Music in Maestro

Music

Music is not so much a ‘theme’ as an ever-present thread in the rich tapestry of the novel.

MOTIF

The whole structure of the novel is written as if it were a musical score….with passionate highs and sombre lows, even an intermezzo.

 

It is a central preoccupation in the lives of the main characters in Maestro. Paul's parents are enriched, even defined, by their interest in Friday night soirees and Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Music is ‘their true career’, Paul suggests (p. 16). The simple harmonies and tongue-in-cheek lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan provide an important source of entertainment as well as a vehicle for social interaction in both Adelaide and Darwin.

Paul’s father John lives vicariously through Paul’s ‘achievements’ with the one wish….that Paul be a better pianist than he was. John’s approach to music shows the one time he is truly happy, when he is immersed in music. Similarly, Nancy find solace and joy in music, although she has more musicality and freedom with her musical choices, choosing to play freely and with passion. It is ironic that Paul doesn’t share her sense of freedom musically, that he chooses the more conservative and technical path of his father.

 

Music is Keller’s means of survival, both materially through his teaching and spiritually through the emotional and intellectual nourishment it provides. In exile, he dismisses the passionate excesses of Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Wagner, seeking refuge in the technical safety of Mozart, Bach and Scarletti, ‘as if seeking some kind of ultimate discipline, some perfect control to set against the treacheries of emotion.’ (p. 50). Beware of beauty, he warns Paul on several occasions; beauty is synonymous with ‘lyric flashiness’, insincerity and lies. This superficiality can be extended to Paul’s involvement with the vacuous Megan Murray. Once he has denied his roots in the impassioned music of the Romantics, however, he becomes something of a lost soul.

 

Paul's life, too, is shaped by his love of music. The novel charts a shift in his attitudes. As he matures, he adopts a more sensual response to music, responding emotionally rather than intellectually to what he hears and sees. The final, brief section of the novel shows his struggles and subsequent agonies of self-doubt as he tries to establish himself as a first rate concert pianist. Paul’s sense of self, as reinforced by his forceful parents, has always been based on the inflated view of his abilities as pianist. After that has been taken away from him, as exposed by his failures in Europe…what does he have? What is he? If he isn’t a musical genius, that who is he? Paul, like his Maestro, has to find a way to reinvent himself away from music.

 

 Even the minor characters are defined in part by their musical ability and interests. The musical talent of Bennie is one source of the friendship that initially develops between himself and Paul until Paul tires of his friend's ‘fiddle scraping’ and his victim status. Rosie and Paul are initially brought together by their obvious musical talents. Their first sexual encounter at the Botanical Gardens was surrounded by music.

Even Megan suddenly finds Paul attractive once he has become Rough Stuff's musical director. Rockin' Rick Whitely, an ageing, seedy DJ with an antipathy to country and western music, signals the changing face of popular music in the 1960s with the emergence of such icons as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Doors, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. All the characters are linked explicitly and inexplicitly by the omnipresent motif of music.