As the title suggests, it’s a mystery novel. As the title suggests, a musician is murdered. But that’s probably as far as your expectations will be fulfilled. Speaking of expectations, as supervisors like to say, the author exceeds expectations.

Of course that depends on what you’re expecting!

It turns out that the author isn’t a mystery writer. He isn’t even Sebastian Farr, as the cover of the book claims. The title really is Death on the Down Beat, as the title of this post indicates, so at least that matches what you expect. But the chapters aren’t exactly parts of a narrative as such, as this book actually turns out to be an epistolary novel. (You can look it up.) The author is really Eric Blom, a music journalist and critic. Finally, although the paperback edition looks (and is) brand new, it’s a reprint, as the copyright date is actually 1941, nearly a century ago.

So let’s unpack all that. Here is a brief excerpt from the horns’ part in the score, played in this case by eight (!) horns:

It’s no spoiler for me to tell you that the novel concerns the murder of an egotistical conductor during a performance of Richard Strauss’s autobiography-in-music, Ein Heldenleben, a piece I have never liked even though it’s clear from its popularity that a great many people do. An autobiography called “A Hero’s Life”? Frankly I’m convinced that Donald Trump must be the reincarnation of Richard Strauss, especially when I read Georg Predota’s remarks:

Richard Strauss faced mounting criticism, charges of excess, megalomania, superficiality, and bad taste. Ein Heldenleben…was certainly seen as a flagrant instance of Strauss’s artistic egotism, with its nominal Hero an autobiographical and confessional portrait of the composer himself. 

Anyhow, I personally found the story and presentation fascinating. Epistolary novels aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, especially nowadays, but the technique works well in this case. Newspaper clippings and letters, primarily from a policeman on the scene to his wife at home, effectively tell an unhurried tale of crime detection. I need to state that you as a reader do not need to have any skill at reading music notation, although I do have a small quiz for you if you have at least a basic knowledge of the subject:

Imagine that you want to shoot and kill this conductor. You know that the orchestra will be playing Ein Heldenleben, which contains many places where multiple instruments play the same notes, and you know the score (see excerpt from the horns above). When would you fire the gun to minimize the chance that the audience would hear the gunshot?

Categories: Books