I just finished the wonderful memoir Crescendo – Chronicles of an Adventurous Violinist by my friend Anthea Kreston. I started the book and after the first chapter I texted her “You write words real good.” She does indeed write very well.
I’m always a bit annoyed by autobiographical texts and memoirs (how do they differ anyway? I guess I’ll do some research on that after I write this post). They often go into exhaustive detail about childhoods and miscellany that is interesting (and often very relevant) but I often don’t have the patience to wait several hundred pages to get to “the good stuff”. Anthea gets you right at the start with a couple of paragraphs that make you think “How did she get to this place?” Proper grab you by the throat and send you immediately into the subject. It’s written with an honesty and immediacy that, if you know Anthea, is simply her. No mincing words, no pulling punches, no apologies. There are beautiful passages about awful things – and plenty of beautiful things. She captures the emotions of world-class music-making in ways that ring true to me as a fellow performer – and that’s really hard to do, even in non-fiction. Everything you could want in a memoir is there: personal strife, family drama, musical adventures, inside baseball on how the sausage is made in classical music. And it’s all accessible to anyone no matter their level of knowledge of classical music. If you’re human, you’ll get it. All in 198 slim pages. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If you love music and want a warts and all view of a top-level violinist’s-eye view of it from the inside out, or know someone who does, it’s a no-brainer for the holidays.
You can find purchase links here.