Nocturne

Amid the lush tonal landscapes of Chopin, a killer stalks unseen in Harrison Slater’s page-turning new novel, Nocturne. Just when her life in New York seems to be unraveling, Artemisia Talbot receives a commission to photograph Chopin’s Paris. And in the City of Light, she discovers unconditional love for the first time with a young American musicologist, Matthew Pierce. Artemisia accompanies Matthew to Warsaw, where he purchases a diary that describes Chopin’s ill-fated love affair with “little Marynia,” a talented pianist and watercolorist. But the diary also holds some disturbing parallels to contemporary events and the brilliance of Artemisia’s surroundings—in Paris, Warsaw, and Nohant—obscures the grim reality that she is being followed by an obsessive killer bent on revenge. For Nocturne, a CD of Chopin’s piano music has been integrated into the text … the first example of a novel with a soundtrack, performed by the author. Nocturne combines culture and passion in a gripping narrative of love, fatal attraction and, ultimately, redemption.

Amid the lush tonal landscapes of Chopin, a killer stalks unseen in Harrison Slater’s page-turning new novel, Nocturne. Just when her life in New York seems to be unraveling, Artemisia Talbot receives a commission to photograph Chopin’s Paris. And in the City of Light, she discovers unconditional love for the first time with a young American musicologist, Matthew Pierce. Artemisia accompanies Matthew to Warsaw, where he purchases a diary that describes Chopin’s ill-fated love affair with “little Marynia,” a talented pianist and watercolorist. But the diary also holds some disturbing parallels to contemporary events and the brilliance of Artemisia’s surroundings—in Paris, Warsaw, and Nohant—obscures the grim reality that she is being followed by an obsessive killer bent on revenge. For Nocturne, a CD of Chopin’s piano music has been integrated into the text … the first example of a novel with a soundtrack, performed by the author. Nocturne combines culture and passion in a gripping narrative of love, fatal attraction and, ultimately, redemption. Internationally known author, scholar and pianist Harrison Slater continues on the path of his acclaimed best-selling novel, Night Music, which was optioned as a film in Europe. Just as Night Music opened the world of Mozart to mystery readers, Nocturne brings the poetic panoramas of Chopin to those who love novels of suspense and obsession. Voted “Rising Star of 2003” by sales representatives of nine publishing houses, Night Music was on the Barnes and Noble bestseller list for mystery paperbacks for fourteen weeks.

Harrison Gradwell Slater combines the versatile careers of musicologist, pianist and novelist. Of his three books on Mozart, the last is the mystery novel, NightMusic (the product of seven years of research and writing), which opens the world of Mozart’s life and music to a worldwide audience. The sequel, Nocturne (2010), explores Chopin’s biography and music within a contemporary narrative of obsession and romance (www.nocturnethenovel.com). For his first book, Slater (the author’s pen name since 1995) traveled to fifty-five cities in nine European countries and completed his exhaustive research over three years with correspondence to archives throughout Europe, always posing previously unresolved questions about Mozart Gedenkstaetten -- the sumptuous palaces, concert halls and salons in which Mozart performed, the houses and taverns in which he lodged, and the churches and public edifices that he visited. The resulting comprehensive reference book, In Mozart’s Footsteps, has been called “an amazing feat of scholarship” by the pianist, Alfred Brendel, while Nicholas Slonimsky described it as “absorbing in its brilliance.” NightMusic was voted "Rising Star of 2003" by nine publishing houses, was on the Barnes and Noble bestseller list for mystery trade paperback for fourteen weeks, and was optioned for a film. Scholarly articles by Slater (a.k.a. Harrison James Wignall) have appeared in the journals Mozart-Jahrbuch, Opera Quarterly and Mozart Studien, among others. Some of his recent discoveries include previously unknown Mozart documents and manuscripts that have shed light on key issues of recent Mozart research. He has also written entries for the latest editions of The New Grove and Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, and has published articles in Perspectives of New Music, Indiana Theory Review and the Nuova rivista musicale italiana. A pianist, he studied with Anthony di Bonaventura and with Paul Doguereau, the noted French pianist who was a pupil of Maurice Ravel, Emma Bardac (the second wife of Claude Debussy) and Ignaz Paderewski. In addition to writing and recording, Slater coaches many world-class pianists, and is President and Artistic Director of the Peabody Mason International Piano Competition. Slater studied music and languages at Brandeis, Boston University, Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and Harvard, and speaks, in addition to English, German, French and Italian. He was active as a music instructor in Boston, Munich, Milan, and Tokyo and worked at the Munich National Theater and La Scala in Milan as a ballet pianist, performing numerous concerts. In 1995, he was awarded a Ph. D. in musicology from Brandeis University with a dissertation on Mozart’s opera, Mitridate. For over twenty years, he lived abroad, in Munich, Tokyo, and primarily Milan. Slater has finished recordings featuring the music of Mozart and Chopin, including the soundtrack to Nocturne. Slater’s upcoming book (scheduled for release in 2011), The Vocal Nocturne in the 18th and 19th Century, and his musicological paper, “Chopin and the Vocal Nocturne”, continue his research initiated with his Mozart-Jahrbuch article, "Mozart and the 'Duetto Notturno' Tradition" and in his entry, "Duetto notturno," in The New Grove (2000). His apartment in Back Bay, Boston that was the basis for the interiors in NightMusic. Presently he lives in Boston, Paris, and historic Mount Holly, New Jersey.