The Song of the Lark

By: Willa Cather

Narrated by: Christine Williams

In this semiautobiographical portrait of a young artist in the making, Willa Cather takes us into the heart of a woman coming to know her deepest self. Thea Kronborg, a minister’s daughter in a provincial Colorado town, has dreams and gifts that her humble hometown will not satisfy. With the support of a few allies who recognize her rare qualities, she follows her ambitions to the big city, determined to be an opera diva.

As she moves through a series of music teachers in Chicago, Thea finds that the attitudes and standards of those around her rarely match her own. It is only when she reconnects with pure nature in a brilliant Arizona desert canyon that Thea rediscovers the sensuous, mystical openness that is the source of her art. Realizing she must protect this experience at all costs, she resolves to shed all relationships that don’t serve her higher purpose.

Willa Cather (1873 - 1947), the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of more than 15 books, is widely considered one of the most distinguished American writers of the early 20th century. She grew up in Nebraska and is best known for her depictions of frontier life on the Great Plains in novels such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark.

Public Domain (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“ The Song of the Lark is one of several works in which Cather displays her lyrical powers.” ( Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature)

The Song of the Lark

What did you love best about The Song of the Lark?

Oh, how I wished to hear Thea break out into song! Excellent story, and read most convincingly.

Christine Williams’s superb reading

Christine Williams’s reading of The Song of the Lark beautifully captures the spirit of the book. Superb.

Heart Warming

This is the other end of the Dog Eat Dog continuum. An escape to kindness.

A gorgeous book!

A masterpiece of a book, beautifully written and performed. It's no wonder it's a classic!

Ponderous

Read this because I enjoyed My Antonia. After the childhood section of the book, the story becomes strained. Full of pompous, pedantic characters, made worse by the presentation of the reader. Most characters are inscrutable, too ‘simple’ by 1/2, or unidimensional. The heroine is tortured enough for melodrama. If the reader does not speak German and isn’t conversant with German opera there are extremely long and boring segments that annoyed me. It’s Willa Cather so I perhaps had too high expectations but it was a disappointing. Kept expecting it to pick up or improve. It did not. At least for me.