Molto Andante

Music is one of those arenas in which the truth is often stranger than fiction. Take the case of conductor Felix Mottl, a notorious ladies’ man who, in 1911, collapsed from a heart attack while he was conducting “Tristan und Isolde.” On stage, singing the part of Isolde, was the soprano Zdenka Fassbender, with whom Mottl had been carrying on an illicit affair for some time. The fateful coronary came early in the first act, at precisely the moment when Isolde sings “Tod geweihtes Haupt! Tod geweihtes Herz!” (“Death-doomed head! Death-doomed heart!”). Mottl’s heart was indeed death-doomed: He expired within days, but not before marrying Fassbender on his deathbed.

All in all, musicians are a pretty wild bunch. The composer Gesualdo murdered his wife and the man he found in bed with her, when he was 29. Albeniz ran away with the circus when he was 10. Saint-Saens went on archeological digs in his 80s. Monteverdi was robbed at gunpoint in 1613, and Boston Symphony conductor Karl Muck was interned as an enemy alien during World War I. Liszt lived in sin for 30 years, then took holy orders. Schumann listened to angels, or so he thought. And Paganini was in league with the devil, or so many of his contemporaries thought.

Musicians also tend to be a troubled lot. Ever since Orpheus toiled at his lyre to retrieve his beloved Eurydice from Hades, the musically talented have had to deal with demons. For centuries, drink was the preferred one. Beethoven had a problem, Sibelius had a big problem, and Mussorgsky died of the effects of alcohol at the age of 42. More recently, especially in the field of popular music, drugs have been the downfall of the young and promising. Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and, just a couple of years ago, Kurt Cobain of the Seattle grunge band Nirvana ended up paying for addictions with their lives. Many others in both the pop and classical spheres have seen their careers derailed by drugs. Those of us who have been around a while remember violinist Eugene Fodor, who shared top prize at the 1974 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and became a marquee name on the classical circuit for several seasons. He began using drugs, dropped out of sight and has endured long years of struggle trying to make a comeback.

With all this happening, it’s hardly surprising that art seems to be imitating life, if not quite rivaling it, in Joseph Machlis’ latest novel, “Allegro,” about a prize-winning violinist who becomes addicted to cocaine. In the world of music, Machlis is best known for having written one of the finest music-appreciation texts in existence, “The Enjoyment of Music.” Now 90, he has been active in the musical life of New York City for the better part of seven decades. “Allegro” is his fifth novel.

At the center of its story is Danny Sachs, a talented, self-absorbed, emotionally stunted violinist from New York’s Upper West Side who, with remarkable acquiescence, sets out to fulfill his mother’s dream that he become the next Isaac Stern. The protagonist’s unhealthy relationship with his mother surfaces in the very first paragraph of the narrative, when he confides that, even though he addresses her as Mom, “in my mind I called her Julia, same as my father did. If he could, why couldn’t I?”

With that, the Oedipal deck is stacked against poor Danny and, for the rest of this confessional novel, we careen with him through one unsatisfactory relationship after another. There’s Ruth, the pianist, loyal and long-suffering, like her Old Testament namesake, with whom Danny, after much adolescent angst, manages to lose his virginity. There’s Valerie, the trophy wife of Danny’s wealthy patron Amos Schein, a woman who is all animal passion and intellectual emptiness. And there’s Natalia, the prima ballerina, a compelling, self-possessed Fury, fiercely unwilling to give up her freedom or submit to marriage.

There is also the unfortunate evening when Danny’s teacher, the “leonine” Dmitri Stamos, sneaks into his bedroom and ravishes him, an episode that finds our protagonist full of conflicting feelings, yet once again, strangely acquiescent. Finally, there is the moment when Danny first uses uppers at the Tchaikovsky Competition to get a little extra edge. Later, his best friend, Steve, introduces him to cocaine, beginning the recreational habit that will lead Danny down the spiral staircase to dependence and addiction.

It’s at this point that a really compelling portrayal of the depths and dimensions of cocaine addiction--a glimpse of how a person goes under physiologically, psychologically, and financially--might have given “Allegro” the power to hook its reader. But we don’t hear much, as any musician who has been through it will tell you, about the glamour of coke, about how, when you’re a star, everyone wants to put a spoon under your nose, or how an addict doesn’t eat, loses weight and, in the effort to get just a little “finer” each time, starts to topspin the drug with alcohol and barbiturates. How a musician on coke sweats, how his blood pressure rockets, how he feels like he’s playing the lights out, but when it’s over, he can’t remember a thing. How he needs more and more just to get the high. And how eventually the drug doesn’t do anything for him because he’s crested the wave and now he’s just swimming in the ocean.

Unfortunately, Danny’s addiction remains a kind of literary abstraction. He becomes aware of a “curious apathy” in himself and suffers a memory lapse at a performance in Dayton. When the end comes, it comes not with a bang but a whimper. In a listless mood, he motors off to Cape Cod to try to patch up his relationship with Natalia, gets kicked out of her house and breaks into a motel room so he can crash. He’s greeted by the police the next morning. Since he left his Strad and his stash in an unlocked car with the motor running, it’s hardly a bust at all.

Danny’s passage through rehab is told in similarly vague terms. At one point, he really does end up in the ocean--actually, it’s the Long Island Sound--in a half-hearted attempt to drown himself that might more accurately be described as a consideration of suicide. With this, our hero hits bottom and begins his journey back to life.

The fact that Danny Sachs is not a particularly sympathetic character and that on an emotional plane he never seems to get beyond the immature, self-centered neediness he starts out with may or may not be one of the flaws of this book. Perhaps he is just as Machlis intends him. But his voice is something that again and again puts the reader off. His description of playing the second movement of the Mendelssohn Concerto goes like this:

“The andante, elegant and tender without being profound, ideally suited my style. There followed the vivace, in which I could show off the spiccato or ‘bouncing bow’ for which I was vastly admired. . . .”

Nobody talks like that, except maybe a musicologist who’s forgotten he’s writing a novel. Too bad, because the story could have been made to work. As it is, not one of the characters in “Allegro” comes to life, which makes the book anything but a quick read. Still, the world of music is full of stories waiting to be turned into novels. I’d like to see one about a melancholy composer who kills his wife in flagrante delicto and finds new meaning in life. I’ll bet they call that one “Gesualdo.”