Customer Reviews

While the Music Lasts

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It just so happens this book is about the individual members of a large symphony orchestra. Truly, however, the personality types involved could easily be found in any tightly-knit group of folks who spend inordinate amounts of time together in an enclosed space, or who frequently travel together. It could perhaps be about an athletic team, although, of course, there are few of them which are co-ed. (But then, of course, neither is the Vienna Philharmonic!)

There are 105 musicians in a standard large orchestra, and the same types play over and over and over again, regardless of location. Anyone who has ever studied music and played in an orchestra (or even a large concert band) will readily recognize each of these characters, although they will be known by different names.

Ms. McVeigh is not only a symphonic caliber cellist, but also a gifted writer possessed of absolutely wicked insight, not to mention humor, perception, sensibility and grace. She uses her musical skills to great advantage, as well, while juggling the lives and tales of her principal players, conductors and the other persons who occasionally wander through the story.

The main theme belongs to Isabel and William, who cannot be together, but neither can they be apart, a situation altogether too common in every day life. Their tale, and all the others, are variously told in flashback, as narrative or diary entries, blended together into twelve-part harmony, with only slight dissonances here and there.

What lover hasn't thought as Isabel does when she says about William, for instance: `If love was a foreign country, let him be my interpreter...' This is a marvelous book about people; witty, perceptive and well-written--vastly enjoyable on many levels. One doesn't have to be a musician to appreciate its depths.