There have been threads in which we have talked about literature
with musical themes/settings.  A new book by the brilliant
Indian/American/English writer Vikram Seth has just been released in the
U.S.  It's called "An Equal Music" and my wife picked it up in New York on
its day of release a couple of weeks ago.

It's set in London and Vienna and it tells of the rocky romance of the
male second violinist in an English string quartet, the fictional 'Maggiore
Quartet', and a female pianist, a member of a piano trio this violinist was
in as a student.  Seth is obviously quite musical, or has done his research
very well, because the scenes in which rehearsals, performances and the
like are described are true to life.

 From the Amazon.com website:  "An Equal Music is a novel in which the
length of Schubert's Trout Quintet matters deeply, the discovery of a
little-known Beethoven opus is a miracle, and each instrument has its own
being."

The only quibble, and it's a very small one, is that he refers to Harold
Moores's record shop just of Oxford Street in London (on Great Marlborough
Street, actually) as Harold Moore's (sic).  But he describes Moores himself
to a T.

Seth is primarily known the author of two brilliant books, "A Suitable
Boy", a novel set in post-WWII India, and "The Golden Gate", a novel in
verse (shades of "Evgeny Onegin"!) set in the Bay area.

Scott Morrison