Sigma Alpha Iota

39 sai-national.org | Fall 2026 THE FIRE CONCERTO By Sarah Landenwich Union Square & Co., 2025 This debut novel was written by Sarah Landenwich, a classically trained pianist and writing instructor. It is a musical mystery that takes the reader from 1997 back to the time of the Romantic composers and pianists of the 19th century in Europe. Clara Bishop is a child prodigy who began performing with world class symphonies at age 12. Her longtime piano teacher is a formidable woman she calls "Madam." During a concert in Warsaw, a fire breaks out in the concert hall and Clara's hand, arm, and face are badly burned, which ends her concert career. She forsakes music and takes up residence in Austin, Texas, tending bar at the Andromeda Club. Clara receives a surprise invitation to her former instructor's home and is given an antique metronome that belonged to her ancestor, Aleksander Starza. He was a famous Polish composer and pianist of the Romantic era whose most well-known work was The Fire Concerto. It was believed that his talented pupil, Constantia Pleyel, used the metronome to kill Starza in a fit of anger. Clara and her pianist friend, Tony Park, are intrigued by the metronome's history and begin a search for the truth. They search through documents, music scores, museums, letters and journals. Each new piece of information leads to another. Clara and Tony eventually return to Warsaw to complete their research, which brings back painful memories for Clara, but provides helpful clues. The plot takes many twists and turns that get complicated at times. However, the writer successfully takes the reader along with Clara and Tony as they unravel the true story of Aleksander and Constantia. They also find a healthier relationship with each other, going from competitors to friends. The Starza and Pleyel characters are fictional, but their lives mirror so many artists of that era who struggled to create despite many obstacles such as health, finances, conflicts, and difficult relationships. Think of Beethoven, Robert and Clara Schumann, Chopin, and many others who persevered and blessed the world with their musical genius. Does Clara ever go back to playing the piano which she loved so much? By the end of the book, the reader hopes so—and the answer is there. Review by Linda Rolf, Denver Alumnae Chapter UNCHARTED TERRITORY: WHAT NUMBERS TELL US ABOUT THE BIGGEST HIT SONGS AND OURSELVES By Chris Dalla Riva Bloomsbury Academic, 2025 Chris Dalla Riva works for Audiometer, a music streaming service based in NYC where he focuses mainly on data analysis and personalization. He is also the creator of Can't Get Much Higher, a newsletter devoted to analyzing trends in pop music and discussing conclusions that he draws from the data. These experiences, combined with his background as a songwriter, make him uniquely positioned to create a book like Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. The book is a result of listening to every number one song on the Billboard Top 100 Chart since its inception in 1958 with Ricky Nelson's Poor Little Fool. In this book, Dalla Riva summarizes his examination of these songs and his subsequent exploration of his findings across six decades. The author uses the first chapter to not only establish the structure and sequence of the book, but to provide a working example of how musical eras will be presented in each subsequent chapter. After a brief history of Billboard magazine (a trade magazine that covered forms of advertising) and the Billboard Top 100, Dalla Riva discusses his initial musical "era" (1958–1961) and the pop music trends that occurred during the period (Musical eras are designated by the author and do not necessarily correspond to historical events). For example, in chapter 1, the author points out that ten out of 53 #1 songs from this time had a narrative structure (told a story) and were often concerned with death. Following trend analysis, the author devotes time to discussing the three best, three worst, and three argument-provoking songs, as denoted by the average score of a three (unnamed) judge panel. This is followed by discussing odds and ends: three songs that the author deems of note, and a chronological list of the remaining #1 songs in the time period. The remaining chapters continue in the same format, and Dalla Riva includes a detailed bibliography and a link to the data that the work was drawn from. While I wouldn't consider this book a definitive pop music history text (the fact that the eras are arbitrary, judges are unnamed, and much of the analysis was done via Spotify makes it hard to think of this book as being objective), the book is engaging, thoughtfully written, and points out many engaging topics for evaluation. It reveals many trends that may not have been readily spotted by casual listeners and is a great starting point for further discussion. In one example, in chapter 11, the author notes that in 1990 the average number of songwriters per #1 hit doubled and some of the contributing factors. Elsewhere, the phenomenon that was Milli Vanilli is discussed and how cultural perceptions can change over time. For the discussion points alone, I highly recommend reading this book. Robert Bruns is retired from the US Army after leading bands throughout the continental US and Europe. He is an SAI Friend of the Arts and an alumnus of Ithaca College (BM 1998, MM 2003), where he studied trombone with Dr. Harold Reynolds. BOOKREVIEWS

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