A story of what it's like to work in the hothouse environment of an orchestra, where colleagues see you more than your family do and where egos get in the way of everything. I felt the author knew this world but, for me, the characters were two-dimensional, with no nuance at all. I found this quite irritating. The plot itself also felt quite insubstantial and I really couldn't feel any empathy for the characters. Just not my cup of tea on any level.

4/5 ⭐️
Thank you to the author and NetGalley for the arc

“Stories don’t ever really end. Instead, they carry on and on, with ramifications and echoes that only clarify after the passage of years. They overlap and interweave. Stars of one story only receive walk-on roles in another, and almost nothing is ever completely finished.”

‘While the Music Lasts’ is one of the most resonating books I’ve come across in a while—and the irony isn’t lost on me.

From the multiple povs to the brutal highs, lows and plot twists, Alice McVeigh expertly captures the intricacies of life within an orchestra.

And yet, among all of this, what struck me most were those raw conversations. It was those times that Alice truly brought us to each character’s level—when the artist was human, just like the rest of us.

Rewritten from its initial publishing in the 1990s, the story follows multiple povs who are all connected through the Orchestra of London: Isabel, who is a viola player with a knack for getting her heart broken; Mirabel, a horn player who is the orchestra’s compass; William, a cellist who’s heart and mind start misaligning; Piotr, another cellist who grapples with personal concerns; as well as many other characters.

The interesting thing about this book is that it doesn’t follow a district plot, instead demonstrating that no story ever ends. At its core, ‘While the Music Lasts’ reveals how the line between the artist and the human is much the same. And for this reason, their relationships, their passions, and their careers intersect, often messily.

And that’s what resonated. That despite how enigmatic, how isolated, how mysterious the world of music is, you realise that being an artist is maybe one of the most human things. That we are all, in one way or another, unable to voice what is inside of us. And that our life can sometimes crash around us, picking up the resonance of those we know most intimately.