MUSIC is “seriously powerful. But it’s not always desirable.” So writes Emily MacGregor, a musicologist, whose guitarist father died suddenly, leaving her in the depths of grief. In this beautiful, moving, and rigorously honest memoir, we are taken on an emotional, musical, and geographical journey, and into a “dialogue with organized sound” as she navigates her anger at music itself.

Anyone who has lost a loved one will empathise with MacGregor’s journey — the bewilderment, the numbness, the way belongings are left just as they were before death — in this instance, the music that he was practising on the music stand, including Rumores de la caleta, a flamenco inspired-piece by Isaac Albéniz.

MacGregor is forced to redefine her relationship with music, which was, for her “. . . about self, about vulnerability, about intimacy . . . breathing and being. That can’t exist in a time of sudden loss, when you pull the drawbridge high.” Music became intolerable.

Like the trajectory of grief itself, the narrative of the book moves from numbness to anger, tears to denial, from England to the US and to Spain. The musical journey is likewise unpredictable, from Albéniz to Boulanger, from Chopin to Coltrane, from Hendrix to Mahler. At times, she finds music offensive, as evidenced by an episode at a Mozart concert in the Albert Hall, where she wants to stand up and shout how pointless it all is. Such a profound “realization” shakes the foundations of identity and finds that TV dramas and podcasts become a more helpful distraction.

But, in her travels, MacGregor eventually finds a way back to music and to music’s connection with both her father’s memory and her friends in the present. In southern Spain, she listens to Rumores de la caleta, allowing herself to feel the loss through the sound. But the impact of this book is not all about the ending: it is about the journey. MacGregor’s story resonated powerfully with me and will, I am sure, with many more.

The Revd Dr Jonathan Arnold is Michael Ramsey Professor of Faith, Culture and the Arts at the University of Kent, and Executive Director of the Social Justice Network, in the diocese of Canterbury.

While the Music Lasts: A memoir of music, grief and joy
Emily MacGregor
Duckworth Books £20
(978-1-914613-63-0)
Church Times Bookshop £18