On one level Antonietta resembles Lloyd C. Douglas's The Robe (1942).

Christ's robe exerted an influence on all who wore or touched it; Antonietta inspires music and genius and erotic impulses whenever she is played. Robert Browning's "Pippa Passes" features a little servant girl on holiday whose joy and innocence influences everyone she meets. The use of a physical object which is seen as a fetish is almost as old in literature as it is in religion, a sword like Excalibur for example, or the Holy Grail also so much a part of Arthurian legend.

Novels concerning music and musicians are also fairly common. Aldous Huxley's experimental novel Point Counter Point (1928) derives its technique from music and gains its effects from stating themes, then counterpoints, then develops each separately, then restates both, repeating motifs and using abrupt transitions. Thomas Mann uses similar motifs in many of his...