Product Description

A chance sighting on a bus; a letter which should never have been read; a pianist with a secret that touches the heart of her music . . . AN EQUALl MUSIC is a book about love, about the love of a woman lost and found and lost again; it is a book about music and how the love of music can run like a passionate fugue through a life. It is the story of Michael, of Julia, and of the love that binds them. 'A novel that can stand being reread and reread, but the first time round is an emotional cliffhanger ... secure a copy for yourself, settle down, and prepare for the unforgettable' Sunday Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16731 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Michael plays second violin in an up-and-coming Maggiore Quartet, lives on the north side of Hyde Park, takes early morning dips in the Serpentine, has a French girlfriend named Virginie. But his mind is constantly drawn to his first and only love, Julia, whom he knew in Vienna many years earlier. When he catches sight of Julia on a London bus, he cannot help but pursue her. Vikram Seth's new novel is a gently-paced, multi-layered work, proceeding in short sections which flit from Michael's ongoing search for Julia back to his childhood as a Rochdale butcher's son, his early training and breakdown in Vienna under the tyrannical Carl Kall, and the emotional history of his quartet; while Michael's discovery of a Beethoven trio rewritten as a string quintet acts as a motif for Michael's pursuit of the lost Julia: can Michael recapture the magic of the past, like Beethoven, who deafly transfigured what he so many years earlier had hearingly composed? Seth is quite brilliant at conveying the intense and complex interplay of chamber musicians, in rehearsal and performance (an odd, obsessed, introspective, separatist breed), and manages the near-impossible--to write in 1999 about Art and Love without embarrassment. --Alan Stewart

From the Publisher
What the press are saying about AN EQUAL MUSIC:
"IS THERE ANYTHING VIKRAM SETH CANNOT DO? Seth’s novel is a wonder-work: irresistible, tense, deeply moving. . . . It is a novel that can stand being reread and reread, but the first time round it is an emotional cliff-hanger . . . My advice is secure a copy for yourself, settle down and prepare for the unforgettable." John Carey, Sunday Times

"THE FINEST NOVEL ABOUT MUSIC EVER WRITTEN IN ENGLISH . . . Music . . . is the final catharsis, ‘a sufficient gift’, more precious than happiness, worth any sacrifice. The same might be said of An Equal Music" Daniel Johnson, Daily Telegraph

"ALL HIS BOOKS HAVE THE POWER TO LIFT YOU OUT OF YOUR OWN LIFE AND CARRY YOU INTO A WORLD OF DELIGHT. . . . It is quite unusual how happy this novel and its predecessor can make you. . . It is a novel of wonderful high spirits and vitality, a true enchantment. All those who delighted in A Suitable Boy will find delight here, too." Allan Massie, Scotsman

"IT IS NOT ONLY THE BIG MIND-WRENCHING SCENES WHICH MAKES THIS BOOK EXTRAORDINARY. An Equal Music proves that Seth can create a haunting world that resonates in the mind long after the final page has been read." Gerald Kaufman, Sunday Telegragh

"SETH GIVES THE FULLEST ACCOUNT I HAVE EVER READ IN FICTION OF A MUSICIAN’S RELATIONSHIP TO HIS MUSIC . . . a brilliant novel" Maggie Gee, Daily Telegragh "WHERE AN EQUAL MUSIC PLEASES MOST IS IN THE RAVISHING REFINEMENT OF TECHNIQUE, its sure placement of scenes, and the unerring truth of its portrayal of a small, enclosed social world . . . Will still be read with pleasure and absorption decades from now" Philip Hensher, Spectator

"A MASTERPIECE . . . as clear, lovely and civilised as a Schubert quartet" Georgina Metcalfe, Daily Mail

"VIKRAM SETH’S WONDERFULLY CLEVER, SENSUOUS AND POIGNANT NOVEL, in which making new is a ‘magical translation’, conducted with decorum, tact, lucidity and a stirring sense of history" Shirley Chew, TLS

About the Author
Vikram Seth was born in 1952. He trained as an economist and has lived for several years each in England, California, China and India. He is the author of A Suitable Boy, which was an international number one bestseller.

Customer Reviews

Great for busy mums!
This book made me pick up my violin for the first time in 15 years! I loved every page. This is a book about love, but the real love affair is the one with music. The complicated and awkward lives of the musicians seemed to me to be fairly accurate. I sympathised with Michael, the main character, but didn't particularly warm to the way he behaves. However, I think this is the point of the book. It is the music which remains true and faithful in Michael's life, and he remains true to music, however thoughtless, selfish and self-absorbed he might be in other aspects of his life.

Seth is able to evoke the feelings that music can inspire, and has a good understanding of his subject. I like the fact that the main composers he writes about are Beethoven, Schubert and Bach, and he celebrates their gifts to the world. It would have been all to easy to go for more contemporary music in an effort to impress, but to my mind these are still the greats. In an age when classical music is often seen to be pretentious, and the visual image is everything, this is a breath of fresh air.

The settings in London, Venice, Vienna and Manchester were perfect for me, as an adopted Mancunian from London!

On a slightly different note, one of the really appealing aspects of the book is the way it is set out in very short chapters of only two or three pages. Perfect for busy mums trying to grab a few minutes here or there. In fact I read far more quickly, thinking 'I'll just read one more chapter', and still being totally absorbed an hour later - dinner was a bit late, though!

Finely crafted, a joy to read
An Equal Music is a beautifully written book where the story flows naturally through the characters. Despite my very limited knowledge of classical music the author's light touch and sensitivity effortlessly drew me into sufficient understanding.
Buy it, read it in a relaxed frame of mind, enjoy the writing, and the story will unfold almost as a by-product.

Vikram Seth strikes a chord with this reader
I found this book to be utterly engrossing, the central Love story which winds from Rochdale to Vienna and Venice via London, is beautifully accompanied by the music of the Maggiorre Quartet of which the protagonist is a member. This might not sound like it is to everyone's taste, (my girlfriend questionned my sanity after I recommended it to her), yet I am totally ignorant of classical music, have never visited the geographic settings and I found the story deeply involving. Without wanting to give too much away the story revolves around a passionate relationship which ended 10 years previously in Vienna, and recommences again fitfully in London with dramatic repercussions to both people's lives. My enjoyment of this book, and my girlfriend's dislike of it centres around the central character, and whether you will allow a grown man such a lapse into love and obsession after an affair he left behind so long ago. I was convinced, and thus found it spellbinding, more so than Seth's more celebrated work; 'A Suitable Boy'