As I think anyone who reads my blog will know, music is very important to me. I’ve wanted to a writer since I was about seven, but even before that I used to say I wanted to be an opera singer. That was before I faced the fact that I can barely carry a tune 
. Perhaps there’s a bit of wishful fulfillment in the fact that both Charles and Mélanie have excellent singing voices.
One of the fun things in writing Beneath a Silent Moon was that with more of the story taking place in the social world than in Secrets of a Lady, there were more opportunities to work in the music of the day. In the days before recorded music and television, played and sung music was a common part of an evening’s entertainment (and perhaps the only way those in the country would hear the music of the day). Think of Lizzy Bennet fascinating Darcy at the pianoforte, Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon bonding over music, Emma competing with Jane Fairfax (and Jane’s mysterious new pianoforte).
So perhaps it’s not surprising that the use of music in Beneath a Silent Moon was one of the topics in the video interviews I did last summer:
Do you like to hear about music in the books you read? Any favorite examples to share? Do you seek out music you’ve read about in favorite novels? Writers, do you like to incorporate music in your books?
Be sure to check out this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition. I’m continuing the Mélanie – Raoul exchange, which I’m finding particularly interesting. I’m learning new things about my own characters.
April 13, 2009 at 8:52 pm
“Music, for a while / Shall all your cares beguile . . .”
I’m often drawn to books with musical themes or music-related plots. It’s rarer than one might think to find books that reproduce the excitement of music in the purely visual medium of print, so I cherish the ones I find that do. For example, I recently rediscovered Elfrida Vipont’s The Lark in the Morn and The Lark on the Wing, a two-part children’s series about an English Quaker girl who overcomes familial opposition to become a professional singer. I thought at first I’d be bored by the accounts of her training and developing technique but those scenes actually turned out to be quite engrossing.
In other genres, one of my favorite mysteries is Ellis Peters’ Black is the Color of My True Love’s Heart, which is set at a weekend conference for traditional music and manages to capture the excitement and rough vigor of old murder ballads. I went looking for some traditional recordings after reading it. I enjoyed Deborah Grabien’s Haunted Ballad series for much the same reason, though those books have a paranormal element to them. Her new series, the Kinkaid Chronicles, deals with the rock and roll scene in San Francisco, and promises to be exciting in a different way. Then there’s Kate Ross’s The Devil in Music, which may be the standout in her Julian Kestrel series. I wasn’t that interested in classical opera when I first read it but I’ve become somewhat more interested since then.
Back when I still wrote fantasy, many of my main characters were poets, bards, or at least very capable amateur musicians. Maybe because magic and music seem like natural companions. One great fantasist, Nicholas Stuart Gray, wrote in his books that poets and singers are among the few that can travel through “gaps” between the mundane world of day and the sorcerous world of night.
Now that I’ve switched genres, I don’t have that many poets and bards wandering through my work. But my current hero plays the Welsh harp, while my heroine sings passably and plays the piano competently–even if her repertoire consists mostly of Gilbert and Sullivan songs!
April 13, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Thanks for the great comments, Stephanie! I agree, it’s difficult to capture the magic of music in words that are most likely going to be read in silence. “Devil in Music” is a fabulous book, and I love how Kate Ross evokes music and the world of early 19th century opera in it. Dorothy Dunnett is also very good at writng about music in a visceral way that lets the reader hear the piano or harpsichord or voices and feel the emotion conveyed.
I’ll have to look for some of the other books you mention!
Having grown up on Gilbert & Sullivan, I love the sound of your current book!
April 17, 2009 at 2:28 am
I will always be grateful to Elisabeth Fairchild, because I first discovered the Bach cello suites through reading one of her older Signet Regency romances, where the aristocratic hero plays the cello. I miss her and that entire line.
Not a book, but the recent James Bond movie, “Quantum of Solace”, has a scene set during an opera. For the price of one movie ticket you get to enjoy Daniel Craig and beautiful music, which is definitely a win-win situation for me.
I actually think the lack of discussion of music is somewhat odd in historical novels. The aristocracy spent much time at concerts and operas, yet many books merely mention attendance at such events and rarely discuss the music at all, as if a Regency gentleman had the same attitudes about Beethoven as a Gen Y hipster. Or musical settings are merely for laughs, as the the continuing Smith-Smythe musicales in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton novels. One reason I liked an early Mary Balogh (“The Notorious Rake”) was that early in the book the H/H briefly discuss a recent concert and whether they preferred the Bach or the Handel piece. They disagree, and the hero thinks to himself that they have nothing in common and will clearly go their separate ways. In those days men could be both rakes and music connoisseurs, whereas today a liking for classical music is considered somewhat suspect.
April 17, 2009 at 4:43 am
I loved the Tosca scene in “Quantum of Solace”, Susan (not to mention that I love watching Daniel Craig). I did think it was funny, though, that during the chase scene they intercut with the opera and go from the end of Act I to the end of Act II–long action sequence
. Interestingly, I was desribing the sequence to friend and fellow Merola Opera Program Board member, and he immediately recognized the opera production (which is a real one, from Vienna, I think).
A cello playing hero sounds lovely. Sometimes I think I’m hopelessly out of touch. It would never occur to me that a man loving music wouldn’t be sexy
.