A Woman of Note edition by Carol M Cram Literature Fiction eBooks
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Virtuoso pianist Isabette Grüber captivates audiences in the salons and concert halls of early nineteenth-century Vienna. Yet in a profession dominated by men, Isabette longs to compose and play her own music—a secret she keeps from both her lascivious manager and her resentful mother. She meets and loves Amelia Mason, a dazzling American singer with her own secrets, and Josef Hauser, an ambitious young composer. But even they cannot fully comprehend the depths of Isabette’s talent.
Her ambitions come with a price when Isabette embarks on a journey that delicately walks the line between duty and passion. Amid heartbreak and sacrifice, music remains her one constant. With cameos from classical music figures such as Chopin, Schubert, and Berlioz, A Woman of Note is an intricately crafted and fascinating tale about one woman’s struggle to find her soul’s song in a dissonant world.
A Woman of Note edition by Carol M Cram Literature Fiction eBooks
Carol Cram has written an enchanting novel on the struggle of a female pianist/ composer in the 1800s, even though the character was fictional the struggle was real. I am thankful for the strong passionate women that proceeded me, and I regret they were subjected to the men's inferiority complex that needed to belittle women to make them feel big. Only true genius can appreciate another genius without prejudice. Thank you Ms. Cram.Product details
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Tags : A Woman of Note - Kindle edition by Carol M. Cram. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading A Woman of Note.,ebook,Carol M. Cram,A Woman of Note,Lake Union Publishing,Contemporary Women,Fiction,Fiction - General,Historical - General,Literary,FICTION - Literary,FICTION - Historical - General
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A Woman of Note edition by Carol M Cram Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
This book is a wonderful look at love, friendship, music, and heartbreak. It is set in Vienna and a little bit of Paris thrown in there, during the late 1820's, early 1830's. It is based around "the music business" at that time. A look how men rule that business and women sit in the background. Unless the women and girls are so good their fathers, husbands and not so savory teachers and managers use these females for their own gain. Our two main characters are teenage girls. One is from Vienna with nothing, but an amazing, beautiful, virtuoso gift for playing the piano and composing music One is from America who has everything, including an beautiful, sweet voice, but not what her heart deeply wants and desires. Both girls are lacking true love in their lives. These girls have been brought up in "the music business" by loving fathers until tragedy strikes one of the girls. The girls meet at a concert where both are performing. Their friendship begins. The Vienna teen becomes the American teens Accompanist. The book follows the girls from their teens to later 20's, throughout a period with much happiness and an abundance of sadness. There is a lascivious manager who is more interested in deflowering the teen then moving her career forward. A teacher who becomes more and much less then he should be. The author weaves a web of true love, desire, mental illness, abuse, unending enjoyment for beautiful, moving music, family, friendships and the spirit to keep going even after many tragedies. You will truly enjoy this book. Bring a box of tissues, put a classical music cd on, maybe Chopin or Beethoven and read away. Authors notes are interesting, don't skip them.
This story is about Isabette who lives in Vienna during the time of Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann all of whom she briefly encounters. She is a virtuoso pianist, but her wish is to become a composer - a female composer during those years was unheard of and so that is one thread of the story. She meets Amelia, and Josef, and Peter, all of whom play roles in the story as does her wretched mother. I am not quite sure why the author brought in the story of her sister who was in an insane asylum, and the connection she had to Herr Dietrich or the thinly-veiled lesbian relationship Amelia has (sort of) with Isabette, and with the Parisian shop-girl. I suppose the author thought these threads would add to the reader's interest. They sorta did, but most led nowhere. She states early that she "hates Josef", but somehow manages to fall in love with him pretty quickly. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading the book because of the history it tells of Vienna and Paris. Isabette overcomes a great deal but we are left to decide whether or not she will ever be a great composer.
Isabette Gruber is in a panic. If only her sister were still with her to steady her hands on the keyboard as she plays Beethoven’s Eighth Sonata, known as the “Pathetique,” in her first public concert at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace. Then she hears Johanna’s voice in her head, and her poise and confidence return. The nineteen-year-old Isabette raises her hands, shapes her fingers above the keyboard, and launches into the “Pathetique.” Her powerful performance thrills the audience, whose applause continues through a third bow, and does honor to its composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, whose funeral took place in Vienna that very day, March 29, 1827.
Filling Isabette’s heart more than the applause, however, are the words of praise from her beautiful, new American friend, eighteen-year-old Amelia Mason, who received four bows for her extraordinary vocal performance. Afterward, Amelia asks the young virtuoso pianist to become her accompanist. Isabette is eager to hear more about this enticing proposition, but Mama arrives with her cloak. Herr Dietrich (her indecorous manager) is waiting with their carriage. “Hurry, Isabette!”
In A Woman of Note, Carol Cram has crafted a second brilliant female artist, this time a pianist and composer in 19th-century Vienna. Isabette must fight to establish her position in the male-dominated European world of classical music, much as Cram’s Sofia had to do in 14th-century Italy’s world of painting, in The Towers of Tuscany (2014). Cram’s precise, colorful writing enables us to hear the young Isabette playing the “Pathetique” in Hofburg Palace, see her enjoying a stroll with Amelia in the Prater, feel her pain over the loss of father and sister, and appreciate her determined efforts to convince music publisher Herr Weissel to accept her compositions, under the pseudonym of Anson Kruetzer. (Weissel roars with laughter, but agrees!)
Once home from the Hofburg, Isabette thinks back to her practice session that morning in the small, dusty parlor of the apartment where she lives with her mother. With a heavy heart, she remembers what a happy home this had been when her sister Johanna and she shared both a talent and a love for music and were skillfully taught to play and compose by their proud father. Now Papa is dead, Johanna is in an asylum, and Mama seems to think of Isabette more as a means to an income than as her younger daughter. The tall, lanky girl with a plain face and dull, straight hair never gives a thought to her social life or the possibility of marriage and children. Her every moment is devoted to practicing. Tonight, though, she thinks of a new life with Amelia in it. Soon, they are together every day practicing, but also developing their friendship as they go for long walks around Vienna.
When piano teacher Josef Hauser, who fancies himself a superior composer, meets the two young women, the story’s complexity grows. Josef is enamored with Amelia’s beauty but enthralled with Isabette’s talent. (In fact, he agrees to become her teacher if she revises his compositions so they will be accepted for publication.) Isabette treasures every minute she spends with the vibrant, cheerful Amelia, but feels uncomfortable when Amelia strokes her arms and kisses her neck. Amelia is jealous of Josef’s attention to Isabette during her piano lessons. Isabette realizes she could love Josef but knows that he is passionate about Amelia and could never feel that way about her. Then Josef’s flutist/poet friend Daniel Leitner joins the threesome. Gentleman that he is, he maintains a discreet distance from the ladies at least for a time.
Readers will love Carol Cram’s colorful writing and attention to the minute details of daily life at this time in European history. Even more enjoyable, however, will be finding out where her intertwining love stories lead as the characters mature. The book never loses its pace. and readers will be rapidly turning the pages until the very end.
While the cameo appearances and mentions of such famous musicians as Johann Hummel, Carl Czerny, Franz Schubert, Fredric Chopin, Robert Schumann and his wife Clara, and Louise Farrenc are of course fictional, they add drama and reality to the story, which is based on Cram’s meticulous research. An Author’s Note provides background on actual women composers of the time and place.
A young female virtuoso pianist rises above the many musicians of her time, blazing a path of passion for music and love that is hers and hers alone in nineteenth-century Vienna.
Carol M. Cram's novel "A Woman of Note" is a fascinating story that intertwines music, societal boundaries and personal needs.
Isabette is an accomplished pianist, but her gift for musical composition becomes both a boon and a hindrance in her young life. It is this pull-tug that gives this story structure and plot. How many people, especially women, have been told "you can't, you won't, you must not?" Put those defeatist phrases into the early 1800's -- in Vienna-- and you are better understanding the motivations of the heroine in an era of great music.
As a music lover and pianist, I was enthralled with the story. As a reader I was eager to follow Isabette's struggle in a world truly dominated by men of the time.
If you enjoy music, you'll enjoy this novel. If you enjoy a good story, you also will enjoy this book.
Carol Cram has written an enchanting novel on the struggle of a female pianist/ composer in the 1800s, even though the character was fictional the struggle was real. I am thankful for the strong passionate women that proceeded me, and I regret they were subjected to the men's inferiority complex that needed to belittle women to make them feel big. Only true genius can appreciate another genius without prejudice. Thank you Ms. Cram.
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