http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/2289207664

The fallen nightingale : a novel

History and fiction merge seamlessly in The Fallen Nightingale, the story of pianist Enrique Granados, whose musical genius is now being rediscovered after nearly a century of obscurity. Dreaming of a time when his talent will be recognized, Granados endures years of frustration, betrayal, rejection and serious illness. Along the way, he meets a legendary opera tenor and amateur artist, a gourmand army general who saves Paris from the German invasion, a barefoot dancer with a legion of heartbroken suitors, an Austrian violinist wounded by charging Cossacks on the Russian front, a pianist who becomes Prime Minister of Poland, and a United States president who aspires to be the world's peacemaker -- and sings his national anthem off-key. This riveting novel recaptures Granados' time in absorbing detail, drawn from Milton's intense six years of research in the countries and cities wherein Granados worked and lived. With a vivid sense of fin de siecle Europe, Milton takes the reader from Barcelona to Madrid, Paris, and London and on to New York and Washington. The novel is a feast for lovers of art, music, opera, biography, and history, and is spiced with the stuff of a potboiler: intrigue, romance, tragedy, dalliances of the rich and famous, storms at sea, and the devastation of World War I. Each book also includes a CD of Granados' music, performed by the internationally-renowned pianist, Douglas Riva. Readers of literary fiction, biography or history will find themselves at the end of the Victorian Age, passing through the Modernist period and the upheaval preceding the Great War. The novel will be of special interest to devotees of piano and chamber music, to opera lovers and, for that matter, to virtually anyone moved by the power of music. As an armchair vacation or travel companion, it is sure to capture readers with the beauty, allure and magic of Granados' beloved homeland.

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