Jessica Duchen's Books

Ghost Variations

The Strangest Detective Story In The History Of Music

By: Jessica Duchen

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Ghost Variations

The Strangest Detective Story In The History Of Music

By: Jessica Duchen

The strangest detective story in the history of music – inspired by a true incident. A world spiralling towards war. A composer descending into madness. And a devoted woman struggling to keep her faith in art and love against all the odds. 1933. Dabbling in the fashionable “Glass Game” – a Ouija board – the famous Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, one-time muse to composers such as Bartók, Ravel and Elgar, encounters a startling dilemma. A message arrives ostensibly from the spirit of the composer Robert Schumann, begging her to find and perform his long-suppressed violin concerto. She tries to ignore it, wanting to concentrate instead on charity concerts. But against the background of the 1930s depression in London and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, a struggle ensues as the “spirit messengers” do not want her to forget. The concerto turns out to be real, embargoed by Schumann’s family for fear that it betrayed his mental disintegration: it was his last full-scale work, written just before he suffered a nervous breakdown after which he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital. It shares a theme with his Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations) for piano, a melody he believed had been dictated to him by the spirits of composers beyond the grave. As rumours of its existence spread from London to Berlin, where the manuscript is held, Jelly embarks on an increasingly complex quest to find the concerto. When the Third Reich’s administration decides to unearth the work for reasons of its own, a race to perform it begins. Though aided and abetted by a team of larger-than-life personalities – including her sister Adila Fachiri, the pianist Myra Hess, and a young music publisher who falls in love with her – Jelly finds herself confronting forces that threaten her own state of mind. Saving the concerto comes to mean saving herself. In the ensuing psychodrama, the heroine, the concerto and the pre-war world stand on the brink, reaching together for one more chance of glory.

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Page Count

327

Publisher

Unbound Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783529830

ISBN 13

9781783529834

Immortal

By: Jessica Duchen

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Immortal

By: Jessica Duchen

Who was Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved'? After Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, a love letter in his writing was discovered, addressed only to his ‘Immortal Beloved’. Decades later, Countess Therese Brunsvik claims to have been the composer’s lost love. Yet is she concealing a tragic secret? Who is the one person who deserves to know the truth? Becoming Beethoven’s pupils in 1799, Therese and her sister Josephine followed his struggles against the onset of deafness, Viennese society’s flamboyance, privilege and hypocrisy and the upheavals of the Napoleonic wars. While Therese sought liberation, Josephine found the odds stacked against even the most unquenchable of passions...

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Page Count

424

Publisher

Unbound Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1789651166

ISBN 13

9781789651164

Rites of Spring

By: Jessica Duchen

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Rites of Spring

By: Jessica Duchen

This isn't where we started out. This isn't what we wanted or intended. Adam and Sasha Levy appear to have it all: a pleasant home, demanding careers and three bright children. But underneath, the pressures of modern living are taking an unendurable toll. When Adam, under extreme strain, breaks a longstanding promise to his wife, their relationship begins to crumble. Liffy, their innocent, ballet-obsessed thirteen-year-old, is caught in the middle. As Liffy finds herself drifting away, the Levys spiral towards tragedy. Someone has to make a sacrifice, but the cost could be too much to bear . . . How did we come to this?

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Page Count

302

Publisher

Hachette UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

1444765299

ISBN 13

9781444765298

Immortal

By: Jessica Duchen

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Immortal

By: Jessica Duchen

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Page Count

424

Publisher

Unbound Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1789651166

ISBN 13

9781789651164

Odette

By: Jessica Duchen

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Odette

By: Jessica Duchen

When a swan crashes through her window at the height of a winter storm, journalist Mitzi Fairweather decides to nurse the injured bird back to health. But at sunset, the swan becomes a woman. This unexpected visitor is Odette, the swan princess – alone, adrift and in danger in 21st-century Britain, entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers. Bird by day, human by night, and with no way to go home, she remains convinced, to Mitzi’s distress, that only a man’s vow of eternal love can break her spell. Mitzi is determined to help Odette, but as the two try to hide the improbable truth, their web of deception grows increasingly tangled. Can they find a way to save Odette before it’s too late?

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Page Count

155

Publisher

Unbound Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1789650011

ISBN 13

9781789650013

Odette

By: Jessica Duchen

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Odette

By: Jessica Duchen

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155

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Unbound Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1789650011

ISBN 13

9781789650013

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism

By: Jessica Bomarito

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Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism

By: Jessica Bomarito

Presents literary criticism on the works of nineteenth-century writers of all genres, nations, and cultures. Critical essays are selected from leading sources, including published journals, magazines, books, reviews, diaries, broadsheets, pamphlets, and scholarly papers. Criticism includes early views from the author's lifetime as well as later views, including extensive collections of contemporary analysis.

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Page Count

520

Publisher

Nineteenth-Century Literature

Published Date

ISBN 10

0787686379

ISBN 13

9780787686376

Composers

Their Lives and Works

By: DK

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Composers

Their Lives and Works

By: DK

Introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured composer, more than 90 biographical entries trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each musical genius and their work. Profiles offer revealing insights into what drove each individual to create the musical masterpieces - symphonies, concertos and operatic scores - that changed the direction of classical music and are still celebrated as masterpieces today. Lavishly illustrated with paintings or photographs of each composer, alongside original musical scores and personal correspondence, images of their homes and where they worked, and personal effects and other important artefacts, the book introduces the key influences, themes, and working methods of each individual, setting their works within a wider historical and cultural context. Charting the development of classical music and music movements across the centuries, Composers provides a compelling glimpse into the personal lives, loves, and influences of the giants of the classical music canon.

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Page Count

1054

Publisher

Dorling Kindersley Ltd

Published Date

ISBN 10

0241478413

ISBN 13

9780241478417

Ghost Variations

The Strangest Detective Story In The History Of Music

By: Jessica Duchen

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Ghost Variations

The Strangest Detective Story In The History Of Music

By: Jessica Duchen

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N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

327

Publisher

Unbound Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783529830

ISBN 13

9781783529834

Book's by Jessica Duchen

Ghost Variations

Ghost Variations

Immortal

Immortal

Rites of Spring

Rites of Spring

Immortal

Immortal

Odette

Odette

Odette

Odette

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism

Composers

Composers

Ghost Variations

Ghost Variations

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