LISTEN WITH FATHER

A heartfelt memoir for a father who loved music.

British book journalist Sanderson begins with some reflections on her youth, her late father’s passion for classical music, and having listened to it with him. With wit, insight, and aplomb, she walks us through eight pieces, the composers’ lives, and her memories. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, which he was devoted to, had her traveling overseas to visit all the famous landmarks associated with the composer. She then slides into a detailed discussion of this “grand and gentle” piece, as former Boston Globe music critic Michael Steinberg called it. The Firebird Suite was the first Stravinsky piece her father played when she was very young. She was “immediately captivated by its fiery, infernal tunes” and was a little scared and mesmerized by his Rite of Spring. Sanderson fondly recalls her father weeping to popular contralto Kathleen Ferrier’s emotional “Blow the Wind Southerly” before moving on to Brahms—one of Dad’s favorites—whose “turgid” music “failed to make an impression on me as a child.” However, she finally falls for his Symphony No. 4. Schumann’s Kinderszenen provides her the opportunity to rediscover the brooding “Träumerei” by playing it often on her own piano, but it’s three “rich and expansive” symphonies by Sibelius and a gifted trip to Finland to experience it that puts her in seventh heaven. Chopin’s “jewel-like” études, some of the last pieces her father listened to, are “ravishingly” consoling. Sanderson concludes with another of her father’s favorites, Strauss’ tone poem, Ein Heldenleben. Despite the composer’s connections to Hitler, Sanderson finds “consolation through music that has such power to provide a conduit for our troubled emotions, at times of crisis in any era.” The author’s quest has her “listen with newly opened ears to classical music”—and ready to move on. “I have cut loose from Dad’s CD collection and embarked on my own voyage of discovery.”

A musical journey will have readers scurrying off to listen for themselves.