The Death of David Debrizzi

By Paul Micou

Book Overview

A novel by the author of "The Cover Artist". Pierre Marie La Valoise resents Sir Geoffrey Flynch's attempts to take credit for the success of the French concert pianist, David Debrizzi. La Valoise, in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: 0593023625
• ISBN13: 9780593023624
• Release Date: April 1991
• Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Unusually wonderful book

This satisfying tale of a has-been pianist who is redeemed by his own student is well worth hunting down and reading. I push "The Death of David Debrizzi" on anything with two legs that reads. Once a year I reread it myself and still howl like a hyena at its biting wit and surprise end. The book is about a young pianist-turned-teacher and his prodigy student. Along the way, other musicians join the cast: an eccentric Russian piano prodigy and a scheming, mediocre conductor. Professional back-stabbing, career comebacks, and prima donna pianists with hilarious affectations litter the novel. One of the funniest episodes in the book concerns Debrizzi's recording of a fictional work of music, "The Death Spiral," described as "beautifully ugly," "a putrid musical stew," and . . . impossible to play. So much drek gets published and promoted to the heavens. Don't miss this hard-to-find gem.

Stylish...unusual

The book is a story told through the voice of Pierre Marie La Valoise as he recovers from a heart attack in a Swiss sanatorium. Having just read what he considers to be a criminally biased biography of renowned French concert pianist David Debrizzi, La Valoise writes a long rebuttal in the form of a letter to the book's author....it turns out both the author of this unfair biography and La Valoise himself were both teachers to the child prodigy that was David Debrizzi. And an intense rivalry has festered ever since the two teacher/mentors clashed in ideology (both personal and professional) that were to shape the young David's life.