While the Music Lasts
A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR
'As finely tuned as the very best of orchestras. I loved it' Alice Vincent, author of Why Women Grow
When her father dies, music historian and trombonist Dr Emily MacGregor finds that music has become too much. Listening, let alone playing, music is suddenly too difficult. This is problematic given that she's a broadcaster, writer and academic working with classical music.
It leads her on a journey of discovery: from the arrangement of an Isaac Albéniz piece she finds on her father's guitar stand, through encounters with psychologists, orchestras, summer schools and funeral celebrants, to the lives and works of individual composers who wrote music so often in the midst of loss. What is it about our experience of music that cuts so sharply to the heart of our emotions? And why is it more than any other artform painfully, exquisitely crucial in the evoking of memories?
An erudite, lyrical, gently humorous and healing journey to rediscover the purpose of making and participating in music.
Book details
- Format
- Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781914613630
- Published
- 27 March 2025
- Pages
- 320
- Duration
- Dimensions
- 138 x 216 mm
- Genre
- Memoir and Biography
- Imprint
- September
Reviews
'The tenderness of a close dad–daughter relationship is sparingly but beautifully drawn… she shows [that music] strengthens emotional, psychological and spiritual connections, making us more truly who we already are'
'Beautifully written. By turns moving and funny, Emily MacGregor's debut is a powerful testament that music is life'
'A book about grief that transforms into a book about life. MacGregor explores her relationships and work with an intensity leavened by warmth and wry humour. Finally, joyously, music and love break through'
'Emily MacGregor takes two things people are often scared of - classical music, and death - and made them winningly accessible, warm, funny and real. This book is as finely tuned as the very best of orchestras. I loved it'
'While the Music Lasts combines the grace and erudition of a great essayist with the deep and howling humanity of a proper novel. It’s the best book I’ve read on grief – and possibly one of the finest on music too. Make no mistake, this is the heavy stuff, but I can think of no better nor more brilliant guide than Emily MacGregor'
'A profound, erudite and moving book about grief and a personal unwinding that slowly becomes about so much more: about families, dogs, friends, sounds, language, travel and silence. A meditation on what it means to be human - constantly witty, wistful and stimulating'
'In this beautiful, moving, and rigorously honest memoir, we are taken on an emotional, musical, and geographical journey, and into a dialogue with organised sound as she navigates her anger... Anyone who has lost a loved one will empathise with MacGregor’s journey'
'This is a book about all the big things in life - time, memory, grief, death, the loss of a parent. It’s also about music and (just possibly) its power to save us'
'Touching and beautifully crafted'
'MacGregor is good in contrasting the amateur experience of music and the chillier, more codified relationship of the professional'
'Superb'
