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THE POWER OF MUSIC
THE bestselling author suggests key novels to help you through the trickier times in life. AS MY kids started to leave home and free evenings at last gaped before me, I — along with most of my certainage, provincial demographic — joined a local choir. It was a revelation.
A community was built, lives were changed. Once a week, I was lifted out of everyday life and on to another plane.
We were very amateur and not always perfect, and yet here was the power of music in action. We were finding our own voices. Whether our occasional audiences got much out of it is another matter.
To sing for oneself is a joy; to sing and touch others, though, that is a gift.
Roxanne, in Ann Patchett’s quite wonderful Bel Canto, is a worldfamous soprano. She’s performing at an international gathering in an embassy in South America when terrorists storm in and take the dignitaries hostage. In the siege, it’s her voice that breaks down barriers.
There are many different languages in there, and little verbal understanding. But through music, the trapped find both harmony and love.
The best thing about my choir was, we sang ‘our’ stuff: the songs that matter to our generation.
We all have the soundtrack to our own lives. In Greatest Hits, Laura Barnett takes that idea and runs with it. Cass is a singer-songwriter in her 60s, reviewing her life through her own back catalogue, every song taking her back to a time, a place and a feeling. And with the musician Kate Williams, she’s written the album to accompany it. So you can read, listen and peer straight into Cass’s soul.
Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music is about the classical world: violinist Michael and pianist Julia, their affair and the mindset of the truly dedicated.
‘It is to be blessed enough to live from day to day and hear such music,’ is the truth they live with.
And whether we’re belting out Diana Ross in a village hall or catching a song on the radio, it is also, for at least a moment, true for the rest of us. Such is the power of music on us all.