Christmas at Thompson Hall - Anthony Trollope

Christmas at Thompson Hall is one of a set of five Christmas Classics published by Penguin this year. This is the only one I bought but they all have variations on the same elegant cover with snow & cardinals on a pine tree. The other authors are Charles Dickens, Nikolai Gogol, Louisa May Alcott & E T A Hoffmann. Series like this are one of the reasons that, however much I love my ereaders, I will always want real books as well. I have these Trollope stories in my Delphi Classics ebook edition of Trollope but this little hardback was just irresistible.

The title story is about a couple traveling from the south of France to the woman's home in England. The Thompson family love getting together at Christmas but, since their marriage some years before, Mrs Mary Brown & her husband, Charles (their names have been changed to spare them embarrassment) have stayed in France rather than travel back to England for the holiday. Mrs Brown's family have become more & more upset about their defection & so, this year, even though Mr Brown has a terrible head cold, she convinces him to make the journey. When they arrive in Paris, Charles is so ill & so irritable that he almost refuses to go on. However, his wife proposes to make him a mustard plaster, having seen a jar of mustard in the dining room. So, late at night, & in her nightclothes, she begins wandering the endless corridors of the hotel.

Discovered by a porter, she is too embarrassed to admit her real errand & pretends she has lost a handkerchief. The porter insists on accompanying her to the dining room & back to her room so she then has to retrace her steps once he's gone to find the mustard & make up the plaster. Unfortunately, she gets lost on her way back to her room, enters another man's room & applies the mustard plaster to him instead. Mortified by the impropriety of this, Mary rushes back to her room & prepares to brazen it out next morning when the hotel is in uproar over the assault on a defenceless guest & the very strange behaviour of an English matron. I have to admit that this story, at almost 60pp, was too long & a bit tedious. Mary's wanderings through the hotel were interminable & the identity of the man with the mustard plaster is not difficult to work out. It's a very English story of embarrassment & a level of refinement that prevents poor Mary from just telling the truth.

Christmas Day at Kirkby Cottage is the story of a young girl, in love with a boy but unable to get past her pride & a silly quarrel when he declares that Christmas is a bore. There are many tears & misunderstandings before the happy ending. In The Mistletoe Bough, Elizabeth Garrow has broken off her engagement to Godfrey Holmes & has ever since been miserable. It takes a Christmas visit from Godfrey & his sister, Isabella, to reveal the true story of why Elizabeth broke the engagement.  The Two Generals is set during the American Civil War & concerns two brothers, each a general but one fights for the North & the other for the South. They both love the same woman & their rivalry in every area of their lives leads to the potential for betrayal one Christmas. Not If I Know It concerns a quarrel between brothers-in-law, George & Wilfred, at Christmas time & the efforts of the exasperated woman who loves them both to make them see sense.These are slight but charming stories, all set at Christmas & just right for reading at the end of a busy day.

My Christmas reading seems to have started later than usual this year. I'm reading several books at the moment & still listening to the sublime Moby-Dick but I do hope to get to these two Christmas mysteries, Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer & Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon, as well as my annual reading of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I haven't even started watching Christmas movies yet although I have them all lined up - several versions of A Christmas Carol, including the Muppets, The Holly & the Ivy, Miracle on 34th Street & The Bishop's Wife. I have been listening to carols for several weeks though as I cook & wrap presents. Christmas seems to have crept up on me this year although I'm organised, even though I'm working until Christmas Eve, & now don't need to go near a shop until it's all over, thank goodness. Plenty of time for all this Christmas reading, watching & listening.

Mozart - Paul Johnson

I love classical music but I haven't read much about the lives of my favourite composers. So, the opportunity to read this short biography of Mozart was too good to miss.

Mozart's life was short but full of incident. Many myths have grown up around his life & Paul Johnson refreshingly dismisses most of them. Born in Salzburg in 1756, young Amadeus was a prodigy, composing from a young age & proficient in several instruments, including piano & viola. His father, Leopold, was a musician & encouraged Amadeus & his sister, Nannerl, in their music. The family traveled around Europe playing to royalty & nobility in Germany, France & England.

Amadeus was lauded for his talent & he continued to write an enormous amount of music in every conceivable form - operas, symphonies, concertos & sonatas. Johnson goes into some detail about the work but I have to admit that I couldn't really follow him there. Apart from a few famous works like the Clarinet Concerto & the Piano Concertos, I don't know the work until I hear it, the catalogue (K) number doesn't help me. That's probably why I don't read much about composers. It would be wonderful if I could have tapped on my Kindle & heard the work as it was being described. Maybe an idea for the next generation of ereaders?

Johnson writes well about Mozart's love of musicians & singers & the trouble he took to direct & help them play his music. The fact that he could play many of their instruments & so demonstrate what he wanted must have helped. He also knew the limitations & capacities of instruments so he was loved & admired by his peers. Often he would compose a piece with a particular singer or musician in mind, "Nothing pleased him more than an intimate talk with a player about his instrument, what it could do or not do, and what it could be made to do by a masterful player."

Johnson discusses the contentious points of Mozart's short life. It's said that he was always in debt. He was often short of ready cash but his problems are usually short-term. A lot of letters from Mozart to his friends survive where he's begging for another loan to tide him over & this seems to be the origin of this myth. After his death, his wife, Constanze, was able to clear his debts within a few weeks so there was always money coming in. He also wasn't buried in a pauper's grave. Burial in a mass grave was quite common in Vienna at the time & had nothing to do with the financial circumstances of the deceased.

Constanze has come in for a lot of criticism over the years but Johnson believes that she's been unfairly treated. She's been called slovenly & a bad manager, dragging Mozart into debt & costing him money with her medicinal trips to spa towns. She certainly suffered from poor health at times & also suffered the loss of several children. The couple led a hectic life with Mozart traveling frequently & spending long hours composing. There's no evidence that the marriage was unhappy & their two surviving sons, Carl & Franz Xavier, grew up happy although neither had any of their father's musical talent. Maybe it's because she married again after Mozart's death & her new husband wrote a biography of Mozart. However, Constanze looked after Mozart's musical legacy with great care, ensuring that his music was played throughout Europe & his name was kept alive.

Mozart died in 1791 at the age of only 35. It's astonishing to think that he was able to cram so much into such a short life. The beauty & range of his music is truly amazing & his popularity has never waned. Classic FM here in Australia puts together a Classic 100 every year, voted by listeners. One of the most popular lists ever was the Classic 100 Mozart. I can't think of another single composer who could be the subject of such a list.

I read Mozart courtesy of NetGalley.

The Nebuly Coat - John Meade Falkner

Edward Westray is a young architect sent to the former seaport of Cullerne by his employer to oversee the repairs to the Minster, St Sepulchre. Westray is a conscientious young man, intent on making his way in his profession. On his first visit to the church he meets the pompous rector, Canon Parkyn & the organist, Nicholas Sharnell. Sharnell & the Rector have little sympathy with each other & have very different ideas about the church. Westray also hears the story of the Nebuly Coat, the coat of arms of the Blandamer family, which is represented in the stained glass windows & monuments. The Blandamers are the local landowners although they've taken little interest in the church & its structural problems for some years. The current Lord Blandamer has been abroad & hasn't been seen for some years.

Sharnell offers to find Westray a room at his lodging house, a former inn called the Hand of God. The house has been renamed Bellevue House & is rented by a respectable but impoverished gentlewoman, Miss Euphemia Joliffe. Miss Joliffe lives frugally & is pleased to offer rooms to Westray. Her niece, Anastasia, lives with her & helps out with the work. Anastasia's father, Martin, had recently died & his life was a wasted one. He had become obsessed by the idea that he was the rightful Lord Blandamer & pursued his genealogical researches to the exclusion of all else. His mother, Sophia, had married Colonel Joliffe some years after Martin's birth & he never knew who his father was. The Colonel loved Martin as his own son but he was never satisfied. Even after Sophia abandoned her family to run away with a soldier, the Colonel indulged Martin above his own daughter, Euphemia.

Martin left his daughter with his sister for years at a time & returned only to sponge & run up debts before wandering away once more. His health suffered & he died still claiming that he was close to finding the proof that his mother had been married to Lord Blandamer & the current Lord had no right to his title & lands. Martin was taunted & laughed at for his fancies but his friend, Sharnell, indulged him & there were hints that there was more to his story than just imagination. Sophia had dabbled in painting & one of her pictures, a hideous still life of flowers & a caterpillar crawling along the bottom of the frame hung in Martin's room. Why should a London art dealer write to Miss Joliffe offering to buy the picture for £50? Who was the stranger who came to the house several times before Martin's death offering to buy the picture? Nobody but Martin saw this man so was he real or a figment of a sick man's imagination? Could there be a clue among Martin's jumble of papers?

Martin leaves the papers to Sharnell & he gradually became almost as obsessed with the quest as his friend. Sharnell drank heavily & his career had been blighted by drink. He told Westray the story of Martin & of his own strange fancies of being followed by a man holding a hammer. Is this reality or something supernatural? Lord Blandamer arrives in Cullerne after a long sojourn abroad & immediately offers to fund the church restoration, including the repairs to the bell tower that Westray has been urging. Blandamer befriends Westray & calls on him at the Hand of God where he meets Anastasia & hears of her father's obsession. Blandamer's motives are unclear as he pursues a friendship with Anastasia & seems to be searching for answers to questions of his own.

It's hard to say too much more about the plot of The Nebuly Coat without spoiling it. There are several ambiguities in the story that I'm still puzzling about days after I finished reading it. I read Falkner's The Lost Stradivarius a little while ago & this novel has similar elements of the supernatural. However, they're harder to fathom. Sharnell's man with the hammer could be real or could be a ghost or could just be a figment of a drunkard's imagination. St Sepulchre's is atmospheric enough without any supernatural additions. The building has a life of its own as it creaks & groans. Westray imagines he hears the arches of the tower whispering to him & Sharnell locks himself in to the organ loft when he practices alone at night.

I loved Euphemia Joliffe. She is loyal to her wastrel brother & loving to her niece who she has to support on very little. Keeping up appearances is everything. She is determined to pay his debts after his death but hesitates to sell her mother's awful painting because her mother painted it & her brother hung it in his room. She even paid to have the Hand of God inn sign painted over as she thought it blasphemous to live in a house with such a name, even though the old name keeps showing through. Cullerne is a melancholy place, full of lost souls. Once a thriving port, its glory days are long past as the channel silted up & destroyed business. The Blandamers have paid no attention to it for years & the church is in danger of falling down. Martin Joliffe's obsession is the catalyst for change for several people & I'm still puzzling over the meaning of the ending.

The Lost Stradivarius - John Meade Falkner

Halloween always seems to be the right time to read a few ghost stories. The Lost Stradivarius was the choice of my 19th century book group &, although I'd read it before, I enjoyed revisiting it at this ghostly time of year. Although, having said that, Halloween is in the middle of spring in Australia rather than autumn with that lovely sense of the year drawing in so it doesn't feel particularly ghostly. However, my reading focus is mostly toward northern hemisphere writers so I can feel autumnal no matter what the weather.

I think ghost stories work best as short stories or novellas. It's too much to expect a reader to keep up that suspension of disbelief (if you do, in fact, disbelieve) over hundreds of pages. The Lost Stradivarius is a very tidy 160pp & is in the form of two narratives. The first is by Miss Sophia Maltravers. Sophia is writing to her nephew, Edward, a student at Oxford in 1867, about events that happened some 30 years before. Edward's father, John, died young & his life was very unhappy at the end. Sophia wants her nephew to understand his father & so decides to tell him what she knows of his life & the strange events that led to his death.

John Maltravers went up to Oxford, to Magdalen Hall, at the age of 19. He loved music & was a violinist of some talent. He especially enjoyed playing duets with his good friend, William Gaskell.  Mr Gaskell visits Rome during his vacation to study piano & returns with some manuscript music bound into a volume. The young men begin to play a suite by Graziani for violin & harpsichord  & they are pleased with the result. However, John becomes almost obsessed with this suite & they play it every time they meet. One night, when he is practicing the piece alone, John hears a creaking sound, as if someone had sat down in the wicker chair in the corner of his room. He turns around but can see no one. When he finishes playing the suite, he hears a sound as if someone had risen from the chair but again, sees nothing. This phenomenon occurs whenever the piece is played &, one night, John does see the figure of a man rising from the chair & walking through the wall of his room.

At the place in the wall where the ghostly figure disappears, John discovers a secret cupboard & inside it, he finds a violin. The instrument needs restringing but is otherwise in good condition & the label inside proclaims it to be by the great Stradivari. John takes the violin to an expert for an opinion & when the man assumes that the violin belongs to him, John doesn't enlighten him. This first untruth is the beginning of John's downfall. John becomes consumed by the violin & becomes possessed by the malignant spirit of the original owner, Adrian Temple. Temple lived in the same rooms 80 years before John, had traveled to Italy to study music & led a dissolute life. He disappeared in Rome in mysterious circumstances & his body was never found.

John falls in love with Constance Temple, a friend of his sister's &, coincidentally, a member of the same family as Adrian Temple. On a visit to Royston, Constance's family home, John is so shocked by the sight of a portrait of the man he knows only as his ghostly visitor, that his health collapses. John & Constance marry & John insists on traveling to Italy for their honeymoon. John's behaviour grows stranger & his obsession with the violin & Rome results in estrangement from Constance. Eventually he returns to live in Rome alone under the malign influence of Adrian Temple, in the very same house Temple lived in at the end of his life. His identification with Temple becomes so strong that his health completely gives way & Sophia goes out to Italy to try to bring her brother home.

The other narrative is by William Gaskell. He attempts to explain the decline of John Maltravers's health in a more scientific rational way than Sophia who is convinced of the supernatural influence of Adrian Temple. He also explores the events of Temple's life in more detail & muses on the philosophical influence of certain pieces of music on a susceptible mind.

The Lost Stradivarius is an atmospheric tale with some very shivery, Gothic moments.  Constance tells the story as she heard it from her brother as well as from her own observations (her journey to Italy is wonderful as she experiences the strangeness of John's behavior & the foreignness of her surroundings) & what she discovers afterwards. John Meade Falkner only wrote two other novels. Moonfleet is a story of smugglers & adventure, written for children & The Nebuly Coat, which is a mystery set in Dorset where a young architect goes to supervise some restoration work in the local church. I have copies of both & would definitely like to read them one of these days.

Song of the Lark - Willa Cather

I read quite a few of Willa Cather's novels & short stories when I was younger but I hadn't read her for a very long time. I think I bought this edition of The Song of the Lark because of the beautiful Hammershoi picture on the cover. I love his work, so cool & serene. Then, the book sat on the tbr shelves for nearly 10 years until I decided it was time to read it. I'm glad I finally got around to it. I was reminded of the reasons why I enjoyed Willa Cather's writing all those years ago.

The Song of the Lark is the story of the growth of an artist. Thea Kronborg is the daughter of a Methodist preacher in Moonstone, Colorado. One of seven children, her life is hard but not unhappy. Thea learns piano from Herr Wunsch, a German immigrant who has fallen on hard times. Thea's Scandinavian heritage is something she has in common with many of the characters in Cather's other novels. But The Song of the Lark isn't a story of farming families living on the land. Thea knows she is destined for great things. Her determination to study music sets her apart from her siblings & her contemporaries.

Of this feeling Thea had never spoken to any human being until that day when she told Harsanyi that "there had always been - something."  Hitherto she had felt but one obligation toward it - secrecy; to protect it even from herself. She had always believed that by doing all that was required of her by her family, her teachers, her pupils, she kept that part of herself from being caught up in the meshes of common things. She took it for granted that, some day, when she was older, she would know a great deal more about it. It was as if she had an appointment to meet the rest of herself sometime, somewhere. It was moving to meet her & she was moving to meet it.

At first she studies piano but when, with the aid of a small inheritance, she goes to Chicago to study, her teacher, Harsanyi, recognizes that her voice is special & encourages her to study opera. Thea's determination is formidable. She makes few friends because she is impatient with anyone who doesn't work as hard as herself. She finds that she's grown away from her family & the people of Moonstone. One friend of her childhood, Dr Howard Archie, remains steadfast & helps her to move to Chicago. Thea's bond with Dr Archie was formed in her childhood & he encourages her to strive for more than a life as a piano teacher in small, dusty towns.

Thea also meets Fred Ottenburg, the son of a wealthy brewer, who introduces her to a new circle of society where her talents are noticed & appreciated. The most important thing Fred does for her is not to fall in love with her - although he does - but to send her off to his family's ranch in Panther Canyon, Arizona, to rest when she's exhausted with overwork. This is the central experience of Thea's life. She becomes entranced with the canyon, the remnants of the ancient people who once lived in the caves there. She spends all day walking & resting & thinking about her future.

Not only did the world seem older and richer to Thea now, but she herself seemed older. She had never been alone for so long before, or thought so much. Nothing had ever engrossed her so deeply as the daily contemplation of that line of pale-yellow houses tucked into the wrinkle of the cliff. Moonstone and Chicago had become vague. Here everything was simple and definite, as things had been in childhood. Her mind had been like a ragbag into which she had been frantically thrusting whatever she could grab. And here she must throw this lumber away. The things that were really hers separated themselves from the rest. Her ideas were simplified, became sharper and clearer. She felt united and strong.

Fred joins her in the canyon & Thea realises that she loves him. However, Fred is unable to marry her & Thea's career leads her to study in Europe & a return, years later, to New York, where she meets Fred & Dr Archie again as she's on the brink of a brilliant career.

The Song of the Lark was a very personal book for Willa Cather. It's more autobiographical than many of her other novels. Her childhood was very like Thea's, although she was to be a writer rather than a musician. She also spent time in Walnut Canyon, Arizona with her brother, Douglass. This was the inspiration for Thea's trip to Panther Canyon. It's an early novel, published in 1915 &, in the Preface to the 1932 edition, she describes it as a partial failure because the early parts of the book about Thea's struggle are more interesting than Thea's success, "Success is never so interesting as struggle".

I'd agree that the first half of the book is more absorbing. I loved the picture of the small town life Thea lives with her family, her younger brother, Thor, who she drags around in his wagon, her friendships with Dr Archie, Ray Kennedy, a railroad man, & the Mexican immigrants who live on the edge of the town. Thea's relationship with her calm, intelligent mother is also fascinating. Thea's mother sees her daughter's talent & does everything she can to support her. The section about Panther Canyon is the heart of the book. Thea's explorations of the canyon, her almost ritual bathing in a pool of clear water, her delight in nature, the space she is able to create to think & plan her future are central to her life. The later sections in New York about Thea's career are less interesting but I still enjoyed reading about Thea's life & ambitions & about how she deals with the essential loneliness of an artist. I'm glad I finally got around to reading The Song of the Lark. I read several of her books years ago - O Pioneers!, My Antonia, Lucy Gayheart - but I've never read her New Mexico novels & I think I should do something about that.

Lucky & Phoebe's winter afternoon

It's the Queen's Birthday holiday today & the sun finally broke through this afternoon after a grey, gloomy & wet weekend. I caught up with a friend this morning (when it was still foggy & cold). We went to a movie, Bel-Ami, based on the book by Guy de Maupassant. It was pretty much as we expected from reading the reviews. The women in the cast - Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas & Christina Ricci -  were terrific, Philip Glenister is always worth watching but Robert Patttinson as Georges just wasn't good enough. He was quite wooden & charmless. Georges is a shallow young man but he must have some charm for all these women to fall under his spell.

When I got home, I baked a cake for a special morning tea at work tomorrow. It's a surprise 60th birthday tea & I made a chocolate, date & almond torte. It's a new recipe for me based on egg whites so I'll be interested to taste it. There was a lot of chopping involved so I turned on the radio. Classic FM played some of my favourite pieces. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no 5, Mozart's Piano Sonata in A (the one with the Rondo alla Turca) & Tchaikovsky's gorgeous Serenade for Strings.

I moved Lucky & Phoebe's beds into a sunny spot on the back porch & they settled down to listen to the beautiful music & have a snooze. Sunny winter afternoons don't come around all that often & this one's nearly over already. If you've had the day off, I hope you've had as lovely a day as I have.

The Glass Guardian - Linda Gillard

The Glass Guardian is a very difficult book to review. It's almost impossible to review it without spoilers. The author herself admits this so I'm not just trying to avoid writing a review! I could just say "I loved it, trust me, it's unputdownable." but that would make for a very short post. I think I summarised the book pretty well in my teaser on Monday, the story is about love, loss, grief, music, WWI, Skye, family secrets, loneliness & a ghost who will break your heart.

Ruth has suffered more grief in a very short time than anyone should have to bear. She's lost her lover, her father & her aunt. Her Aunt Janet's death has hit her hard. Janet virtually brought Ruth up after her mother's death & the time she spent at Janet's house, Tigh na Linne, on Skye, represents Ruth's happiest memories. Ruth inherits the house & travels to Skye to decide what to do with her life. Her career as a television gardener has come to an end. Maybe Skye represents a new beginning?

Ruth begins working on the garden & looking through Janet's archive. She was a well-known composer & a Canadian musicologist, Athelstan Blake, wants to write her biography. Ruth's discoveries cause some concern. The manuscript of Janet's most famous work, In Memoriam, based on a poem by Andrew Marvell, is in three different hands. In Memoriam is very different from Janet's work before & after. Could she have appropriated someone else's work?

Ruth also finds a childhood friend still living on Skye. Tom & his mother had spent summer holidays in a rented house near Tigh na Linne & now, after his mother's death, Tom has returned, working as a general gardener & handyman. Ruth feels an immediate attraction to Tom & as he begins to help her get the house ready for a possible sale, Ruth begins to realise that a childhood friendship may not necessarily be the best basis for a relationship with a man she doesn't really know.

Ruth gradually realises that she's not alone at Tigh na Linne. The house is haunted & the ghost is not entirely a stranger to her. As winter envelops the house & Ruth's loneliness & confusion increase, it becomes apparent that her future is intimately entwined with her family's past & her passion for a man who died one hundred years ago.

Atmosphere is so very important in any supernatural story. Linda Gillard has created a completely believable world in The Glass Guardian that spans the real & the unreal, the past & the present. The best ghost stories take place in winter, illuminated by cosy fires & flickering candlelight. Skye is the perfect setting, the bare wintry landscape mirroring Ruth's despair & grief when she first arrives at Tigh na Linne. Ruth is a vulnerable & very believable character. She has few warm memories & all of them are bound up with Skye & her Aunt Janet. Her determination to discover all she can about Janet's life & the earlier family history is a fascinating part of the story.

I can't say too much about the romantic hero of the book as it would spoil the story. I'll just say that if you've loved the heroes of Linda's earlier books, you won't be disappointed. The love story is tender & romantic but tinged with the grief & regrets of an earlier age. If you don't know Linda's books, what are you waiting for?! Click on the link to my teaser post above, & you'll find links to my reviews of Linda's books & to her website.

As usual with Linda's novels, I read The Glass Guardian in almost one sitting, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. I was completely caught up in Ruth's journey. If you enjoy a love story with atmosphere, intelligent, multi-faceted characters & a touch of the supernatural, I think you'll enjoy The Glass Guardian. You can buy Linda's books for the Kindle (or Kindle app) from Amazon in the UK & US.

Christmas Carol - Good King Wenceslas

I had planned to start a new anthology of poetry today but as it's so close to Christmas, I thought I'd share a couple of my favourite Christmas carols today & next Sunday, Christmas Day.

Good King Wenceslas (picture from here) is one of my favourites. In recent years I've discovered a jaunty folk version sung by Ian Giles that I really like as well as the more traditional choral versions. I don't really care that there may never have been a Wenceslas or if there was, he wasn't a particularly charitable person. I love the rhythm of this carol & I often find I'm humming it all through December.

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Thought the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
Gathering winter fuel.


'Hither, page, and stand by me,
If though knowst it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"
'Sire, he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain,
Close against the forest fence
By St Agnes' fountain.'


'Bring me flesh and bring me wine,
Bring me pine logs hither,
Thou and I will see him dine,
When we bear them thither.'
Page and monarch on they went
On they went together,
Through the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather.


'Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind grows stronger;
Fails my heart I know not how;
I can go no longer.'
'Mark my footsteps, good my page;
Tread thou in them boldly;
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.'


In his master's steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
Which the saint had printed.
Therefore Christian men be sure,
Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
Shall yourselves find blessing.

The First Violin - Jessie Fothergill

As I mentioned in my post on Helen C Black’s Notable Women Authors of the Day, I was pleased to discover that I had downloaded Jessie Fothergill’s novel, The First Violin, from Girlebooks some time ago. Reading about the Library Association’s disapproval of this novel made me determined to read it sooner rather than later. I’m glad I did because it’s a melancholy, romantic story of love & music in a small German town in the 1870s.

May Wedderburn is the 17 year old daughter of a country vicar. She is being pursued by Sir Peter Le Marchant, the owner of the big house in the neighbourhood but she loathes him & refuses his offer of marriage. May is befriended by Miss Hallam, a woman who is thought to be eccentric because she lives an independent life. Miss Hallam is losing her sight to cataracts & she proposes to take May with her to Germany as a companion when she goes to the town of Elberthal to consult a specialist. Miss Hallam has another motive in helping May escape from the pressure to marry Sir Peter. Her own sister, Barbara, had been Sir Peter’s first wife & she died in misery & fear. Miss Hallam blamed Sir Peter & wants to save May from the same fate.

On arrival in Koln, en route for Elberthal, May becomes separated from Miss Hallam at the railway station. Knowing no German & without her purse, May is almost frantic when she is rescued by a handsome gentleman, Eugen Courvoisier, who takes charge of her for the afternoon. They visit the Cathedral, he buys her dinner & they travel on to Elberthal together by a later train. May is smitten with Eugen & he seems equally taken with her. As May settles in to the boarding house with Miss Hallam, she expects to see Eugen every day. She had made him promise to visit her so she could repay him for her expenses. However, the next time she sees him, she snubs him in a moment of confusion & surprise. On a visit to the opera, May is amazed to see Eugen taking his place in the orchestra as Concertmeister, the First Violin. Eugen sees her in the audience & is insulted by her snub. She is remorseful but, even after she discovers his lodgings & tries to apologize, he is cold & dismissive.

May has been encouraged to take singing lessons as a way of making a living when she returns to England. Her teacher is the renowned maestro Max von Francius, conductor of the town’s choir & orchestra. Von Francius is a perfectionist, a solitary man who is respected but not really liked by many, although the ladies who sing in his choir like to flutter around him. He is, however, an exceptional teacher, & soon becomes May’s friend as well as her very demanding teacher,

I understood now how the man might have influence. I bent to the power of his will, which reached me where I stood in the background, from his dark eyes, which turned for a moment to me now and then. It was that will of his which put me as it were suddenly into the spirit of the music, and revealed to me depths in my own heart at which I had never even guessed.

May’s voice is exceptional & she becomes part of Eugen’s circle as a pupil of von Francius & occasional soloist with the choir. Miss Hallam returns home after the eye specialist tells her that he cannot help her & von Francius convinces May to remain as his pupil. He finds lodgings for May in a house opposite Eugen’s rooms & May spends many lonely hours watching Eugen with his son, Sigmund, & great friend, Friedhelm Helfen.

At this point, just as I was immersed in May’s story, the next chapter begins the narration of Friedhelm Helfen. The time is now three years earlier (although, disconcertingly, there’s nothing to indicate the change of narrator or time) & we meet Helfen, a melancholy, Romantically suicidal 22 year old violinist in Elderthal’s orchestra. Eugen arrives to take up his post as Concertmeister & takes rooms in Helfen’s lodging house. Helfen is immediately taken with Eugen & his little boy & they become great friends. Helfen is looking for a family & he finds it in Eugen & Sigmund. Eugen, however, is a man with a secret. He is reserved & secretive. He never mentions his past life or loves. Where is Sigmund’s mother? Were she & Eugen married? Is she alive or dead? Helfen is too sensitive to question Eugen & Eugen makes mysterious comments about the need to one day give up Sigmund before he begins to see his father as he really is. What has Eugen done?

Three years pass. Eugen meets May &, eventually Helfen becomes aware of the connection between Eugen & the beautiful young soprano, Miss Wedderburn. Eugen remains distant & reserved about their relationship & his own past until the day he receives a mysterious letter & reveals that the time has come for Sigmund to leave him. His emotion at parting from his son is very moving but he tells Helfen nothing. The narration has moved back & forth between May & Helfen several times now so we’ve also discovered that May’s sister, Adelaide, has married Sir Peter Le Marchant & they are coming to Elderthal to visit May on their wedding tour. May is shocked by Adelaide’s looks & behaviour. Only a few months of married life with the cold, sarcastic Sir Peter have made Adelaide thin, nervous & brittle.

To a certain extent she had what she had sold herself for; outside pomp and show in plenty – carriages, horses, servants, jewels and clothes. Sir Peter liked, to use his own expression, ‘to see my lady blaze away’ – only she must blaze away in his fashion, not hers. He declared he did not know how long he might remain in Elberthal; spoke vaguely of ‘business at home’ about which he was waiting to hear... He was in excellent spirits at seeing his wife chafing under the confinement to a place she detested, and appeared to find life sweet.

Adelaide falls in love for the first time & realises just what she has sacrificed with her marriage for security & position. Jessie Fothergill’s sympathetic portrayal of Adelaide & her lover is probably what upset the Library Association so much. It’s a beautiful portrait of restrained passion.

Eugen’s past is revealed by ill-natured gossips & he & Friedhelm leave Elberthal. May falls ill; her other sister, Stella, comes out to Germany to nurse her & to take her home. May, however, cannot forget Eugen & she instinctively feels that his disgrace is unmerited.

It was bad enough to have fallen in love with a man who had never showed me by word or sign that he cared for me, but exactly and pointedly the reverse; but now it seemed the man himself was bad too. Surely a well-regulated mind would have turned away from him – uninfluenced. If so, then mine was an unregulated mind. I had loved him from the bottom of my heart; the world without him felt cold, empty and bare – desolate to live, and shorn of its sweetest pleasures... He had bewitched me... I did feel that life by the side of any other man would be miserable, though never so richly set; and that life by his side would be full and complete though never so poor and sparing in its circumstances.

Miss Hallam dies, leaving May enough money to return to Germany to study & she returns to Elberthal, hoping to find some news of Eugen & discover the truth about his past.

The First Violin is a beautiful story of love in all its forms – romantic love, loving friendship, the love of a father for his son - with a yearning melancholy at its heart. It’s not a perfect novel. The frequent changes of narration are disconcerting & sometimes rather clumsy. There are several coincidences that are a little too remarkable for belief including two occasions when Eugen saves May from peril. These imperfections don’t detract from the overall experience of reading the novel. The atmosphere of Elberthal, a small town centred on its choir & orchestra, is beautifully evoked. The students, landladies & chattering young ladies of the choir are great characters. Jessie Fothergill lived in Germany for some time. She began writing The First Violin in a boarding house in Dusseldorf & she immersed herself in German language & music. All this experience comes through in the book which is full of an intense love of music. I only wish I knew more about the great German composers. This is the kind of novel that needs its own soundtrack CD so you can listen to the relevant pieces of music as you read. The First Violin is compelling reading. I’m so glad I was able to read it. Thank you Girlebooks!

Christmas reading, listening & watching

Christmas is one of those times of year when I find myself reading, watching & listening to old favourites. I've collected a lot of Christmas books, CDs & movies over the years & they nearly all make an appearance over the next few weeks as Christmas approaches. I've been a member of the Folio Society for many years & they often produce a Christmas anthology. Ghosts & murder seem especially appropriate to Christmas, well, many authors have thought so! As well as the Folio books, I also have an anthology of Clerical Crimes for Christmas that has stories by classic authors like Agatha Christie, Edmund Crispin & Cyril Hare. The Virago Book of Christmas is also a lovely anthology to dip into. It has a short story by Stella Gibbons, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, that takes place before Flora Poste arrives.

It's impossible to think of Christmas without Charles Dickens & A Christmas Carol. It probably doesn't surprise you to learn that I have several copies of this classic Christmas story. On the left, the beautiful annotated edition by Michael Patrick Hearn. Instead of reading the story in a couple of hours, I can take days to read it along with all the fascinating notes in this edition.

On the right is the Folio Society edition. Here are the gorgeous front endpapers. I also have Penguin & Oxford Classics editions & audio books read by Geoffrey Palmer & Miriam Margolyes.

I love the Hesperus Press editions of the special Christmas editions of Dickens's journal, Household Words. I have the latest, The Seven Poor Travellers, to read this year.

Traditional Christmas carols are among my favourite pieces of music. Here's the cover of the Folio Book of Carols, a collection of carols from medieval times to the present. The cover of the book is the same as the cover of the book the carol singers above are using. I'm just as fascinated by the origin of the words & music of the carols & I have a couple of books about this too.

Every year I find myself buying more CDs of Christmas music. Handel's Messiah, traditional carols sung by choirs, soloists & folk singers.This year I've ordered Annie Lennox's Christmas CD & Bryn Terfel, one of my favourite singers, has finally released a Christmas album. I can't wait for them to arrive although I have plenty to be going on with. I've started listening to them already as I made my Christmas cake & pudding.

Christmas movies are dominated by many versions of A Christmas Carol, including the Muppets version which I'm very fond of. Alistair Sim is my favourite Scrooge. Everything about that production is right. The black & white cinematography, the music, the way so many of the scenes are closely based on John Leech's original illustrations. Kathleen Harrison's performance as Mrs Dilber is a scene stealer. A less well-known movie is The Holly & The Ivy starring Celia Johnson & Ralph Richardson. Christmas in the 1950s in a cold Norfolk parsonage where family secrets are revealed. Wonderful cast including Hugh Williams, an actor I like very much. His son is Simon Williams who was so good as James Bellamy in Upstairs Downstairs. The resemblance btween them is especially strong in this movie.

To end the Christmas roundup, I always enjoy a wintry romance at Christmas & this year I've bought Twelve Days of Christmas by Trisha Ashley & Last Christmas by Julia Williams. Look at those gorgeous covers. Snow, Christmas trees & glitter. What more could I ask for in the middle of a Melbourne summer? What are your favourite Christmas books, music & movies?

Abby's Friday afternoon

Here are a few photos of Abby relaxing on the back porch on this hot, humid afternoon. I was ironing in the kitchen (I'm not sure why this couldn't have waited until it was cooler...) and we're listening to a CD of choruses by Baroque composers. We've just had some Bach from the St Matthew Passion & now it's Handel's Messiah (All we like sheep have gone astra-a-a-a-a-ay). Have a lovely Friday wherever you are.

Gardener's nightcap - Muriel Stuart

As a newly inspired gardener, I was pleased to be reminded of Gardener’s nightcap by this review by Rambling Fancy during Persephone Reading Week. This is a lovely little book to dip into, a nightcap indeed. I can imagine a true gardener having this on their bedside table & reading a couple of pieces a night before they fall asleep to dream of their gardens. The illustrations by Philip Gough are lovely & it has one of the prettiest endpapers of any of the Persephones. Someone during PRW asked which endpaper fabric we’d like to have made up into a dress or blouse. Well, this is one of my favourites along with the lovely fabric from The Far Cry (which is or used to be available from the Persephone Shop). As there’s no plot, I thought I’d just quote a few extracts that give a flavour of the book’s charm,

Cut the marrows when they are six inches long, & you have a delicate dish. Of course if you grow your marrows as large as Zeppelins there is no help for you. They must cumber the ground as usual.

Yet the first duty of a garden is quietude – a place where peace may be fostered, where the eye, wounded by the glare of modern roads & modern houses, may rest upon grey shadow & green shade. But from the noisy street one is so often led into the noisy garden.

The Colt’s Foot is enchantingly named Son-before-Father, because its flowers always appear before the leaves. Its name Colt’s Foot refers to the large hoof-shaped leaves, the resemblance being probably strengthened by the shaggy flower stems.

I felt I was being led through a gorgeous garden by a very knowledgeable host, full of her own opinions but willing to give good advice to the novice gardener.

I’m spending the day in town tomorrow. I’m off to see the Rupert Bunny exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Then, a bowl of noodles at the Chocolate Buddha & a concert by the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra at the new Recital Centre. I’ve booked tickets for four of the MCO’s Sunday afternoon series this year. They’re playing some of my favourite pieces including the Beethoven & Mendelssohn violin concertos. Tomorrow it’s one of the Bach violin concertos & Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for strings among other works. I’m looking forward to seeing the Recital Centre too as it will be my first visit.