Some books have one or two of those attributes. To find a book that wraps up all of these things is a happy day indeed. Bradford Morrow's The Prague Sonata offers the whole package.
The story is rich and complex, and full of musical and visual references that made me think, "I can't wait to see the movie."
Protagonist Meta Taverner had dedicated her life to becoming a concert pianist when a fatal accident damaged her hand. Therapy has restored her ability to play, but only with "competence." When Meta performs at an outpatient cancer facility she attracts the notice of patient Irena who summons Meta to visit.
Irena has held the partial score of a piano sonata since her friend Otylie gave it to her to protect during the Nazi occupation of Prague. Irena tasks Meta with returning the score to Otylie, hoping the entire manuscript will be reunited.
Mesmerized by the sonata, and hoping to find the missing sections and perhaps solve the mystery of who composed it, Meta takes up the quest. She puts aside her job and boyfriend to journey to Prague. There, she learns the tragic history of Czechoslovakia under the Nazi and Soviet regimes, encounters threats and intrigue, and discovers love.
The novel expands with reading, moving from the narrow academic world of musicologists to the deprivations of war and the occupation of Prague, to the refugee experience. What starts as a mild mystery turns into a quest with elements of a thriller at the end.
Flashbacks fill in the story. Otylie's father was on leave from The Great War for her mother's funeral when he gave her the piano sonata. He told her, guard it with your own life; one day it will bring you great fortune. He soon after died.
Otylie was grown and newly married when Prague gaves the keys of the city to the Nazis. Otylie wanted to keep the score out of the hands of the Germans so she divided it into three parts, distributing a section to her beloved husband, who was a part of the underground resistance, and another to her dear friend Irena. She kept the first section for herself. At the end of WWII, Otylie's husband is dead and Irena has left the country. Otylie first immigrates to England and then to America.
The sonata's beauty and innovation is amazing. In a copyist's hand, the score appears to be a true antique, but there is no indication of the composer. Is it a lost work by Mozart, or C.P.E. Bach, or Hayden? The score ends with the beginning measures of the next movement, a Rondo.
Thirty-year-old Meta is naive and honest. She is driven by love of music and her pledge to reunite the sonata with it's rightful owner. Her mentor has connected her with Petr Witman, a musicologist contact in Prague who endeavors to undermine Meta; he tells her the sonata is a fake, hoping to get his hands on it. He sees fame and dollar signs. Witman is a man with shifting allegiances, doing whatever it took to stay afloat under the Nazis, the Soviets, and the new Federal Republic. He has no moral code.
Meta is supported by many people in Prague, including a journalist who falls in love with her. On their quest to find the third part of the score, they must keep one step ahead of Witmann. Meta's journey takes her across America, too, pursued by Witman.
I enjoyed learning about Prague and Czechoslovakia. In the 18th c it was the hub of culture and music, a city that loved Mozart. So many brilliant composers are associated with the city.
I loved that music informs the novel and musical language is used in descriptions. Meta knows that the sonata represents a new chapter in her life. "If her own thirty years constituted a first movement of a sonata, she sensed in her gut that she was right now living the opening notes of the second." Morrow describes the second movement of the sonata given to Meta so well, one understands its "staggering power and slyness," the "quasi-requiem tones of the adagio" followed by the promise of joy indicated in the opening measures of the rondo in the second movement.
When I started reading The Prague Sonata I was unhappy I had requested such a long book. What was I thinking? As I got into the story, I was actually drawing out my reading, unwilling to end the experience too soon. And that's about the best thing a reader can say about a book!
(Read more about Mozart in Prague in Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Devastation Road by Jason Hewitt concerns Czechoslovakia after WWII. The Spaceman of Bohemia is sci-fi that also addresses life under the Soviets.)
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Prague Sonata
Bradford Morrow
Grove Atlantic
Publication Oct 3, 2017
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN: 9780802127150
“A musical mystery set against the backdrop of a nation shattered by war and loss . . . sonically rich. . . an elegant foray into music and memory.”—Kirkus Reviews
