attended a lecture about the communist occupation and details included in the Prague Sonata book dovetailed very well with local opinions presented to me during my own visit.  The back story to the manuscript coming into the hands of Otylie managed to seem like reasonable conjecture. In addition, the descriptions of the musical manuscript were authentic sounding. Consequently, I feel Bradford Morrow did a very good job with his book research especially in his description of Prague as well as with the details of the lost musical manuscript. This story makes you wish a lost Sonata by such a famous composer had really been found.

Some Favorite Quotes from The Prague Sonata:
• All wars begin with music….The fife and drum. The marching songs, sung to the rhythm of boots tramping their way to battle. The bugle’s call for an infantry to charge. Even the wailing bassoon sirens that precede the bombardment and the piccolo whistles of the falling bombs themselves.
• Why do people fight wars? The girl asked. Because God lets them, he answered, suddenly quieter. But why does he let them? Her father thought for a moment, tucking the wool blanket under her chin, before saying, Because God loves music and so he must abide war.
• “Prague? Wow Meta. Can you really afford to do that?” “I’ve got some money saved up. Not a ton, but if it came down to it, I could always sell my piano.” “Never. You’d sooner die,” Gillian insisted.
• Her student was as earnest as death. He knew all the notes, had memorized them like multiplication tables. One day, he would grow up to be a damned good industrial engineer.
• Scales, she wrote in Czech in her diary. Jakub, I had forgotten what soulful things scales are! The perfection of flowers here in this park, the flowers that know just how many petals and leaves are needed to grow every spring to find their way into the sunlight, that’s what scales are.
• …luck is the progeny of persistence.
• “His piano was his saddest loss. It was all burned, but the brass pedals and part of the – what do you call this? – music board with the Bosendorfer?”…. “The label on the soundboard didn’t burn completely, so he saved that.”