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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A beautiful work of the imagination, straddling history, memory, trauma and testimony
'In 1917, a young composer writes a suite of twenty pieces for piano. Each pass by like a gust of wind. They are short, violent and strange - the music of another world. In 1938, a young Jewish family flees Italy for Sydney, Australia. In 1942, another family, this time Polish, is nearly destroyed.
'Half a century later, a young man begins to understand the role the young composer's strange visions have played in everything that came before him and all that has come to be.
'In his first book, Simon Tedeschi applies elements - from history, memory and the body of the musician - to make a remarkable work of imagination and fractal beauty. He straddles the borders of poetry and prose, fiction and fact, trauma and testimony. Fugitive is filled with what Russian poet Konstantin Balmont called 'the fickle play of rainbows'.' (Publication summary)
Notes
-
Epigraph:
'Where do you come from?'
'I have wandered.'
Edmond Jabes, The Book of Questions
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Nicole Rain Sellers Reviews Marjon Mossammaparast and Simon Tedeschi
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 September no. 110 2023;
— Review of And to Ecstasy 2022 selected work poetry ; Fugitive 2022 single work prose'In And to Ecstasy and Fugitive, Marjon Mossammaparast and Simon Tedeschi testify to psychic realities concurrent with place, realities that overflow Australian and international borders. Both books hinge on altered states of consciousness. Both are arranged in segments self-described as “pastiches” or “fragments” (Tedeschi 20; Mossammaparast 87). The books are consentient in exploring migration, cultural lineage, and home, but they bifurcate in distinct destinations: art (Tedeschi) and divinity (Mossammaparast).' (Introduction)
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‘Tonality Is a Ghost’
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , December 2022;
— Review of Fugitive 2022 single work prose'There’s this thing you hear in music – or, if I’m trying for precision, in the silences in music. It’s a reaching, a stretching. There’s a suspended wonder to it; a lazy sensuality, sometimes. It’s probably in lots of places if you know what to listen for, but I hear it most in classical music, since that is where I learned to listen, to count, and to keep time. And I hear it in Simon Tedeschi’s intimate book of fragments, Fugitive.' (Introduction)
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Ghost Notes
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , May no. 188 2022; (p. 56-59)
— Review of Fugitive 2022 single work prose'IN HIS NEW BOOK, Fugitive, the Australian pianist Simon Tedeschi describes the many faces of the child prodigy:
To his public, the child prodigy is a robot or a God.
To his rivals, he is a false prophet.
To his rivals’ teachers and parents, he is a demon.
To his society, he is a symbol.
But to himself, he is simply a ghost.
(Introduction)
-
Ghost Notes
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , May no. 188 2022; (p. 56-59)
— Review of Fugitive 2022 single work prose'IN HIS NEW BOOK, Fugitive, the Australian pianist Simon Tedeschi describes the many faces of the child prodigy:
To his public, the child prodigy is a robot or a God.
To his rivals, he is a false prophet.
To his rivals’ teachers and parents, he is a demon.
To his society, he is a symbol.
But to himself, he is simply a ghost.
(Introduction)
-
‘Tonality Is a Ghost’
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , December 2022;
— Review of Fugitive 2022 single work prose'There’s this thing you hear in music – or, if I’m trying for precision, in the silences in music. It’s a reaching, a stretching. There’s a suspended wonder to it; a lazy sensuality, sometimes. It’s probably in lots of places if you know what to listen for, but I hear it most in classical music, since that is where I learned to listen, to count, and to keep time. And I hear it in Simon Tedeschi’s intimate book of fragments, Fugitive.' (Introduction)
-
Nicole Rain Sellers Reviews Marjon Mossammaparast and Simon Tedeschi
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 September no. 110 2023;
— Review of And to Ecstasy 2022 selected work poetry ; Fugitive 2022 single work prose'In And to Ecstasy and Fugitive, Marjon Mossammaparast and Simon Tedeschi testify to psychic realities concurrent with place, realities that overflow Australian and international borders. Both books hinge on altered states of consciousness. Both are arranged in segments self-described as “pastiches” or “fragments” (Tedeschi 20; Mossammaparast 87). The books are consentient in exploring migration, cultural lineage, and home, but they bifurcate in distinct destinations: art (Tedeschi) and divinity (Mossammaparast).' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2023 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Judith Wright Calanthe Award
- 2023 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Poetry
