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Following a humiliating experience as a young symphony conductor in America, Cooper Barrow spent years accepting jobs beneath his capabilities but unlikely to cause further shame. Eight years later, he reenters the demanding world of orchestral conducting when he signs on as a student of the ruthless German master Karlheinz Ziegler.
In Germany, Barrow begins to navigate his own insecurities, the political and social intricacies resulting from the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, and the often brutal whims of Ziegler himself. But what really fascinates Barrow is Petra Vogel, a daring oboist with an aggressive sexuality who holds him spellbound. However, the damaged Petra comes by her adventurous spirit via a haunted past, and complicated relationships with Ziegler and the irascible concertmaster, Tano Popescu.
Like Petra, Ziegler has secrets of his own to protect, but his defense is of a more mercenary sort. Recognizing that his student's enormous talent is checked by a lack of confidence, Ziegler pummels this weakness in order to give Barrow's musical genius room to grow. Weaving an intricate psychological web of passion and desire, he forces Barrow to abandon the relative safety of his diffidence and helps him realize his dreams and the true measure of his talent. Music lovers, take note: Ford's first novel is pitch perfect, with a conclusion worthy of a Brahms symphony. (Fall 2003 Selection)
Publishers Weekly
A young American conductor goes to study in West Germany and is troubled by the country's unquiet past in this penetrating, intelligent first novel. Eight years after dropping out of Juilliard, 30-year-old Cooper Barrow makes a bid to restart his career, going to work with Karlheinz Ziegler, a legendary conductor from prewar days who now teaches at a provincial music school. A strongly antagonistic relationship develops between them, exacerbated by Barrow's continuing anxiety, Ziegler's brusquely authoritarian manner and the young American's romantic interest in Petra Vogel, a young oboist in the student orchestra, a refugee from East Germany. It is 1989, the time of the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the first stirrings of East German rebellion, and life at the music school is shadowed by old rivalries and resentments. Petra is an enigmatic creature, tormented by dark mysteries in her past, and Ziegler turns out to have his own wartime crosses to bear. The book skillfully captures the bewilderment someone from a simpler world feels at the layers of cynicism and corruption that enfold tormented Germany, and Barrow's alternating exultation at his own developing skills and frustration at his failure to communicate are convincing. The novel can seem overschematic, with each character carefully fitted into place rather than springing to spontaneous life. But Ford's precise, thoughtful writing recalls the rigorous harmonies of musical composition, and his insights into the rarefied world of classical music are rich and often piercingly poignant. (Sept.) Forecast: Ford, who holds a master of music degree from Yale, writes with rare depth and verisimilitude about music, musicians and student-teacher relationships, which makes his novel well suited to handselling, particularly in college bookstores. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
This first novel from the Scottish-born Ford, winner of a James Michener Fellowship, portrays the competitive world of classical music against political intrigue in Germany at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Cooper Barrow is a young American conductor who travels to Germany on a fellowship to study with the aged Maestro Ziegler, an authority on Brahms. Ziegler sees in Cooper a reminder of his painful experience in a concentration camp, while Cooper falls in love with Petra Vogel, an oboist who recently defected from East Germany. Ford slowly reveals these three characters' pasts amid mounting sexual tensions between Cooper and Petra and stressful rehearsals for a televised concert (which Cooper will conduct). In a surprise ending, Pertra's and Ziegler's secrets are divulged. This is a fast-paced and rousing novel with a skillful blend of heartfelt characters and fascinating historical and musical events. Ford, who holds an M.A. in music, displays an astute understanding of the anxiety experienced by the conductor during a live performance; readers are taken right on stage. Highly recommended for all collections. [Ford works at the Fayetteville P.L., AR.-Ed.]-David A. Beron , Univ. of New Hampshire Lib., Durham Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A romance set amid the subculture of highbrow music and political upheaval in the late ’80s. When Cooper Barrow arrives in Germany to study with monomaniacal conductor-instructor Karlheinz Ziegler, he’s content to be the clay that Ziegler will sculpt, and studying is his sole lust. Into this tranquil scene bursts a stunning German-defector oboist named Petra Vogel, whose prerehearsal "tuning note would soar across a quarter-acre of lacquered wood, ebony and brass, and land like the first duck on an evening pond." Barrow and Vogel will have plenty of time to share thoughts on politics, conductors, and Stevie Ray Vaughn, but not before Ziegler magically anticipates the relationship and tests his student with a solo rehearsal of Brahms, for whom Barrow is not even close to ready. The tension begins to build as some tuning problem among the woodwinds creates a miscommunication between Ziegler and Barrow: Vogel is replaced as first oboe, and Barrow forgets that his only true friend is his ear. Ziegler tries to get between the lovers, but folks are dancing on the Berlin Wall and it will be only a matter of time before everything comes crashing down. Is Ziegler’s interest in Barrow simply musical? What of his old relationship with his friend and oboist in the camps? Or is there some secret between Petra and Ziegler, some political dread masquerading as romantic residue? The love triangle set against a world of international musical intrigue teases with its simplistic shell and language—but what’s to come is far more cacophonous and moving. By the close, what Barrow, the student, will learn, is something about his own failures, his teacher’s limitations, and the dark underbelly of a worldfrom which music has been shielding him all along. A pleasant but routine romance complicated by the struggle toward art and political dread.Agent: Amy Williams/ICM
