Rhapsody

by Robert Ford

It's autumn 1989 and the Berlin Wall is about to fall. Cooper Barrow is an American who has come to Europe to make his mark as an orchestral conductor. He is apprenticed to legendary maestro Karlheinz Ziegler, a man whose lessons are notoriously incendiary. Between Ziegler's bruising tutorials Cooper is befriended by Petra, a flirtatious oboist from East Germany, and the inexperienced American is instantly smitten.But despite the intensity of their passion, Petra's past remains utterly closed to him and her connection to Ziegler unexplained. Then, in the dead of winter, as Germany struggles to reunite, Cooper's world is torn apart in a shock of understanding.

Genres: Germany

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 9, 2005

About the author

Robert Ford earned a master of music degree from Yale and an MFA in writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he grew up in New Jersey, and now lives with his wife in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finally finished it and I still don't get it. The ending was so horrible! I turned the page to find that there was nothing there.. I was and still am so confused.
I feel as though this was a useless read, waste of time. It was good at some parts but this ending totally ruined it.

This may have nothing do to with the writer but just with the fact my Enlgish isn't top notch. All the musical terms made it pretty hard to understand. It was a good subject though and nicely written. Just too hard for me.

[Jane Healey · Rating 5 out of 5]

“He stood outside the door to his flat like he might stand on the podium, isolated, perhaps terribly so, awaiting the silvery moment during which every audience surrenders, each for the greater good. Their signal to start the show. Because it is the audience, after all, which begins the concert; no concert ever began before the audience signaled its readiness.”

What I love most about this novel (aside from the glittering prose that has me underlining passages on each page) is how immersive it feels to read - in its description of the world of classical music and conductorship, the close focus on the protagonist’s body and thoughts, and the experience of being a foreigner always one step out of time with the people around you. Almost every page contains stray German words and dialogue, sometimes translated by the protagonist and other characters to great effect, and sometimes not. Even at the end of the novel, that feeling of foreignness, of not quite being able to grasp the whole meaning of what has taken place, remains.

The two main relationships - between Cooper & Ziegler, and Petra & Cooper - are so vividly drawn and fascinating in their power dynamics. There’s an almost sadomasochistic debasement in Cooper’s dealings with his tutor Ziegler, which, alongside pronouncements about conductors being like ‘gods’, makes the scenes between them crackle with excruciating tension. Petra is enigmatic and wily in what she does and doesn’t reveal to Cooper, and I like that we can never quite pin her down; while Cooper is a fascinating combination of insecurity and ego, and confusion and conviction.

I think maybe some of the places this novel goes towards the ends, with discussions about complicity and nationality, are a bit clunky, but it doesn’t detract from what I like about the rest of it.

A random favourite line of prose: “There’d been a rabbit once—behind the house in Chagrin Falls—tricked by the cat into screaming louder than a full-out E-flat clarinet, the slightest ripple of vibrato flickering inside the wail, and all from a skull you could tuck under your armpit.”

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of passion and politics. The characters are detailed and accomplished but really what impressed me most was the concentrated musical knowledge. Music is integral to the narrative, creating the highs and lows of the story.

[Stuart Woollard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores how music relates to us as individuals: whether as performer, listener, conductor, or even composer. In my opinion, you will appreciate the book more if you have some familiarity with classical music, for example that you know what an oboe is and how it sounds, and if possible that you know Brahms' symphonies. (To give you an idea, I have no interest in sport, so I wouldn't want to read a book about, say, cricketers or tennis players, with lots of details of techniques and matches). The setting is Germany in 1989 at the time of the fall of the Berlin wall. The main characters are Cooper Barrow, an American student conductor, Karlheinz Ziegler an elderly conductor, his mentor, and Petra Vogel, an oboe player who has defected from the DDR. All three characters have a past containing guilt and betrayal, especially Petra and Ziegler, and Barrow acts as a catalyst to bring out all the bad blood and to start a healing process, as well as launch his own career as Maestro. Note that this book was first published as 'The Student Conductor' and is listed separately on Goodreads under this title, with more positive ratings and reviews. I'm not sure why the author changed the title to 'Rhapsody' for subsequent editions: the original title, though prosaic, at least gives an idea of what the book is about!

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is somewhere between the "read or skip" and "so bad there aren't any words for it"-shelves.
(1½ star). Not believable characters at all - although with a good editor this might have been a very interesting and different love story set in the magical world of orchestras and conductors. Dunno.

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable page turner that provides an insider's knowledge into the machinations of orchestra politics set against the background of the fall of the Berlin wall. It successfully weaves a prickly romance within a thought provoking study of loyalty and betrayal.