Rachmaninov, Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19
CONCERT BLACK is a novel about music, and all five of my picks have some connection to the book. This piece more than any other runs throughout the story. The main character, Cecil Woodbridge, practices it as a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London in the late 1940s, imagining himself one day on a concert stage. I think it’s the most beautiful piece of music ever written for the cello—yet it’s not particularly well known. I once saw Alissa Weilerstein perform it and break a string during the vigorous fourth movement. She calmly got up, walked offstage, changed her string, returned, and then she and the pianist picked back up where they left off.
Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet, TH 42
Woodbridge rehearses the “Dance of the Knights” movement with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during a scene in CONCERT BLACK. He has an argument with one of the percussionists about tempo loosely inspired by a disagreement that Leonard Bernstein once had with a trumpet player. This was one of my late father’s favorite pieces of music. It’s extremely catchy and perfect for the ballet. My dad was known to max out the stereo in the house while listening to it, driving my mom crazy.
Beethoven, Cello Sonata No. 3, Op. 69
This piece features in an early scene in the book during which a cello student plays in a master class—she performs and a teacher critiques, all in front of a room full of students. It’s a terrifying element of musical education, but a great opportunity for learning. This sonata is a beautiful piece that equally showcases both the piano and cello parts.
Kodály, Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8
Toward the end of the book, Woodbridge plays this piece for himself during a sort of celebration. It’s a fearsomely difficult sonata for solo cello by a twentieth century composer that combines classical and Hungarian folk elements. A great cellist named János Starker—also Hungarian—was for years said to be the only musician who could properly perform it. The video of his concert in Tokyo in 1988 playing the Kodály sonata (among other music) is amazing.
Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring
This may be the best-known piece of music on this playlist; when it premiered in Paris in 1913, its dissonant harmonies ushered in modernism and caused a riot. The novel ends with a performance of this piece at Chicago’s Symphony Center. No spoilers, but let’s just say that I listened incessantly to the Spring Rounds movement while writing the final scene. My favorite performance is by the London Symphony Orchestra with Valery Gergiev conducting.
Narrator: Simon Vance
A Novel
From the acclaimed author of Above the Fire comes Concert Black, a hauntingly elegant novel that unspools a tale of music, obsession, and the fragile architecture of legacy.
Ellen Wroe, a celebrated biographer known for her piercing insight, sets her sights on Cecil Woodbridge, the legendary conductor whose name reverberates through concert halls and conservatories. But Woodbridge, imperious and elusive, rebuffs her approach and conspires to thwart her efforts. Undeterred, Wroe embarks on a relentless pursuit, trailing the maestro across continents—through the archives of his correspondence, into the confidences of his colleagues, and deeper still into the long shadow of his past.
Maestro, cellist, king of the baton—Woodbridge is a man enshrined in myth and bristling with contradictions. Beneath the grandeur lies a hidden lattice of ambition, betrayal, and sorrow. As Wroe attempts to chart his ascent, she uncovers not only the cost of genius but the wreckage it often leaves behind.
With lyrical precision and atmospheric sweep, Concert Black echoes the psychological depth of Ian McEwan's Atonement and the philosophical resonance of Julian Barnes's The Noise of Time. From the frostbitten avenues of postwar London to the symphonic stages of Boston and Chicago, biographer and subject circle each other in an elegiac dance—until they collide in a reckoning neither can escape.
A novel of ambition and artistry, Concert Black is a symphony of human complexity: piercing, poised, and unforgettable.
Fiction Literary | Thriller Psychological [ Blackstone Publishing, On Sale: April 21, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9798228270350 / eISBN: 9798228270374 ]
Michael O’Donnell is the author of the bestselling novel Above the Fire and the forthcoming novel Concert Black. In 2023, Apple Books named him a debut writer to watch. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and many other publications. A longtime member of the National Book Critics Circle, he practiced law in government and the private sector for over twenty years after clerking for a federal judge. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and his law degree from Boston College. O’Donnell lives with his family in the Chicago area.
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