Arnold & Igor

published by Fomite

“Part mystery, part love story, and part musical speculation… Featuring the two most influential composers of the twentieth century as the protagonists, Rappaport presents a world of what might have been, employing clever narrative devices to tell an engaging story.”

— Leonard Slatkin
GRAMMY® Award-Winning Conductor
Florence Homolka via Wikimedia Commons

In 1990s Los Angeles, composer and professor Simon Grafton uncovers a lost manuscript that suggests previously unknown links between rival modernist composers he idolizes, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. It’s a find that could make Simon’s career – if his obsession with decoding the document doesn’t destroy him and his family first.

Interwoven into the story is the sometimes-tortured friendship between Schoenberg and Stravinsky as it unfolds in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, through the war years, and then in Los Angeles during Hollywood’s Golden Era, when modern music’s dissonant experiments outraged the public before entering the mainstream, even to the point of being co-opted by Hollywood.

Music is at the heart of the novel, as well as the ways we try to break free of convention and hold on to the people we love.

“Howard Rappaport has written a fascinating and thoroughly engaging novel, wonderfully written with remarkable historical knowledge of two of the 20th century’s most important composers, Schoenberg and Stravinsky.

For the music aficionado, it is full of references to the greatest music of these two giants, but for the novice, the work is totally understandable as a great story told by a master storyteller. 

What a joy to read, as Rappaport brings us into the world of these composers, through their European years and, more intimately, into their time together in Hollywood. Congratulations to Rappaport for this important novel.”


— Gerard Schwarz
Conductor Laureate, Seattle Symphony & Mostly Mozart Festival

Nine-time Emmy® Award Winner
Howard Rappaport from shoulders up, in front of brick wall
Janet Gregori

About Howard Rappaport

Howard Rappaport’s work has appeared in The North American Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The Madison Review. Arnold & Igor was inspired by his work as a musician, educator, and orchestral conductor. He lives in northern California with his wife and two children. This is his first novel.

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