Please Support Independent Bookstores!
Yes, Home Another Way is available at Barnes & Noble in Saratoga Springs (and other places), and probably at Borders. Yes, you can order it online at CBD and Amazon. And, while I have to admit I like to see my Amazon raking stay out of the millions (oh, vanity of vanities), it’s much more important to me to ask my readers to support their local, independent bookstores – if you have one, of course! If not, feel free to buy Home Another Way any ’ol place.
In my area, the following independently-owned stores are carrying my book:
The Lighthouse Books, Music & Gifts
4 S Western Ave, #3
Queensbury, NY, 12804
(518) 761-9658
I will be signing books this Saturday, October 4th, from 10 a.m. until noon here, too! During this two-hour period, books will be sold for $10.
Red Fox Books
28 Ridge Street
Glens Falls, NY 12801
(518) 793-5352
Music Appreciation 303
The final Baroque piece mentioned in Home Another Way (page 155) is Giuseppe Tartini’s Sonata in G Minor – better known as the Devil’s Trill Sonata. In 1765, Tartini allegedly told the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande that he dreamed that the devil appeared to him and asked to be his servant. At the end of their lessons Tartini handed the devil his violin to test his skill—the devil immediately began to play.
“I heard a sonata so unusual and so beautiful performed with such mastery and intelligence, on a level I had never before conceived was possible! I was so overcome that I stopped breathing and awoke gasping. Immediately I seized my violin, hoping to recall some shred of what I had just heard – but in vain. The piece I then composed is without doubt my best, the Devil’s Sonata, but it falls so far short of the one that stunned me that I would have smashed my violin and given up music forever if I could but possess it.”
According to Marisa Cioeran, “The result is a wild bit of madness (keep in mind we’re talking Baroque music here, not Black Sabbath) in three movements and it successful with his audience.”
Most people, when they think of the Devil’s Trill, think of the popular Fritz Kreisler arrangement, where the violin is accompanied by a piano. Kreisler, a Romantic-era composer, infuses a warmth into the sonata that, to me, seems at odds with name; it sounds pretty, not devilish. But, about 10 years ago, Andrew Manze 
recorded the Devil’s Trill unaccompanied on an authentic Baroque violin (what’s the difference, you ask? Read more about it here). “His interpretation of this composition,” writes Cioeran, “rips through this obstacle course of trills and finger stretches at lightning speed; he saws away with such vigor that occasionally the violin runs actually sound more like a burning bluegrass fiddle or a Hendrix guitar riff than a Baroque sonata, only to drop back into controlled quietude once again. The textures and mood changes that Manze pulls out of Tartini’s work are phenomenal for such a short piece (the entire work is only 18 minutes). It’s hair-raising, thrilling stuff due not only to the content of the work but to its insane, perfectionist execution.”
You’re all dying to here this now, right?
Well, here’s Manze playing the Devil’s Trill. Movement I (Largo):
Movement II (Allegro):
Movement III (Andante – Allegro – Adagio):
And, if you’ve listened to all that, and are wondering what the difference is between Manze’s interpretation, and Kreisler’s arrangement, click here to listen to Oscar Shumsky playing it. Seriously. You’ll be shocked at the difference.
Music Appreciation 202
The second Johann Sebastian Bach piece mentioned in Home Another Way is his Partita in D Minor for solo violin, specifically the final movement, the Ciaccona, commonly known as Chaconne in English. This is considered one of the most difficult violin solos ever written. In my novel on pages 338-340, Sarah and Zuriel discuss the Chaconne; it was the music that made Sarah fall in love with the violin. It also held a special place in Zuriel’s heart, for different reasons – Johannes Brahms’ transcription for piano was featured in the first movie she saw in a theater, The Beast with Five Fingers. In fact, Brahms wrote the following about the Chaconne in a letter to Clara Schumann:
On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.
Here’s Jascha Heifetz playing the Chaconne.
Part one:
And part two:
Music Appreciation 101
As many of you know, my protagonist in Home Another Way, Sarah Graham, is a Juilliard-trained violinist. I have had several of my readers comment on the classical musical pieces I mention in the novel, as in, they’ve never heard them before. So, I thought I’d do a series on these pieces, and perhaps a couple of the non-classical songs as well.
As a huge Baroque fan, three of the four classical references in my novel are of that period, and two by arguably my favorite composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. (For those of you interested in a humerous, pithy crash course in Baroque music, this is a fun recap by J. A. Howard - really, read it if you have a few minutes.) The first, mentioned on page 65, is Bach’s Concerto in A Minor. A concerto usually refers to a three part musical work in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra – in this case, a violin.
So, for your listening pleasure, here’s the David Oistrakh’s rendition of the first movement:
I’ll see if I can dig around and find the other two movements to post, too.
Chronicle Book Fair
I will be signing copies of Home Another Way at Autumn Leaves: The Glens Falls Chronicle Book Fair, October 19th from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Queensbury Hotel. Come see me if you’re not busy!
There will also be more than 120 authors, book sellers, publishers and non-profit groups in attendance, as well as panels on writing and publishing, workshops, and activities.
