The Fire Concerto: A Novel by Sarah Landenwich
dark informative mysterious medium-paced
Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

As a child I loved Nancy Drew books. The Fire Concerto felt a bit like an adult and complex version of "The Secret of the Old Clock." Clara is dealing with her own emotional and physical scars that have crashed her professional career as a pianist. But inheriting a metronome that belonged to a distant relative leads her across the world to unravel a musical mystery.

The story is told through articles, books, first-person accounts, journals, and letters. Some is revealed only to the reader. There are many details and many characters over different generations and I spent considerable time trying to keep the different and intersecting lines straight in my mind. I am not a musician and some of those details were lost on me.

The story was engaging. The ending was satisfying and creative.

There have been several excellent mysteries with classical musical backgrounds, usually involving violinists. Here we have a former concert pianist who receives a metronome as a legacy from her teacher. Years after she stopped performing due to injuries from a fire, Clara finds solace in her solitary life waiting bar, but the acquisition of the metronome reopens her passion for music because of its history and the implications behind it. Many issues are dealt with here, hard to believe this is a debut.

The Fire Concerto is a gripping literary mystery that mixes historical intrigue with some deep psychological insight. If you enjoy stories that focus on characters and are packed with emotion—especially if you’re into classical music—you'll really get into this one.

Clara Bishop, once a celebrated pianist, has pulled back from life after a devastating concert hall fire ten years ago that ended her career and left her with physical and emotional scars. When her tough mentor, Madame, passes away, Clara finds herself the owner of a mysterious 19th-century metronome. As she starts to dig deeper, Clara begins to see links to a long-lost composer, Aleksander Starza, who was murdered back in 1885, and to the pianist accused of his murder, Constantia Pleyel.

Without giving away any major twists, the ending shows that Constantia wasn’t the unstable allows Clara to uncover the real story—a big revelation that changes the way we think about Starza’s death and history itself. This twist helps Clara reclaim her identity and find her purpose again.

This was a story where one needed all your wits around you. It was complicated, went off in wildly parallel story lines and then finally came together.

Clara a piano playing prodigy is one of the main characters. Injured in a fire which she blames on her teacher, she has turned away from music and now works in a bar. A unexpected inheritance to several notables in the music world including Clara took all by surprise. Madame Sikorska who was Clara’s mentor was not known for generosity or kindness.

The inheritance sparked off a search into its history, including the ownership as doubts arose whether it was part of looted property from Jews fleeing Poland. The metronome purported to belong to the composer Starza has been missing since 1885. It was also supposed to be the one used in his murder. However nothing seems what it appears to be and history may have to be rewritten as far as Starzas loves and life was. It also may provide the impetus to propel Clara back into her professional life.

This was a complicated quite emotional, violent and traumatic retelling of a hidden story where facts are being uncovered a hundred years later. It was sad too because characters were misunderstood and forgotten completely.

I just returned from a trip to Salzburg, Austria where I visited Mozart's birthplace and residence, and after learning about his sister Nannerl, the novel The Fire Concerto feels even more compelling than it did (I finished the book while on the holiday). The novel has numerous elements to it---post-traumatic issues on the part of the protagonist, a dysfunctional mentor/mentee relationship (which reminds me a bit of the film Whiplash), and a historical mystery all rolled into one compelling story. There are numerous avenues of discussion that would make this a welcome addition to any book club, and certainly any music enthusiast would find it worth their time.

I am always looking for adult fiction that would be a meaningful addition to my high school library, and this title will definitely be on my list when I return to school.

Clara is a concert pianist; well, she was. She hasn't played a note in over a decade, not since the fire that ravaged her hand and made her feel unable to play. She's been bartending in Austin, TX for around six years when she receives a mysterious invitation to a private concert held by her old teacher, which is surprising as she severed that tie long ago. Upon arrival, she discovers her teacher has passed, and the invitees are there for the reading of her will. Clara is shocked to be included and confused when her inheritance is an ornate metronome she knew nothing about. The more Clara digs into this object, the more she becomes convinced it is connected to a famous 19th century composer; it might even be the murder weapon his former student used to kill him. Clara's search for the truth takes her on a physical and emotional journey that challenges and changes her.

I absolutely loved it. I thought the writing was beautiful, the story engrossing, and the characters well developed. I was cheering Clara on the whole time while utterly wrapped up in the mystery and intrigue of this metronome and its relation to the composer. The deeper we went, the more heartbreaking the story got, but honestly it was heartbreaking in all the right ways. It felt like such a rich description of the human experience, of doubt, of love, and of identity.

Strong literary debut by a classically trained musician. Great musical references throughout, as the main character seeks to ferret out the history of a surprising gift. She unearths a previously unknown female composer of the 19th century and her music, and in doing so, finds herself and rediscovers her passion.

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

The Fire Concerto by Sarah Landenwich is a stunning debut. It is a beautifully written novel of Clara Bishop, a piano virtuosa, descended from a (fictional) master composer of the 19th century and taught by a strict and violent pianist who was a musical descendant of that same composer. (Meaning she was taught by someone who was taught by the composer.) Clara’s career was derailed by injuries sustained in a fire, and by the psychological trauma of having been a child prodigy with all the associated baggage.

The novel is infused with music, but so deftly written that you needn’t be a classical musician or even a lover of classical music to understand the passion these characters feel. It explores the themes of exploitation vs supportive pressure when dealing with child prodigies. And, as its protagonist is a woman as was her teacher, it also brings to the fore the historical sexism in the musical world.

But this page-turner is also a carefully plotted mystery. In fact, it is several interwoven mysteries. Avoiding spoilers, Clara’s teacher bequeaths her an antique metronome and a cryptic notice that she should know why. Clara has no idea why. But as it becomes clear that the metronome is sought after, perhaps dangerous to possess, and has a history of its own, she is caught up in solving the puzzle.

There are so many layers to this novel, but I’m going to have to leave my review at this, because for full appreciation, you won’t want any of the plot twists revealed beforehand. It’s a contemporary novel, but with enough forays into the past that I can consider it a little bit of a historical novel, too. Read it and enjoy!

Having some musical knowledge helped while reading this book. I did appreciate the twists about Madame.

This compelling debut novel explores the interconnected lives of three acclaimed female concert pianists: Clara Bishop; her teacher, Zofia Mikorska; and their nineteenth-century predecessor, Constantia Pleyel—best known for her arrest and subsequent incarceration for the murder of her own piano teacher, a composer named Aleksander Starza. Exactly how these three women are connected becomes clear only late in the book, but two of the elements that link them are Starza’s best-known composition, known as the “Fire Concerto,” and the metronome used to kill him—once thought to have been destroyed after his death.

Clara is the center of the novel. Once a brilliant performer, she suffered career-ending injuries during a performance of the Fire Concerto and, when we meet her, is tending bar in Austin, Texas. An unexpected summons to her teacher’s “final concert” turns macabre when she discovers that it is actually a reading of Zofia Mikorska’s will. Other beneficiaries receive instruments or documents; Clara inherits an antique metronome with the assurance that she will know what to do with it.

She does not. In fact, she has no idea what it is until a visit to an antiques dealer reveals the connection to Aleksander Starza. With some help from another former student, with whom she once alternated between competition and attraction, Clara is gradually drawn into a search for the truth of Starza’s murder, Pleyel’s part in it, and the connections between them and her brilliant but difficult teacher. In the process, Clara must also confront her own past, especially the career she abandoned.

I plan to interview this author for the New Books Network (link below) in July, a few weeks after the book’s release.