A novelist treatment of the life and death of pianist Mewton-Wood

Noel Mewton-Wood, an Australia-born pianist who made his career based in London from shortly before World War II until his suicide in the early 1950s, has had a small revival of interest among classical music antiquarians with the recent reissues in the UK of many of his recordings and some concert broadcasts on CDs (and downloads from Pristine Audio).  On the evidence of these recordings, he was a very talented pianist who had not yet graduated to the point of recording with first-rank orchestras and conductors when he ended his life, although his career was trending in that direction.  Sonia Orchard, an Australian writer, has produced a novel centered around Mewton-Wood's career, titled "The Virtuoso."

Given the time and place, one might surmise that this was a gay man caught up in police entrapment or the like who ended it all rather than face the embarrassment and enormity of adverse publicity and jail.  But that's not the case.  Mewton-Wood seems to have killed himself out of remorse and guilt after the sudden death of his domestic partner from a treatable malady that was ignored - partly because Mewton-Wood, who fancied himself a medical expert, had not recognized the seriousness of his condition.  The pianist poisoned himself with a chemical he had lifted from a friend's laboratory at Cambridge.

Now an Australian writer has produced for her first published work a novelist treatment of Mewton-Wood's adult life as seen from the perspective of a fictional musician-writer who developed a crush on the pianist while attending his debut appearance with orchestra (Beecham-London Philharmonic-Beethoven 3rd Concerto), had a brief affair with the pianist, and then carried a torch for him the rest of his life.  Since M-W had the reputation of having lots of affairs before forming the domestic partnership attachment that lasted the rest of his short life, this is at least a credible conceit about which to construct a novel.  By making the unnamed narrator a musician, the author makes credible the insights into Mewton-Wood's artistry that play a major role in the novel. 

In default of an actual biography of Mewton-Wood (somebody, please....), this novel provides an engrossing introduction into the life of this fine musician, and stands on its own as a well-written study of amorous obsession.  Unfortunately for potential American readers, the book is not released directly in the U.S.  I learned about it from a review in a British magazine.  The fastest way to get it is to import it from Australia.  There are several websites based there that offer mail-order service.  It is a paperback original and not very expensive to obtain. 

Comments

[Alan Masters]

Thanks for alerting me to this book. I find that it is held by the Auckland City Library, so I've placed a request for it right now.