1959: Music and writing match up

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Tags: Arts, books, music, winter-2009

What do you do when you have competing loves of music and writing? Combine them, of course.

Juliet Hoey (Courtesy Notebook: magazine. Photo: Fran Flynn)

Arts graduate Juliet Hoey has done just that, marrying a flair for writing with a passion for music in her recently released suspense novel, The Sixth Partita.

Based on Bach’s keyboard composition of the same name, the book is a psychological thriller that follows a young Brisbane pianist who overcomes debilitating stage fright to win a scholarship to study music in London.

Having conquered her fear of performing, the pianist is soon faced with the terrifying danger of a stalker who shadows her, basing his stalking upon Bach’s Sixth Partita, which the heroine is studying.

Mrs Hoey’s own history parallels some of the heroine’s experiences – except for the stalking part, of course.

After graduating from Queensland Conservatorium in piano, she studied the Sixth Partita in England under acclaimed pianist Denis Matthews, a specialist in Bach’s keyboard works.

“I performed the Partita several times, including a broadcast with 4MBS radio,” Mrs Hoey said.

“For years afterwards, I was haunted by this dark and unusual work, one of the most profound pieces Bach ever wrote.

“Gradually, the very character of the music itself suggested to me the scenario of someone being stalked.

“This germ of an idea took hold of my imagination and grew into a full-blown novel.

“The partita has six movements (sections) and I could so clearly envisage a disturbed personality using each movement as a template for tormenting his victim.”

The Sixth Partita is Mrs Hoey’s second published book after Under the Mulberry Tree, a non-fiction description of a Bulimba childhood.

She has also written numerous articles and poems, and three mini operas for children, including The Loaded Dog, which toured throughout Queensland with the Arts Council.

Mrs Hoey said her novel-writing career stretched back to a family holiday on Bribie Island when she was just nine years old.

“I had forgotten to bring any books. What better solution than to write my own?” she said.

“I was very lucky to come from a family of voracious readers of Celtic extraction who were more than blessed with the Irish gift of the gab.

“So for a young future writer, this was a huge advantage, because not only did I hear nothing but the very best of English in the home, but I grew up loving words for their own sake and discovering just what you could do with them.”

While Mrs Hoey said music had always won over writing “by a whisker” throughout her life – she has performed, taught, adjudicated and examined on piano and cello – she could see writing coming increasingly to the fore in her latter years.

“Now that I am older and family responsibilities are so much less, I would like to concentrate more on my writing,” she said.

“I think that, chronologically, the music had to come first. You see, for physical reasons, you have to develop musical technical skills when young or at the latest, middle age.

“However, you can write at any age because, unlike music practice, which is extremely demanding physically as well as mentally, writing is only mental.”
Mrs Hoey credits much of her skill with the English language to her studies at UQ.

“I’d have to say that the best thing about my arts course at UQ was the training of a capacity for critical thinking,” she said.

“I was taught to think for myself – regurgitations of ‘expert’ commentaries swiftly got the red pen from such exalted persons as Professor Russell, Andy Thompson and Cecil Hadgraft – wonderful academics who demanded nothing but the best.”

The Sixth Partita is published by Zeus Publications.

By Tegan Taylor

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