While the Music Lasts: A Memoir of Music, Grief and Joy - Couverture rigide

MacGregor, Emily

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1914613635 ISBN 13 : 9781914613630

Editeur : September Publishing, 2025

Synopsis

A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

'As finely tuned as the very best of orchestras. I loved it' Alice Vincent, author of Why Women Grow

‘The tenderness of a close dad–daughter relationship is sparingly but beautifully drawn… she shows [that music] strengthens emotional, psychological and spiritual connections, making us more truly who we already are’ Catherine Coldstream, TLS

'Beautifully written... a powerful testament that music is life' Michael Spitzer, author of The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth

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When her father dies, music historian and trombonist Dr Emily MacGregor finds that music has become too much. Listening, let alone playing, music is suddenly too difficult. This is problematic given that she's a broadcaster, writer and academic working with classical music.

It leads her on a journey of discovery: from the arrangement of an Isaac Albéniz piece she finds on her father's guitar stand, through encounters with psychologists, orchestras, summer schools and funeral celebrants, to the lives and works of individual composers who wrote music so often in the midst of loss. What is it about our experience of music that cuts so sharply to the heart of our emotions? And why is it more than any other artform painfully, exquisitely crucial in the evoking of memories?

An erudite, lyrical, gently humorous and healing journey to rediscover the purpose of making and participating in music.

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PRAISE FOR WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS

'A book about grief that transforms into a book about life. MacGregor explores her relationships and work with an intensity leavened by warmth and wry humour. Finally, joyously, music and love break through' Laura Tunbridge, author of Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces

'Combines the grace and erudition of a great essayist with the deep and howling humanity of a proper novel. It’s the best book I’ve read on grief – and possibly one of the finest on music too' Oskar Jensen, author of Vagabonds (shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize)

'A profound, erudite and moving book about grief and a personal unwinding that slowly becomes about so much more: about families, dogs, friends, sounds, language, travel and silence. A meditation on what it means to be human - constantly witty, wistful and stimulating' Tobias Jones, author of The Dark Heart of Italy

'This is a book about all the big things in life - time, memory, grief, death, the loss of a parent. It’s also about music and (just possibly) its power to save us' Rachel Morris, author of The Museum Makers

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Dr Emily MacGregor is a writer, broadcaster, and music historian. She appears regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and has written for the Guardian. Her academic CV includes a doctorate from Oxford University and subsequent research positions at Harvard University and King's College London, where she's currently based. She's the author of Interwar Symphonies and the Imagination: Politics, Identity, and the Sound of 1933 (Cambridge University Press) and is winner of the Jerome Roche Prize. Emily cohabits in London with an unapologetically fluffy dog.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: September Publishing
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1914613635
• ISBN 13: 9781914613630
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible