The Student Conductor

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Musical Journey!
Review: Ford's debue novel is an exciting and insightful story that would appeal to music lovers & history buffs alike. Told through the experiences and observations of one displaced and self-doubting American during the end of the East/West German seperation, Ford weaves politics, sociology, and musicianship into an exciting and unpredictable tale of discovery. Professional musicians will find themselves wrapped in his description and emotional pull for all things musical. Historians will drool over the struggles and social complexities brought to light by Ford's characters as they try to mend and rediscover thier own identities following the end of Communist Germany. I have never read such an accurate tale of what it means to connect with a piece of music, to fear and love one's mentor, or struggle to make an identity for one's self. The Student Conductor is a must read!!

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read...
Review: Ford's well-drawn characters and intriguing plot made for a fun read. I kept having to remind myself this was a first novel; didn't want it to end.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read...
Review: Ford's well-drawn characters and intriguing plot made for a fun read. I kept having to remind myself this was a first novel; didn't want it to end.

Rating:
Summary: a quiet masterpiece
Review: Having lived in Germany for nearly 30 years, having experienced the events in November 1989 at first hand and being a historian to boot, I feel I have some insight into modern German history and the German mindset. Robert Ford's book simply took my breath away. It seems as though he has lived in this country for 30 years - so clear and accurate are his insights. The novel is multi-layered, a poignant love story, a morality tale and a brilliant description of just what it is that a conductor does and how an orchestra works. In fact it had me running to a Brahms CD that had been gathering dust for quite some time on our shelf and listening over and over to the 1st symphony with Ford's book as my guide. His description of "ordinary" people living in "extraordinary" times and the moral dilemmas they faced mirrors life in Europe in the 20th century. Needn't we be thankful that we've never been tested in this way?
This is one of the best novels I have ever read - his language is spare and beautiful. I read the book twice in one week, handed it onto my daughter and checked in the internet to see whether it has been translated into German so that I can recommend it to German friends. It is being translated and will appear in German next spring. Gott sei dank!.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful First Novel with a Classical Music Background
Review: I am particularly drawn to novels that have a background in the world of classical music. I loved Vikram Seth's 'An Equal Music,' for instance, with its main characters who are chamber music players. But I have to say that as much as I admired Seth's book, this one is better. It is not only startlingly apt in its insider's understanding of the world of classical musicians, but also for its complex, thought-provoking plot with its many subtly revealed secrets, and for its burnished language. Author Robert Ford was a flutist and received an MFA from Yale before becoming a writer and actor. He clearly knows from the inside about the insecurities, obsessiveness and search for transcendence so often seen in top-level musicians. He describes those qualities with spare lyricism and telling detail. (Here, for instance, is a passage about the protagonist, a violinist-turned-student-conductor now studying in Germany with a great if mysterious maestro. He has not played his violin in months but picks it up again for a day-long practice session: "Three months without playing had left his chin smooth and vulnerable. He'd been so intent on tuning intervals, one small correction after another, that he'd forgotten the need to work in a callus. He brushed a knuckle just behind the jaw bone and winced. When he looked, there was a mosquito's worth of blood on the back of his finger.")

The music of Brahms figures as a leitmotiv throughout this book and it is described in detail that only a musician - and a good writer - could provide. While reading 'The Student Conductor' I kept open my own score of Brahms's Second Symphony for frequent reference, and was astonished to realize how many insights Ford gave me about the work--not something you'd expect a novel to do, is it? I also found myself referring to a couple of books that I am sure Ford used in his preparation for writing the book: Jan Swafford's marvelous biography of Brahms, and Norman Lebrecht's gossipy 'The Maestro Myth.'

However the main theme of the book is not the music. It is a love story, of sorts, that takes place against the background of Germany in 1989 when the Wall fell. Not only are there ghosts from the divided Germany--primarily in the character of East German oboist Petra Vogel with whom student conductor Cooper Barrow falls in love--but from the era of Hitler's Germany whose shadow falls on Barrow's conducting teacher, Karlheinz Ziegler. Plot twists bearing on these things make the book compulsively readable.

I would recommend this book urgently to readers who have some background in music. But I would also recommend it as well to those who have no such background because Ford has an ability to describe the inner lives of classical musicians in a way that makes it understandable to anyone. Plus, it's a great story.

Scott Morrison

Rating:
Summary: A Terrific Read - Wonderful Characters, Engaging Plot
Review: I really enjoyed this book! You don't need to be a musician or classical music lover (although it would undoubtedly enrich the experience.) You don't need to know a lot about Nazi Germany or East Germany or the fall of the Berlin wall (though it wouldn't hurt.) The story and the characters are all that are necessary to keep one enthralled. I couldn't put it down. Now I have an urge to buy the Brahms symphonies!

Rating:
Summary: A Terrific Read - Wonderful Characters, Engaging Plot
Review: I really enjoyed this book! You don't need to be a musician or classical music lover (although it would undoubtedly enrich the experience.) You don't need to know a lot about Nazi Germany or East Germany or the fall of the Berlin wall (though it wouldn't hurt.) The story and the characters are all that are necessary to keep one enthralled. I couldn't put it down. Now I have an urge to buy the Brahms symphonies!

Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable
Review: I, too, like stories that involve classical music. I wish there are a lot more stories about classical music.
The student conductor is written in a very simple format and very easy to read. It is more than just a story about musicians, or love story, for that matter. The two enigmatic characters that surround the protagonist, Cooper Barrow, are haunted by the guilt of sending their Jewish loved ones to death, and because of their past, they act erratically and Barrow gets thrown about. The mystery is slowly revealed, and the author successfully builds up the intensity.
The haunting memories and guilt themselves are complicated enough issues, but being highly esteemed musicians (a conductor is like a god), with rivalry, ambitions, admirations, and intense personalities, things become much more complicated and intricate.
To me, it was more of a story of people in Europe, especially in Germany, who are still struggling to heal from the wound that was caused by the Hitler's war and communism that followed. Barrow is an American, and he's repeatedly told he wouldn't understand their experience. Placing an American as a protagonist, the author tells the story from the point of view of the one who does not understand but wants to understand.
Highly political, racial, and personal, yet the author manages to drive the story without becoming stale or offensive.
One might need to get used to the dialogues, the way the characters converse. Ziegler is especially erratic and at times he seems irrational, and just as Barrow gets thrown off, the reader gets thrown off also. But eventually the reason for all this is revealed. The ending was particularly impressive.
A good read.

Rating:
Summary: Shattering, Musical.
Review: If this novel did not have a masterfully intricate plot, intriguingly human characters, and the liquid, powerful feel of absorbing a symphony in bed, I would read it for the language. The language is such that occasionally I was stopped in the middle of an established rhythm to find myself rereading a sentence, struck by how perfectly it expressed itself. My only warning to a potential reader would be to wait until you're willing to spend some time with it. With work piling up on both sides, I sat down for a break with this book and read it in its entirety within the span of an afternoon, evening, and night. Having finished, I wanted to sit down with the author - or any of his characters - over coffee. Well written, Mr. Ford.

Rating:
Summary: Not just for Maestros
Review: The Student Conductor is thoroughly engaging - emotionally and intellectually complex, but the prose is elegantly simple. I loved it as a window into a political culture and the world of classical music, both of which were unfamiliar terrain to me. And a wonderful love story, too. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking to be totally immersed in a vivid landscape from page one onwards.