A combination of memoir and music history, Distant Melodies takes the reader on a journey of exploration into the related ideas of home, displacement and retreat in the lives and music of four composers whose works Edward Dusinberre has rehearsed and performed as first violinist of the Takács Quartet: Antonín Dvorák, Edward Elgar, Béla Bartók and Benjamin Britten.

Distant Melodies explores the experience of living with a piece of music over time and the ways in which engaging more closely with these composers has changed the author's own perception of home. As he learned more about Dvórâk, Bartók and Britten's American experiences, Elgar's remarkable Piano Quintet and the English landscapes that inspired it provided another way to explore the ways in which a piece of music may affirm or alter one's sense of home.

While Dusinberre's earlier book, Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet,delved into the inner workings of a string quartet, Distant Melodies charts the progress of the Takács during a period of change as the world begins to emerge from the distancing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.