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Wunderkind

Nikolai Grozni,

Николай Гроздински

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May 03, 2011 Daisy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aroundtheworld2013, campus-boarding-school-or-college, bulgaria, asylum, classical-music

(I lent this book to Petr S.)
The best thing to do would be to listen to the music of each chapter while you're reading it.

I knew the feeling of becoming suddenly self-aware while playing in front of a large audience; the panic that seizes your mind and body when you realize that you've been playing a Chopin ballad for what seems like ages, and you've yet to go through the coda. To forget oneself again, once you've woken up in the middle: that's the hardest thing to do onstage, and perhaps in lif (I lent this book to Petr S.)
The best thing to do would be to listen to the music of each chapter while you're reading it.

I knew the feeling of becoming suddenly self-aware while playing in front of a large audience; the panic that seizes your mind and body when you realize that you've been playing a Chopin ballad for what seems like ages, and you've yet to go through the coda. To forget oneself again, once you've woken up in the middle: that's the hardest thing to do onstage, and perhaps in life.

only some of the music I've listened to:
Liszt's Les Jeux d'eau a la Villa d'Este
Rachmaninov's Vocalise
Chopin's Heroique
And I'd like to listen to every piece that each chapter is titled and to every piece mentioned in this book.

"Are you mocking me? To mock a colonel, awarded twice for exceptional bravery, and once for ... other things, is like mocking a lame duck. A lame duck isn't what one thinks it is. Moreover, I'm not a lame duck. This is a plain observation. Is that clear, number eleven?"
"Number fourteen, sir."

Each small victory over mediocrity counts. What to do with a talent, a singular gift, in a society that suppresses individuality?

Sofia, Bulgaria: My playing now carried the smell of the old apartment buildings on Serdika Street, of damp basements, of deformed Bakelite light switches in the staircases, of moldy wooden racks of mailboxes, of bitter dust blowing through the cracks of the unwashed windows, of freshly hung laundry in the courtyards. And then there was the light, the claustrophobic November light trapped between buildings, the profound, almost tangible bodies of gray that the clouds produced as they moved over the cobblestones and crept up balconies and roof tiles, the muddied orange sun reflected in the windows of the Soviet cars parked halfway over the sidewalks, and then, later, the neon red night sky that flooded the street, the buildings, and the minds of the living with the thick substance of Erebus.

Aside from being about an angry, rebellious piano prodigy in a communist music school, it's kind of a love-hate letter to Sofia, Bulgaria. The descriptions are sensual; you smell the city, you see its light and colors in all the seasons, you hear its sounds, not only the music. As for the music, you more than just hear it too; you smell it and see its light and colors. This is an amazing, probably autobiographical novel that I as a non-musician got a lot from, and I can only imagine a musician might love. ...more

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Apr 20, 2016 Heather marked it as to-read

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