Plot

The plot concerns Michael, a professional violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist, who never forgot his love for Julia, a pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 he met as a student in Vienna. They meet again after a decade, and conduct a secret affair, though she is married and has one child. Their musical careers are affected by this affair and the knowledge that Julia is going deaf.

Inspiration

Seth credits his then-partner, the French violinist Philippe Honoré

Philippe Honoré

Philippe Honoré is a French-born violinist who has been a regular recitalist in both France and the United Kingdom. He has performed widely in broadcast recitals on French radio and television....

, as inspiring him with the idea for An Equal Music

An Equal Music

-Plot:The plot concerns Michael, a professional violinist, who never forgot his love for Julia, a pianist he met as a student in Vienna. They meet again after a decade, and conduct a secret affair, though she is married and has one child...

in an acrostic Onegin stanza

Onegin stanza

Onegin stanza refers to the verse form invented by Alexander Pushkin for his interpersonal epic Eugene Onegin...

 on Honoré's name in the epigraph:

Perhaps this could have stayed unstated.

Had our words turned to other things

In the grey park, the rain abated,

Life would have quickened other strings.

I list your gifts in this creation:

Pen, paper, ink and inspiration,

Peace to the heart with touch or word,

Ease to the soul with note and chord.

How did that walk, those winter hours,

Occasion this? No lightning came;

Nor did I sense, when touched by flame,

Our story lit with borrowed powers -

Rather, by what our spirits burned,

Embered in words, to us returned.

Seth together with Philippe Honoré marketed a double CD of the music mentioned in An Equal Music, performed by Honoré.

Reception

The book was especially well received by musical fans, who noted the accuracy of Seth's descriptions of music.

Paolo Isotta, one of Italy's most significant music critics, wrote in the influential newspaper Il Corriere della Sera of the Italian translation that no European writer had ever shown such a knowledge of European classical music, nor had any European novel before managed to convey the psychology, the technical abilities, even the human potentialities of those who practise music for a living

Works referenced

Several musical works figure prominently in An Equal Music. Among these are the Trout Quintet

Trout Quintet

The Trout Quintet is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major by Franz Schubert. In Otto Erich Deutsch's catalogue of Schubert's works, it is D. 667...

, by Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

, and The Lark Ascending

The Lark Ascending

The Lark Ascending is a work by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, inspired by George Meredith's 122-line poem of the same name about the skylark. The work was written in two versions: violin and piano, written in 1914; and violin and orchestra, written in 1920. The orchestral version...

, by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

.