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    The Prague Sonata
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    The Prague Sonata
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    The Prague Sonata
    Ebook570 pages10 hours

    The Prague Sonata

    By Bradford Morrow

    4/5

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    About this ebook

  • An Indie Next pick for October 2017, a Buzz Books pick for fall/winter, and chosen as one of 7 titles featured in the Publishers Lunch October Buzz Books Monthly. It was also selected for Vanity Fair's "Hot Type." Surrounding pub, Bradford Morrow has published original pieces in the Literary Hub, Electric Literature, and the Paris Review online.

  • The Prague Sonata is Bradford Morrow's masterwork, a book he has spent over a dozen years researching and writing and for which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Positioned on the border between literary and commercial fiction, this is an epic story of classical music and war, of inheritance and discovery, of brutal academic competition and unexpected romance.

  • Morrow is recognized as a significant literary voice and critics will pay attention to this novel. He was awarded the Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has won O. Henry and Pushcart prizes for his short fiction. His novel Trinity Fields was a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, and The Almanac Branch was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

  • The Mysterious Press published Morrow's last novel, The Forgers, one of the most lauded mysteries of 2014. It was an Amazon Top 100 book of the year, a Publishers Weekly best book of the year, an Indie Next pick, and a LibraryReads selection. We had solid sales for the book and hope to build on them for this much bigger novel.

  • In the vein of Shadow of the Wind, The Prague Sonata revolves around an enigmatic work and its unknown author, fueling a quest that opens up onto a larger history.

  • Music has always been a part of Morrow's life, and the passages about the music at the center of the novel are some of its most tenderly written. Morrow grew up in a musical household, trained as a classical pianist and jazz guitarist, and maintains one foot in the music world (working currently on a collaboration with guitarist Alex Skolnick).

  • For this novel he has deeply researched eighteenth-century piano music (including research trips to the British Library and Prague's Lobkowicz Palace) and the academicians who study it. Leading classical music expert Jonathan Del Mar has read and was impressed by the novel, calling it "a cracking good read!"

  • As in The Forgers, a strong element of suspense helps fuel the plot, which involves the double mystery of the identity of the sonata's composer (it turns out to be the lost work of a master) and the whereabouts of its other two movements, as well as a lauded Czech musicologist with possibly nefarious intentions.

  • Morrow is the PEN/Nora Magid Award-winning editor of the literary magazine Conjunctions (based at Bard College, where he teaches literature and is a Bard Center Fellow). Before becoming a full-time writer, professor, and editor, he was an antiquarian book dealer based in California—giving him a unique angle on the rare manuscript at the heart of The Prague Sonata.
    • LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtlantic Monthly Press
    Release dateOct 3, 2017
    ISBN9780802189233
    Author

    Bradford Morrow

    Bradford Morrow is an American novelist, editor, essayist, poet, and children's book writer. Professor of literature and Bard Center Fellow at Bard College, he is the founding editor of CONJUNCTIONS literary magazine.

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    Reviews for The Prague Sonata

    4/5

    53 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      What makes me love a book? Gorgeous writing. Great characters. An intriguing plot. Insights into our common humanity. Historical perspective. Encountering joy and love. Encountering horror, war, and villains. A story line that grabs me so I want to know what happens next. Some books have one or two of those attributes. To find a book that wraps up all of these things is a happy day indeed. Bradford Morrow's The Prague Sonata offers the whole package.The story is rich and complex, but also full of music and visual references that made me think, I can't wait to see the movie.Protagonist Meta Taverner had dedicated her life to becoming a concert pianist when a fatal accident damaged her hand. Therapy has restored her ability to play only with "competence." Meta performs at an outpatient cancer facility, attracting the notice of patient Irena, who summons Meta to visit.Irena has held the partial score of a piano sonata since her friend Otylie gave it to her to protect during the Nazi occupation of Prague. Irena also tasks Meta with returning the score to Otylie, hoping the entire manuscript will be reunited. Mesmerized by the sonata, and hoping to find the missing sections and perhaps solve the mystery of who composed it, Meta takes up the quest. She puts aside her job and boyfriend to journey to Prague. There, she learns the tragic history of Czechoslovakia under the Nazi and Soviet regimes, encounters threats and intrigue, and discovers love.The novel expands with reading, moving from the narrow academic world of musicologists to the deprivations of war and the occupation of Prague, to the refugee experience. What starts as a mild mystery turns into a quest, with elements of a thriller at the end. Flashbacks fill in the story. Otylie's father was on leave from The Great War for her mother's funeral when he gave her the piano sonata. He told her, guard it with your own life; one day it will bring you great fortune. He soon after died.Otylie is grown and newly married when Prague gives the keys of the city to the Nazis. Otylie wanted to keep the score out of the hands of the Germans so she divided it into three parts, distributing a section to her beloved husband, who was a part of the underground resistance, and another to her dear friend Irena. She kept the first section for herself. At the end of WWII, Otylie's husband is dead and Irena has left the country. Otylie first immigrates to England and then to America.The sonata's beauty and innovation is amazing. In a copyist's hand, the score appears to be a true antique, but there is no indication of the composer. Is a lost work by Mozart, or C.P.E. Bach, or Hayden? The score ends with the beginning measures of the next movement, a Rondo.Thirty-year-old Meta is naive and honest. She is driven by love of music and her pledge to reunite the sonata with it's rightful owner. Her mentor has connected her with Petr Witman, a musicologist contact in Prague, who endeavors to undermine Meta by saying the sonata is a fake, hoping to get his hands on it. He sees fame and dollar signs. Witman is a man with shifting allegiances, doing whatever it took to stay afloat under the Nazis, the Soviets, and the new Federal Republic. He has no moral code.Meta is supported by many people in Prague, including a journalist who falls in love with her. On their quest to find the third part of the score, they must keep one step ahead of Witmann. Meta's journey takes her across America, too, pursued by Witman.I enjoyed learning about Prague and Czechoslovakia. In the 18th c it was the hub of culture and music, a city that loved Mozart.I loved that music informs the novel and musical language is used in descriptions. Meta knows that the sonata represents a new chapter in her life. "If her own thirty years constituted a first movement of a sonata, she sensed in her gut that she was right now living the opening notes of the second."Morrow describes the second movement of the sonata given to Meta so well, one understands its "staggering power and slyness," the "quasi-requiem tones of the adagio" followed by the promise of joy indicated in the opening measures of the rondo in the second movement.When I started reading The Prague Sonata I was unhappy I had requested such a long book. What was I thinking? As I got into the story, I was actually drawing out my reading, unwilling to end the experience too soon. And that's about the best thing a reader can say about a book!(Read more about Mozart in Prague in Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Devastation Road by Jason Hewitt concerns Czechoslovakia after WWII. The Spaceman of Bohemia is sci-fi that also addresses life under the Soviets.) I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
    • 4/5
      With World War II raging, Otylie splits a sonata into three parts, hoping to keep the treasured score from the hands of the Nazi's. In present day, Meta Taverner, a musicologist, is handed 1/3 of the manuscript and tasked with finding the other two pieces. Her journey leads her to Prague, where she meticulously searches house to house for information on Otylie.Overall, I enjoyed this book. Meta was an interesting and well developed character. I did find Whittman to be a poor villain, he could have been developed in a much more fluid way, leaving Meta with real challenges and obstacles. I did find the constant switching of people and timelines to be distracting. It would have been nice if the past timeline was done in a chronological manner. 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      3.5 starsI loved the base story line in The Prague Sonata; it was completely engrossing, clever and unique. My one complaint, which altered my overall thoughts on the book significantly, was that the book was WAY too long and included too much extraneous information. I ended up having to skim pages and pages to pick up the next section on the sonata story line. I thoroughly enjoyed the tale regarding the missing manuscript, and the resolution of that tale brought tears to my eyes. The Czech history was interesting too, but I felt it should have been briefer. Thanks to Grove Atlantic for my ARC; all opinions are my own.
    • 3/5
      What I liked?The history, had read little before of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, and none at all of The Velvet Revolution of the nineties.The tour of Prague, fascinating city with a long history.A few of the characters, Otylie, Sam, Garrett, Tomas and Irena. All interesting and touching, living in hard times and trying to survive the best way they could. Their lives afterward, what happened to them.What was mixed? Love music, find searching and identifying lost things fascinating, this was, however, quite lengthy,and it was difficult to maintain my interest.What I had trouble with.The less than smooth transition from past to present.I felt this story went on too long, some parts seemed like they could have been done away with, making a tighter less lengthy read.Musical villians. Turning a historical into or rather trying to make it a thriller didn't work for me, the historical society alone held more appeal to this reader.Something happens that I felt was a little unbelievable considering the gap in time between present and past.So, as you can see this for me was a mixed read. I'm sure others who look for different things will find some of what bothered me, more to their liking. Only way to tell is to try it and see.ARC from Netgalley.
    • 3/5
      This book is going to be really huge but for those of you who can resist the upwelling roar of the crowd, I would like to suggest that it could have been cut by a third and been much better. Mr. Morrow writes description well and his use of musicology in the text is lovely. His dialogue, however, needed a lot more editing than it got from his team.I received a review copy of "The Prague Sonata" by Bradford Morrow (Grove Atlantic) through NetGalley.com.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed this novel very much. I don’t know anything about classical music and found it interesting how music is authenticated. The sonata follows an exciting journey from war torn Prague, present day Prague , to Prague Nebraska. I was hooked by the mystery, historical detail and the rich characters. As an aside, I have been to Prague and I think my favorite part of this novel was when Meta explores this beautiful and unique city.
    • 3/5
      For her 30th birthday, musicologist Meta Taverner's best friend gives her an unusual present – an introduction to an elderly woman who possesses the middle movement of a 19th century sonata. The Czech immigrant received the score from her best friend Otylie, who kept one movement for herself and entrusted the third movement to her husband as they went their separate ways during the German occupation in the Second World War. Meta sets out on a mission to find the other two movements of the sonata and to identify its composer. She enlists the help of her retired professor, who provides her with introductions to musical scholars in Prague. After she arrives in Prague, Meta teams up with another of her professor's former students and a Czech American journalist. As Meta learns more about the sonata's history, she discovers that not everyone she's met can be trusted.Meta's part of the story is set near the turn of the 21st century. Otylie's story begins during the First World War and continues throughout the 20th century. The pace of the parallel stories is uneven, and the narrative is weighed down with too much detail. I was reminded of Hyacinth Bucket and her white slimline telephone with last number redial facility and her sister Violet with a Mercedes, swimming pool, and room for a pony. Do we really need all that information? The premise of the novel is intriguing, but it didn't deliver enough in return for the time it took to read it.This review is based on an electronic advanced readers copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
    • 1/5
      The Prague Sonata, Bradford Morrow, author; Christina Delaine, narratorThe novel piqued my interest because it was about a lost music manuscript from the time of the Holocaust. I read everything I can about that time, fiction and non-fiction.Although the book may be a very good print read, as an audio, I found it lacking. The narrator over emotes and takes over the narrative with a slow and over emotional presentation, in a sexy voice that is totally inappropriate for something meant to be scholarly. The author’s writing tends to the poetic and feels overdone with description and dialogue that seems extraneous and unnecessary much of the time. Had I not known the author was male, because of the flowery language, I would have thought it was stereotypical of a female author. On the positive side, there seemed to be a great deal of research devoted to this book, and that is very obviously commendable. Still, the information gets lost in the presentation by this narrator who reads facts as if they were written by Keats or a classical poet.After listening to about half of the book, I realized that I was dreading it, each time I returned to it. Perhaps I will try the hard copy, because this was definitely a turn off. Water would boil faster than the tempo of the reading. The investigation into the manuscript seemed to promise more than was delivered.