[f_minor] Is this list still working?

Karl Berry karl at freefriends.org
Wed Jun 29 15:01:16 MDT 2022


Hi Anne - thanks for the mystery story reference. (I omitted one of your
two posts about it, since they seemed to be duplicates. Future messages
from your new critteranne address should go through without delay.)

As for the list - it is still here. There have been no posts since
February.

I can't think of any particular mystery novels revolving around
classical music (thanks for the pointer to that bookrio list), but there
are two non-mystery novels that come to mind.

1) (2022) The Great Passion, by James Runcie, about Silbermann's son
going top live in Bach's Leipzig household. A novel, but details are
accurate as far as I know.

2) (1991) The Gold Bug Variations, by Richard Powers. Probably many
people here already know about it. It was one of the earlier novels with
a GG-like character, though he is never named. Powers is not to
everyone's taste, for sure, but I've greatly enjoyed all his books.

Heck, as long as I'm here, let me mention two nonfiction books also:

1) (2022) Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk. A memoir. GG is
mentioned only a couple of times, not especially flatteringly, and
Denk's career (competition-based, etc.) is more or less the opposite of
GG's, but that's ok :). I still thought it was an excellent memoir, with
lots of interesting musical stuff, besides the personal stuff.

2) (2005) Evening in the Palace of Reason, by James Gaines. A
comparative history of Frederick the Great and JSB, more or less
culminating in Bach's famous visit to Frederick's palace, resulting in
the Musical Offering. Some interesting historical stuff putting some of
the apocrypha about the visit in perspective.

By the way, I recently re-listened to Penny Johnson's Inventions. She
was inspired by Gould and wrote an essay about the works.
https://furthernorth.blog/2018/02/24/do-it-differently-he-said/
(I think I came across her originally through the GG Foundation, so
thanks, Foundation. :)

Happy reading and piano-ing to all,
Karl


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