Customer Reviews

Wild Harmonies: A Life of Music and Wolves

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Horowitz once said that a great musician must first of all be well read and liberally educated. Hélène Grimaud not only satisfies those requirements but even writes her own books! Although she was a prodigy she is not of the machine-like version. Her aesthetic philosophy springs from personal experience and development which informs and enriches her music immeasurably!
She weaves her interest in animals (she has a wolf preserve in upstate NY), culture and music into a single fabric. She could be a beauty who loves wolves and plays well but she is not a packaged gimmick. Her words take us from the nature of animals to the nature of man and how these are all relate to music as a cultural expression. Her music takes us on mythical forays in search of the mystery of what music is and what it does to us. (Elle "nous laisse devant l'absolu.")
Do yourself a favor, get her book and spend the entire night reading her and then have a long breakfast sipping on tea and listening to her.

She is looking for the right place in her life. Most of the people are looking for a meaning to live for.
Helene Grimaud wants to capture this feeling with her book. She decided to be in the music. It is her religion to keep on going. The balance lies in the symmetry of life, music and nature. It is her way to cope with her life. In this harmony she finds her relief and strength. She explains her love for the music, witch touches her soul, her love for the animals and her free dealing with nature. These are the real balances in her life.
The book describes her childhood in Aix, her studies at the conservatory in Aix and Paris. In her early years she showed her rebellion behaviour against her parents and her classmates. These examples show her unrestrained nature, her passion for the music and the strength to carry on in her life. For the most people who work with her, this attitude makes her moody and unpredictable. In the last chapter she explains her love for wolfs, her first meeting with Alawas. The early years in America were very difficult. She describes the foundation of the Wolf Conservation Centre.
I read the book with pleasure because the connection between the stories and her musical career is very powerful. This book shares a common feeling. It is to be positive in the things to come and to accomplish your goals what ever it takes.

WILD HARMONIES is an insightful delightful "Un" autobiography that breaks the rules of chronological order most books in that genre follow. Instead, the renowned French pianist is all over the place yet contains enough discipline so that the reader can follow her story. Most interesting is the combining of a love for music with a love for wolves. The music started as an unmanageable and unpredictable child in France while the love of wolves began as an adult in Florida when she met her neighbor's she-wolf. As she did with the piano Helene Grimaud became an obsessed fanatic who has opened up a wolverine conservatory in Upstate New York.

Readers will appreciate the sidebar reflections as Ms. Grimaud relates her life with music freeing her from a dull un-life though she has always refused to perform anyway but her style. The isobar lateral entries on the history of wolves in Europe and America add to the feel of a deep zealous uncompromising autobiography that is not for everyone from an author who would say so what as long as Ms. Grimaud believes she has remained true to her essence. Not an easy memoir to read, but well written and worth the time to comprehend the odd passionate combination of a "Life of Music and Wolves".

Harriet Klausner

Helene Grimaud, as most of you already know, discovered her affinity with the piano at a young age and was admitted to the Paris Conservatory at the age of 13, the youngest musician to achieve that status. She currently plays concerts and is, in fact, a splendid pianist. (See my review of her CD with cellist Truls Mork.) But this is about her book, as a book, and not about how well she plays. She reveals herself to be arrogant, self-willed and not very forthcoming about her life. In other words, this is not your usual celebrity bio. Her interest in wolves dates back to her first encounter with one in Florida, a wolf that was a "guest" at the house of a man she met there. (I hesitate to the use the word, pet.) The book traces her growth as a musician from student to world class performer, but she is very careful to put herself, her feelings, her relationships at a distance, other than a few casual comments about having worked with certain other performers and conductors. She has great knowledge of many classical texts (non-musical) as well as being a great source of wolf lore and currently operates a wolf refuges in New York state. Certainly an interesting book written by an interesting person, but I can't help but be a little put off by people who relate well to animals, but not to people and she seems to be one. I don't think anyone will find the book boring, but I found it at once off-putting and oddly compelling.

I received this book as a gift, because I come from a family that operates wildlife rehabilitation and rescue centers. As a person who has worked with wolves, I really looked forward to a good read, hopefully something that explored the difficulties faced by all rescue workers, and exotic animal rehab centers in particular.

I was gravely disappointed. The majority of references to wolves were from European religious texts, and as an American Indian, I was really struck by the fact that there was very little reference to wolves in the Americas. The portrayal of wolves, historically, was framed almost entirely within European terms, and while I understand that the author is French, I feel that she basically played pick and choose in order to build her own self purported image of the "wild woman". Wolves aren't portrayed as a passion, as effort, as complex in their own behavior and history, so much as glossed over as a crutch in her own justification for her self immolative behavior.

The inherent build of character I noticed in this book, was of a woman who believed that as a talented artist, she was entitled to absolutely disregard the emotions and practicalities of everybody around her. As a human, she came across as utterly egotistical, and it seemed that the entire book was her way of justifying her "me first" attitude in the framework of "I can't help it, I'm compulsive, uncontrollable, and unimitable, I'm just a wild woman, I'm a wolf in human skin, I can do whatever I want because I'm beautiful, intelligent, talented, and therefore superior beyond your strictures." This kind of naked and unabashed refusal to accept personal accountability is hardly what we need to see glorified in print, although unfortunately, it is all too pervasive.

For those who have enjoyed her music, I can only hope that she displays more depth of character in her playing than she did in her writing. I can say that I won't be searching for her cd's any day soon. Perhaps it is all too disturbing to me, the vacancy of soul disguised as a higher calling to art, for me to be okay with pursuing it further. This book may have value to those who enjoy music, but to those who are hoping for an informative read on wolves, keep browsing.

I like the format of the book; the way Grimaud alternates between the myth, legend and folklore of wolves with her own individualistic musical biography and how the two come together at the end when she meets her first wolf in the flesh. "I have found my equilibrium... located between the wolves, the wildest form of nature, and the most refined music between heaven and earth." I admire her desire to do things her own way; learning English by watching hundreds of subtitled movies, dropping out of formalistic conservatory training against the advice of nearly everyone in favor of self-teaching through master classes, armed with a freedom and fierce individuality that female performers as Fanny Mendelssohn and Nannerl Mozart were never allowed. One of my favorite moments in the book is when told by teachers, "Don't come back to class unless you can play the required program," Grimaud disappears from school to teach herself Chopin's Second Piano Concerto, only to be chastised for doing so. "Oh, so I had taken the statement... (too) literally?" The book is excellently translated by Ellen Hinley, so it is a pleasure to read and savor the words as well as the story.

Perhaps I've just read too many books by Peter Mathiessen or Farley Mowat, but this book annoyed the daylights out of me. I hate to be unkind to Grimaud, because I get quite taken by her artistry at the piano, but this read like a teenage girl's diary, and a very indulged teenage girl at that. More often than not, be it with artists or performers or sports players or whomever in the public eye, you're better off not knowing too much about them. In some cases like Bill Evans, it makes compositions like Turn Out The Stars all that more heartbreaking, in other cases like this book you'd rather just howl at the moon.
There is a story to be told about music, about wolves (see Paul Horn's recordings) about humanity that reconnects us with the planet and eliminates the artificiality introduced into human thinking post Aristotle and particularly post DesCartes. But that mystical aerie faerie stuff reduces otherwise brilliant and insightful humans into Tori Amos like knuckleheads, and unfortunately I wish I had never read this. I'll have to steel my nerve to focus on listening to her new Beethoven disc, hoping that however she channels her sympathy for the wolves wherever she lives that that stays apart from the great German, a bit of a wolf himself, who checked his fur at the door and got on with it at the piano bench.

Grimaud's enthusiasm, vitality and jest for life is contagious. So his her piano playing. Just click in on her U-Tube "Masterclass with Helene Grimaud", or any one of her Rachmaninov Etudes. A joy to listen and to watch her.

This is one of the most inspiring autobiographies I've ever read: Helene Grimaud is not only a remarkable,very accomplished pianist but also a very gifted writer for sure,and her intwined destiny with wolves is not only packed with great mythical,historical and biological insights into the lives of these animals but also touched me deeply through the connection she was able to make with them in these times of increasing extinction. This book is not only an inspiration for every sincere musician - even if they only have a minor love for the classical genre - but also for everyone who loves this earth truly as the life-sustaining planet it simply is for all of us and understands the interconnectedness in all forms of life.This woman lives on a very high frequency,and I am grateful that I was able to get in touch with it - through this book and some of her recordings.

Atrocious, not the least to say for the poetic foul ups from her admirers. Worth reading, then tossing for Rosalyn Tureck.