It is, here, the story of a gifted Italian tenor, to make even Orpheus pale. This is a detective novel where the crimes are inspired by famous operas. Or, there again, an incredibly scholarly sum on Inuit music… (1) Three recent works or those to be published in a few days. Among so many others placing in their hearts the work, the pains and the successes, the glory or the oblivion which accompany the life of the musicians of yesterday and today, from here and elsewhere.
In economic terms, the musical book, fiction or documentary, does not count only best-sellers. Some volumes are even reserved for an audience of enthusiasts or specialists. But they are published with constancy by the editors and, in the romantic vein in particular, can fortunately find their public.
In his time, the magnificent Ravel by Jean Echenoz had won over well beyond the circle of fans of the author of Bolero. Few months ago, 555the clever although ultimately disappointing novel by Hélène Gestern about the Sonatas de Scarlatti, also met with a fine fortune.
A symphonic writing
And suddenly, at the turn of a powerful text that has nothing to do with music since it retraces the journey of workers in the Lyon silk workshops at the end of the 1860s, a paragraph grabs you with the vigor of a symphony. In There will be no bloodshed by Maryline Desbiolles (Sabine Wespieser Publisher), we meet Toia, a little Piedmontese exiled in the industrious metropolis.
On page 22, the author evokes the childhood landscapes that the young girl must unfortunately abandon: “There was this crumpled sheet of hills, this very slow, very gentle movement of the landscape, larghissimo, and syncopated all at once like the light making one of these hills advance towards you, throwing it at your head or move away on the contrary (…) without counting the night which brings the crumpled sheet over your head, you are in it, you are in the landscape, it is immense and it is reduced to your closed eyes. »
Is there not there, as we listen to them ” eyes closed “, Beethoven’s mighty chords – fate or freedom knocking at the door? The sublimely unstable, tender or violent waves of Brahms? Mahler’s bucolic, grating and tempestuous outbursts? Ravel’s alternating shines and shadows?
We imagine that other readers will feel transported on the wings of music, in a rapture “very broad and syncopated”. The strength of beautiful texts is to offer us rich correspondences, which belong to us in our own right but which we burn to share.