Sonata

Description

Andrea, already a promising and ambitious classical pianist at twelve, was diagnosed with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis that threatened not just her musical aspirations but her ability to live a normal life. As Andrea navigates the pain and frustration of coping with RA alongside the usual travails of puberty, college, sex, and just growing-up, she turns to music specifically Franz Schubert’s sonata in B-flat D960, and the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein for strength and inspiration. The heartbreaking story of this mysterious sonata Schubert last, and his most elusive and haunting is the soundtrack of Andrea’s story. Sonata is a coming of age story that explores a “Janus-head miracle” Andrea’s extraordinary talent and even more extraordinary illness in a manner, reminiscent of Brain on Fire and Poster Child. Like the goshawk becomes a source of both devotion and frustration for Helen Macdonald in H Is for Hawk, so the piano comes to represent both struggle and salvation for Andrea in this extraordinary debut.

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