List of composers in literature
This list includes fictional portrayals of real (named) composers, and of fictional characters under other names that are generally agreed to be based on a specific composer, or sometimes a composite of several.
- Esther Meynell: The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach (1925)[1]
- Sanford Friedman: Conversations with Beethoven (1980s, published in 2014)[2]
- Paul Griffiths: Mr Beethoven (2020)[3]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Rumour: A Novel (1858) (as Rodomant)[4]
- John Suchet: The Last Master (1997–99) (fictional biography in three volumes)
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Starwood Burney)[4]
- Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love (1945) (as Lord Merlin)[5]
- Osbert Sitwell: 'The Love Bird' from Dumb Animal and Other Stories (1930) (as Sir Robert Mainroth)
- Mary Sharratt: Illuminations (2012)[2]
- George Sand: Lucrezia Floriani (1846)[6]
- Pierre La Mure: Clair de lune (1962)[7]
- Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Franck and Saint Saens)[8]
- E. M. Forster: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) (as Philip Herriton)[8]
- James Hamilton-Paterson: Gerontius (1989)[2]
- David Pownall: Elgar’s Rondo (1993)[9]
- David Pownall: Elgar’s Third (1994)[9]
- Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Debussy and Saint Saens)
- George Kaufman and Moss Hart: Merrily We Roll Along (1934) (as Sam Frankl)[8]
- David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[9]
- H.D.: Bid Me to Live (1960) (as Vane)[10]
- D.H.Lawrence: Aaron's Rod (1922) (as Cyril Scott)[11]
- D.H.Lawrence: Kangaroo (1923) (as James Sharpe)[11]
- Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (Maclintick and Gossege as a composite)[12]
- Nick Drake: All the Angels: Handel and the First Messiah (2015)
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Auchester)[4]
- Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) (as Herman)[13]
- David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[9]
- Anthony Powell: Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (as Moreland)[14]
- Daniel Stern: Nélida (1846)[15]
- George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Rubenstein)[16]
- Henry Reed: The Private Life of Hilda Tablet (1954) (as Tablet)[17]
- Ronald Harwood: Mahler’s Conversion (2001)[20]
- Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (aspects of the author Aschenbach)[21]
- Pierre La Mure: Beyond Desire (1955)[22]
- Elizabeth Sara Sheppard: Charles Auchester (1853) (as Seraphael)[4]
- Sonia Orchard: The Virtuosso (2009)[23]
- Anthony Burgess: Mozart & the Wolf Gang (1991)[2]
- Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
- Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)
- George Bernard Shaw: Love Among the Artists (1881) (as Owen Jack)[4]
- David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[9]
- Arnold Bennett: The Lion's Share (1916) {as Roussel)[8]
Anton Rubenstein
- George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876) (aspects of Julius Klesmer, see also Liszt)[8]
- Marcel Proust: À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) (aspects of Vinteuil, see also Debussy and Franck)
- Alexander Pushkin: Mozart and Salieri (1830)
- Peter Shaffer: Amadeus (1979)
- Edmund Crispen: The Case the Guilded Fly (1944) (as Geoffrey Vintner)[24]
- Caitlin Horrocks: Vexations (2019)[25]
- Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Wolf)[26]
- Janice Galloway: Clara (2004)[27]
- J. D. Landis: Longing (2000)[28]
- Jessica Duchen: Ghost Variations (2016)[29]
- Julian Barnes: The Noise of Time (2016)[2]
- Sarah Quigley: The Conductor (2012)[30]
- David Pownall: Master Class (1982)[9]
- William T. Vollmann: Europe Central (2005)[31]
- Simon Boswell: The Seven Symphonies: A Finnish Murder Mystery (2005)[32]
- Caroline J Sinclair: My Music, My Drinking & Me (2015) (fictionalised memoir)[33]
- E. F. Benson: Dodo (1893) (as Edith Stains)[4]
- Russell Hoban. My Tango with Barbara Strozzi (2007)[2]
- Barbara Quick: Vivaldi's Virgins (2007)[2]
- Lord Berners: Count Omega (1941) (as Emmanuel Smith)[34]
- Robertson Davies: A Mixture of Frailties (1958) (as Giles Revelstoke)[35]
- Aldous Huxley: Antic Hay (1923) (as Coleman)[36]
- D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love (1921) (as Julius Halliday)[36]
- David Pownall: Music to Murder By (1976)[9]
- Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947) (aspects of Adrian Leverkühn, see also Schoenberg)[37]
Further reading[]
- Amos, William: The Originals: Who's Really Who in Fiction? (1985)
- Rintoul, M.C. Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (2014)
- Weliver, Phyllis. The Musical Crowd in English Fiction (2006)
- Art in Fiction website
- List of composers depicted on film
References[]
- ^ A. H. Weiler. "Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)" in The New York Times, April 7, 1969
- ^ a b c d e f g Freya Parr. 'Ten of the best (and worst) novels about composers', BBC Music Magazine, 26 February 2019
- ^ New York Review of Books, 26 October, 2021
- ^ a b c d e f Weliver, Phyllis. The Musical Crowd in English Fiction (2006)
- ^ Amory, Mark. Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric (1999)
- ^ Diedre Bair. 'Getting even with Chopin', in The New York Times, 11 August 1985, Section 7, p.9
- ^ Claire de Lune review, Montreal Gazette, 24 November, 1962
- ^ a b c d e f Amos, William. The Originals: Who's Really Who in Fiction (1990)
- ^ a b c d e f g The Composer Plays, Oberon (1996)
- ^ Leo Hamalian (1996). D.H. Lawrence and Nine Women Writers. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-8386-3603-9.
- ^ a b M.C. Rintoul: Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (2014)
- ^ Spurling, Hilary: Dancing to the Music of Time, Hamish Hamilton, 2017
- ^ Bluemel, Kristin. George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics: Intermodernism in Literary London (2004), Chapter 1, p.27-66
- ^ Lloyd, Stephen. Constant Lambert: Beyond The Rio Grande. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014. ISBN 978-1-84383-898-2
- ^ Nélida, Suny Press
- ^ Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848–1861 (1989), p. 250
- ^ Henry Reed: Hilda Tablet and Others, BBC Books, London, 1971
- ^ Art in Fiction: The Artist's Wife
- ^ Art in Fiction. Ecstacy
- ^ Faber, Mahler's Conversion
- ^ 'Thomas Mann', Mahler Foundation
- ^ Beyond Desire review, The Age. 12 December, 1956
- ^ Harper Collins, The Virtuosso
- ^ Whittle, David. Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books (2008)
- ^ Art in Fiction: Vexations
- ^ Jack M Stein. Adrian Leverkühn as a Composer, Germanic Review, Vol. 25 (1950)
- ^ Penguin Books
- ^ Art in Fiction. Longing
- ^ Art in Fiction. Ghost Variations
- ^ Art in Fiction: The Conductor
- ^ Helga Schwalm. 'Imagining Compromised Creativity: Art and Fear in Shostakovich Bio-Fiction', in Slavonica, Volume 25, 2020 - Issue 1
- ^ sevensymphonies.com
- ^ GoodReads
- ^ Lloyd, Stephen. William Walton: Muse of Fire (2002)
- ^ Allis, Michael. 'From Musicology to Novel: Reassessing Robertson Davies's Literary Representation of Peter Warlock', in University of Toronto Quarterly (Winter 2019)
- ^ a b Smith, Barry. Peter Warlock: The Life of Philip Heseltine (1994)
- ^ Stokes, Richard. The Complete Songs of Hugo Wolf: Life, Letters, Lieder (2020)
Categories:
- Novels about composers
- Novels about music
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in fiction
- Works about music and musicians
- George Frideric Handel in fiction
- Cultural depictions of classical musicians