Volume 52, Number 8 · May 12, 2005
Sonata for Three Hands
By Gabriele Annan
The Kreutzer Sonata
by Margriet de Moor, translated from the Dutch by Susan Massotty
Arcade, 156 pp., $19.95
Beethoven was the first to employ the title Kreutzer Sonata (Kreutzer was the name of a violinist he admired: he hoped he would play the sonata, but that didn't happen); after that, Tolstoy used it for his novella, and Leos Janácek as a nickname for his first quartet. It was brave of the Dutch novelist Margriet de Moor to join such a starry lineup with her new novel. Like Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata, it is about jealousy. Its 156 pages could have been even fewer with a less generous layout. It has printed sixteenth notes instead of blobs or asterisks between the sections of each chapter, to underline the fact that the story is all about music and musicians. It covers more than twenty years in the lives of the three main characters, all of whom are in the music business in one way or another.
Review, 1782 words
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