Overture

A coming-of-age effort by debut novelist Goldstein imagines the fraught relationship between a world-famous violinist and her high-strung daughter. Natasha ("Tasha") Darsky is the daughter of art gallery owners in New York City, riding high the vanguard of modern art. Her remarkable gift at playing the violin provides the crux for her schooling, and once dispatched to Harvard, she comes under the tutelage of imperious music professor Robert Masterson, who encourages Tasha to experiment in composition. She falls in love with Jean Paul Boumedienne, Masterson's brilliant, aristocratic star pupil, whose theory of Sublimated Tonality (that is, to "spin chaos into control") is revolutionary and sexy. Stifled by his brilliance after two years together, Tasha leaves him to launch her performance career, and her fling with Polish filmmaker Aleksander Pasek yields her daughter, Alex, whom Aleksander wants nothing to do with. Alex grows into a talented musician, and her experiences at an Indiana conservatory provide a too-pat sense of closure. Goldstein's novel is packed with the authentic detail of a musician's life; however, her workaday prose does little to bring life to her characters. (Jan.)