The Nightingale's Sonata: The Musical Odyssey of Lea Luboshutz - Hardcover

A beautifully written, exhaustively researched account of an extraordinary musician and human being--now a legend. For those of us who seek to ensure the future of music, the remarkable life journey of Lea Luboshutz carries a special resonance and inspiration.--Roberto Diaz, President and CEO, Curtis Institute of Music; former principal violist, Philadelphia Orchestra

As vibrant, elegant and absolutely compelling as its extraordinary chief protagonist. This stunning book combines a family saga rich with struggle, passion, several kinds of love, and a story of performance art on the highest level. A tale that will entrance and inspire.--Nina Tumarkin, Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Slavic Studies, Wellesley College

A gripping ride from old Russia to the new world that also guides the reader into an even richer odyssey: the journey inward and the excavation of the universal resilience of the human spirit.--Alexandra Silber, author of White Hot Grief Parade, star of the Chicago Shakespeare Company's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Broadway singer

Fascinating, gripping, and truly moving. I am proud and inspired to follow in Lea's tradition of excellence as a pedagogue at the Curtis Institute of Music and as an artist.--Ida Kavafian, concert violinist and pedagogue

A tale of towering artistry and tantalizing scandal set against a backdrop of revolutions, czars, queens, and a glittering firmament of figures--Tolstoy, Gorky, Zola, Prokofiev, Koussevitzky, Casals, Heifetz, Stern, Ormandy, Hurok--who come alive in these pages to escort Lea Luboshutz to her overdue moment on the stage of musical history.--Greg Dawson, author of Hiding in the Spotlight

A sensitive, perceptive biography. A captivating story of passion and music.

A thoroughly researched biography. Detailing Luboshutz's family life, relationships, and flight from revolutionary chaos in Russia to Europe and then the U.S., Wolf tells a fascinating tale of a Jewish woman surviving and ultimately thriving in a tumultuous time. Classical music fans will delight in this astute assessment of an influential performer and academic.

Wolf did extensive research and took great care in composing this compelling story of a celebrated artist and her extended family.

An intriguing look into a musical family whose lives were scarcely less dramatic than the times in which they lived. From this narrative emerges a woman whose remarkable musical gift was shaped as much by discipline and persistence as by talent, and whose journey from Ukraine to Russia to the United States proved an odyssey indeed. An affectionate yet clear-eyed portrait.

Spanning generations, from the shores of the Black Sea to the glittering concert halls of New York, The Nightingale's Sonata is a richly woven tapestry centered around violin virtuoso Lea Luboshutz. Like many poor Jews, music offered an escape from the prejudices that dominated society in the last years of the Russian Empire. But Lea’s dramatic rise as an artist was further accentuated by her scandalous relationship with the revolutionary Onissim Goldovsky.As the world around them descends in to chaos, between revolution and war, we follow Lea and her family from Russia to Europe and eventually, America. We cross paths with Pablo Casals, Isadora Duncan, Emile Zola and even Leo Tolstoy. The little girl from Odessa will eventually end up as one of the founding faculty of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, but along the way she will lose her true love, her father, and watch a son die young. The Iron Curtain would rise, but through it all, she plays on. Woven throughout this luminous odyssey is the story is César Franck’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano," a work championed by Lea, one of the first-ever internationally recognized female violinists. It became a touchstone for her, for her multi-generational family of musicians, and for scores of her students who played this masterwork throughout the world.