This is NOT about a novel, but a wonderful book about a great musician's sometimes tragic life and ending.

When the Music Stopped; Discovering My Mother is written about a woman top-flight concert pianist, by her son, Thomas(?) Cottle.

The significance of the title will become apparent when I tell you that Gitta Gradova, the artist-mother, was a phenomenal musician, hobnobbing and performing on an equal level with such giants as Rachmaninoff, who was also a close personal and family friend, and others of that level of artistry. She was a big name of that time.

She had terrible personal stress because her demanding though personally rewarding concert life conflicted with what she saw as her duty to her husband and children, and finally she chucked the concert career, nearly chucked music altogether ("when the music stopped"--I told you it would be apparent), and the rest of her life was blighted by the cold-turkey withdrawal.

All of this is told through the eyes of her son, Cottle. The story of an amazing concert career, and of a tortured human being. I can't recommend it enough.

Dave Oesterreich