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I greatly enjoyed this much-admired historical novel by Rose Tremain, though not quite as much as THE COLOUR, her novel of the New Zealand gold rush that followed it, and not for the reasons I expected. I knew that the protagonist would be a musician: Peter Claire, a young English lutenist who joins the court orchestra of King Christian IV of Denmark in 1629, and becomes a confidant of the King. Tremain does not put a foot wrong in describing life in the polyglot band who play in a freezing cellar so that the music can sound miraculously in the throne room above. But she is less good at describing the place of music in Peter's soul, and Peter himself tends to fade towards the edges of the picture in the latter part of the book. While the title works well as a metaphor, I missed the true insight into the life of music that Vikram Seth, for example, achieved so magnificently in AN EQUAL MUSIC. But readers who are not themselves musicians may see it differently.And certainly every other aspect of this ambitious novel is fine indeed. Tremain breaks the narrative into numerous short sections, some describing Peter Claire's life at court, some going back to the King's childhood, some taken from the journal of King's second wife (though not Queen) Kirsten Munk, others from another journal kept by Peter's former lover, an Irish Countess, and even glimpses of Peter's father and sister back home in East Anglia. The rapid shifts of perspective are not in the least confusing, and they create a group portrait of complexity and depth, based on an uncanny ability to capture the nature of the individuals within it. While there are several plot strands -- Peter's love for one of Kirsten's ladies in waiting, the King's blindness to his wife's adulteries, and his struggles to find money to keep Denmark afloat -- the real glory of the book is in its characters.For me, the most interesting figure (far eclipsing Peter himself) is the King. From childhood on, he is shown as a man of determination and vision, the capacity for deep friendship, and the need for love. But also a sufferer from chronic illness and profound depression. By opening the door to his mind, Tremain offers an insight into the burdens of kingship and the sad life of the court. Other readers, however, may respond more to her female characters -- less the sweet ones like Peter's beloved Emilia and his sister Charlotte, than Tremain's extraordinary gallery of strong-willed women: Francesca O'Fingal, the passionate Italian-Irish countess; the Dowager Queen Sofie, a miser huddled over cellars of gold in her castle at Elsinore; Magdalena, Emilia's truly wicked stepmother; Ellen Marsvin, Kirsten's scheming mother, finally stymied by her own schemes; and above all Kirsten Munk herself, the "Almost Queen," utterly selfish and sexually voracious, one of the true female monsters of modern fiction. (4.5 stars)