A saga of a magnificent violin, Antonietta, named after a beautiful woman who was the inspiration of Antonio Stradivari's later years. As Hersey brings Mozart, Berlioz, and Stravinsky to life, he offers us a marvelous celebration of the changing character and eternal art and power of music.
Editorial Reviews
"Pulitzer Prize-winner Hersey's latest work is a delightful tour de force--a picaresque novel tracing the peregrinations of a violin created in Cremona by Stradivari in 1699, dubbed the Antonietta in honor of the master luthier's second wife. Hersey divides the story into five "acts" that dramatize the violin's fortunes under various owners. He syncopates the narrative via four "intermezzi," which interject factual data linking the fictional portions, and ends with a bittersweet "finale." In each section the stylistic tone is appropriate to the music coaxed from the Strad by violinists of each century. First the prose cadences suggest the sensual passion of the middle-aged Stradivari, obsessed by the lusty Antonietta. Next, Mozart's frolicsome, irreverent, scatological voice is conveyed in letters that record his fascination with the instrument; the third selection captures the flamboyant personality and romantic music of Berlioz; the fourth is a fugue featuring the voices of Stravinsky, the writer C. F. Ramuz and violinist Federovsky. In the novel's last section, however, Hersey's own voice is most clearly heard, as he deplores the fate of culture in the modern world, where life "no longer imitates art, it imitates TV," and the Strad arouses in listeners cupidity and greed. (Here the musical references are to the "mathematical" compositions of Schoenberg, Hindemith, Alban Berg.) This novel satisfies on several levels; one need not know music to enjoy it, but the music lover will be doubly enchanted by a virtuoso performance." --Publishers Weekly
"In the year 1699, Antonio Stradivari amazes his sons by announcing his intention to build a violin entirely by himself, with no assistance from them, his ne'er-do-well apprentices. The instrument will be of a radical new design, inspired by the old man's infatuation with a beautiful widow named Antonia; he will call it Antonietta. After his death, Antonietta's supernatural tone bewitches a succession of notable composers--Mozart, Berlioz, and Stravinsky--each at a crucial turning point in his career. Hersey follows the instrument as it passes from owner to owner, adapting his narrative style to the time and place. Some of the historical coincidences seem a bit contrived--Stradivari whistles Vivaldi tunes at work, for example, years before they were published. However, good music novels are about as rare as Strads, and this one will charm general readers as well as musicologists." --Library Journal
About the Author
John Hersey was born in Tientsin, China, in 1914 and lived there until 1925, when his family returned to the United States. He studied at Yale and Cambridge, served for a time as Sinclair Lewis’s secretary, and then worked several years as a journalist. Beginning in 1947, he devoted his time mainly to writing fiction. He won the Pulitzer Prize, taught for two decades at Yale, and was president of the Authors League of America and chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Hersey died in 1993.