A Certain Music

Celeste Walters (author)
Anne Spudvilas (illus)

Random House, Australia: 2009; 102pp

ISBN: 9781741663334

Genres: allegorical, historical fiction, music

Issues: family, friendship, giftedness, identity, special needs

In 1823, a young girl is attracted to a particular house by the incredibly beautiful music she hears coming from it. Despite the rejections of the gruff, irritable creator, she is drawn back again and again. The music compels and enchants her.

This unusual novella is designed to tantalise and mystify the reader. As the child finds snatches of the magical music both new and hauntingly familiar, so the reader glimpses an old friend hidden in the fresh perspective of this narrative.

Walters uses the un/familiar strains of music more hinted at than heard as an accompaniment to but also an expression of the child's life - her ‘different' view of the world, her social difficulties, her troubled parents. Throughout her story, her life, the music and its creator add colour, depth, joy and freedom to a life restricted by poverty, ignorance and prejudice.

As always, Walter's language is lyrical, her prose poetic in its powerful imagery. The need to withhold the child's name until the last pages does create a slight sense of contrivance but the overall power of the piece makes this a bearable flaw in an unusual and touching story.

Highly recommended.