1635: Music and Murder (42 page)

"First, who is this Carl Fischer, Inc. who is mentioned at the bottom of the page?"

"Actually, that was the up-time publisher who produced the full score," Marla replied. "And it wasn't a person, it was a company."

"Ah. So the G. Schirmer, Inc. on the vocal parts book is also a publisher?"

"Correct."

Patroclus pulled a pencil out of his pocket, and made a note on the sheet. "So, we can replace their names with ours."

"And the Royal Music Academy, and the Grantville Music Trust." Marla made sure those weren't left out.

"As you say." Patroclus made more notes, then looked up. "There were two publishers for the same work?"

Marla laughed. "Oh, yes. Remember, in the up-time, this was over two hundred and fifty years old. Handel and his family were no longer around to care. There were probably more publishers than that who printed this work. These were just the publishers of the copies in Grantville."

The printer thought about that, then shrugged. "As you say. My other question is, exactly what was the name of the composer? The full score and the cover and title page of the vocal parts book say Handel, but the introduction to the vocal parts book says Händel. Those are two very different words in German." Patroclus jotted them on a blank space on the sheet, but Franz had definitely heard the difference.

"Umm." Marla put her finger to her lips for a long moment. "I read something about that. Oh, yeah . . . if I remember correctly, Händel is the correct name, but he changed it to Handel after he settled in England. Seems like the English kept forgetting to include the umlaut when they printed his name, and outside of the royal family most of the English didn't know how to pronounce it. I guess he gave up fighting it. Made a virtue out of necessity, maybe."

"So, how should we do it now?"

"He was German, right? We're in Germany, right?" Both men nodded. "Then it's Händel." Patroclus penciled more notes on the title page. "Something small we can do right the second time around."

And with that, they began reviewing the music pages.

****

Lady Beth looked down at the class schedule she and Marla had just finished creating. "Okay, so you're going to teach one class of choir for now, one class of senior theory and one class of junior theory, all scheduled before noon. Casey will take the other two classes of junior theory. Hopefully by the time the enrollment grows enough to stretch those classes past the limits, we'll have some answers back from Grantville about someone taking us up on our job offers. I got some names from Wendell and sent some telegrams off right away."

Marla started gathering her notes. Lady Beth took advantage of the break in the conversation to change the subject. "Have you started your Latin yet?"

"
Amo, amas, amat.
" When their laughter was done, Marla looked to Lady Beth. "One last thing . . . I've already been approached by families wanting private music lessons for their daughters. What's the school's policy going to be on that?"

Lady Beth leaned back in her chair, ran her hands through her hair—catching the pencil as she dislodged it from behind her ear—and sighed. "The school doesn't have a policy, because I haven't given it much thought. What do you suggest?"

"You can either count it as an elective within the curriculum, charge the fees and pay me, or you can let me arrange things directly with the families and they can pay me."

"Hmm . . . I think for now let's have them connect directly with you. As time goes by, we can incorporate that into the formal curriculum if we want or need to."

"Fair enough," Marla replied. She started to stand, only to settle again when Lady Beth raised a hand to stop her.

"Are you planning to give the lessons at the school?"

"Yes."

"Hmm . . . " Lady Beth hummed a lot when she was thinking. "That means you'll be using school facilities, maybe school supplies, school piano. I think the school needs some slight compensation."

Marla looked a bit wary. "I might agree to that. How much are you thinking of?"

"Twenty-five percent."

Wariness gave way to another frown. "Nope. Too much. I might go five."

"Twenty."

"Seven."

"Fifteen."

"Nine."

"Twelve."

"Ten, and no more, or I'll teach them out of my house." Marla's tone was rock solid.

Lady Beth smiled. "You always were the most stubborn girl I knew. All right, agreed on ten percent, based on your receiving the payments from the families. How many of the girls will you take?"

"I can give an hour a day per week. Figuring a half hour lesson, which is all that most of these girls would have the stamina for, that's ten girls. However, if you want to let our agreement stand as a model, Master Andrea could take quite a few more, maybe up to twenty a week."

Lady Beth whistled. "You don't plan by halves, do you, my dear?"

"I told you my goal—I want women in music, and I want it in this generation. This is where I'm going to start."

"Agreed. And if we're going to allow adjunct private music lessons, we really ought to offer more than voice. What do you recommend?"

"There's no reason why the same model wouldn't work for all the music tutors. I could take a mix of voice and piano, maybe modern flute as well. Hermann Katzberg could teach piano, harpsichord, and possibly the lap harp. I'm sure that Franz could provide a list of men from the orchestra who would teach the various strings." She quirked her mouth sadly. "I wish we had someone to teach guitar."

Lady Beth let the silence grow for a moment. It was obvious that Marla still missed her brother Paul. "If you'd ask Franz, I'd appreciate it," she said at length.

Marla took a deep breath and nodded. Once again she gathered her things and this time she stood. Lady Beth stood as well, holding out her hand.

"I'll see you Monday morning, and we'll get you started." Marla shook hands with her, and started for the door. "And Marla . . . " The younger woman looked back over her shoulder. "I'm really glad you're going to be working with us."

An expression of pleasure crossed Marla's face.

"Thanks, Lady Beth. I'm really glad to be here."

October, 1634

"Marla!"

On her way out of the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls, focused on her afternoon schedule, Marla Linder at first didn't react when she heard her name called. When it did register, she turned and waited for the woman who was approaching her.

"Hi, Amber. What are you doing here?"

Amber Higham stopped beside Marla and looked up at her. "I had several items of business in Magdeburg, so I got a substitute teacher for my classes and made the trip."

"So what have you accomplished so far?

"I took a look at the plans for the new opera house to see if I could see any problems from a performing point of view."

Marla grinned. "Yeah, that's exciting. I can't wait for that to be done. They promised sometime next year." She laughed for a moment. "Notice me not holding my breath, though. I remember when the builders ran so long with the addition to the high school my freshman year. So, what else?"

"I just sat in on a discussion between Abbess Dorothea and Lady Beth. The Abbess let it be known she is pleased with the progress the school is making."

"That should make Lady Beth feel good. How long are you going to be in town?"

"I leave tomorrow—I have to be back for homecoming and stuff."

"Ah, yes. Can't miss that."

Amber cocked her head. "So, how are you doing? I hear you're pretty busy these days."

The two women turned and started toward the door.

"Busy . . . that's too mild a word, I think." Marla snorted. "I thought I had a pretty good idea of what this school stuff would be like, what kind of demands it would make. I mean, I had assisted with children's choir at church, even taught it some. I had worked with Mr. Wendell as a student conductor, so I thought I had some idea of how to prepare for that. I had the training to be a teacher after the Ring fell. And I walked that bunch of hard-headed Germans through the history of up-time music last year." The two women shared a smile at that, since the "hard-headed Germans" were Marla's husband Franz and several of their best friends. "But having three sets of preparation to do, plus teach the lessons, plus work on my own repertoire, has turned out to require more time than I thought it would. I've got to spend more time on the Reinecke piece, or I'll never be ready to play it next year."

"Is that the
Sonata "Undine"
that Heinrich mentioned?"

"Aha! The truth comes out. You came to see Master Schütz." Marla smirked at Amber, who wrinkled her nose back at the younger woman. "Yeah, that's the one." Marla opened the door, and they stepped out into the brisk autumn air. "I only have the music to it because my flute teacher had lent me his copy just before the Ring fell. I heard him play it once, and just absolutely fell in love with it. But it is
so
hard. I've been practicing for months, and still haven't got the first movement right."

Amber shivered, wrapping her coat around herself. "I think I've heard it done. As I recall, it sounded like a bear. Can you learn it in time?"

"I will do my dead-level best. If I can't play it, it won't be because of lack of trying." Marla tried to calm her doubts with outspoken assurance.

"Then you will succeed." Amber's matter-of-fact acceptance gave Marla a lift. "So, how do you like teaching?"

Marla smiled in a grand way as the two women started down the steps. "Oh, I love it, even with the demands on my time. I've got over fifty girls in the choir now, and it's so much fun. They're still learning to read music and to follow my lead as a conductor, but they're making real progress. We're working on music for a Christmas concert."

"That's good," Amber responded. "How are you voicing them?"

"Soprano and alto, for now. After the first of the year, I'll go to soprano I and II and alto. And my poor alsos, as well."

"Alsos?"

Marla could hear Amber's eyebrows lifting, even though she wasn't looking at her as they walked along. "Yes, the girls who can't sing soprano or alto. They just sing also. I have one girl that seems to be a hopeless monotone, and two, no, three who haven't learned how to sing what they hear." She shuddered. "It's actually worse when they're almost on pitch than when they're not. At least when they're wandering they might accidentally stumble on a harmony."

Amber reached over and patted her on the arm.

"I'm sure you'll do fine, my dear."

"I'll have them for several more years, so maybe I'll get through to them before they leave."

They stopped at the door to Amber's carriage.

"Can I give you a ride anywhere?"

Marla pushed her sleeve up to look at the man's wristwatch strapped to her arm. "Well, actually, I'm running a bit late. If you could drop me by the Academy's building, I'd appreciate it. I really don't want to hear Master Andrea being sarcastic about my being late—again."

"Heavens, we wouldn't want that." The two women shared a smile. "Let's go, then."

It only took a moment to settle in their seats and start the carriage rolling. Marla was enjoying being out of the wind when Amber said, "I meant to tell you, I really enjoyed the performance of Master Giacomo's
Lament for a Fallen Eagle
the other night. I think his new arrangement of it is even more powerful than the original that you did last year."

"Mmm." Marla closed her eyes and smiled dreamily. "Oh, yes." She opened her eyes again and looked at Amber. "Mind you, I'll always have a fondness for the original solo version, since that was basically written for me. However, having the full orchestra accompaniment and getting to sing with Andrea . . . that was as close to heaven as I've been since the day I got married."

"I suspect Master Giacomo was pleased as well."

Marla laughed. "He was like a kid taken to an ice cream shop and told he could have whatever he wanted. I've never seen a grown man almost giddy, before." She laughed again. "It was really funny during rehearsals. He kept trying to be serious, but then the smiles and chortles would leak out."

The carriage ran over a particularly large bump, which stopped the conversation for a moment.

"So," Amber started again, "I hear you're working on
Messiah.
What's your progress?"

"Good. Our printers, the Zopffs, have finished printing the vocal parts books that we require. They've passed them to Mappe the binder, who's finished binding Franz's copy of the score and should finish binding the choir copies next week. Then he'll start binding the presentation copies of the score and part book."

"That's very good. Maybe Mary's music account will stop hemorrhaging silver after that." Amber smiled at Marla's stricken expression, reaching across to pat her arm again. "That's one of the things that Lady Beth and I needed to talk about. It's not that bad, dear. And your idea of having the nobility bid on the autographed copies of the first edition has fed a lot of silver back to us."

The carriage pulled to a stop. Marla exited, then leaned back through the door. "Forgot to tell you. Andrea's pretty much done with the vocal auditions. We start rehearsing as soon as the vocal parts books are ready."

"Now there's cause for a hallelujah."

****

Marla opened the door of the house that was the temporary quarters of the Royal Academy of Music, Franz standing behind her. This admitted Friederich Mappe and his journeyman, followed by Patroclus Zopff, all of whose arms were filled with bundles of books.

"We have arrived, Frau Marla," announced the binder, "with the last of the parts books."

"Great! Bring them over here, please." She supervised the placing of the bundles on a side table, then picked one of the books up to examine it. Pages were flipped through, printing was examined randomly, paper binding was tested. The book passed muster with flying colors, and she placed it back in the bundle.

"Good job, both of you. Thank you for a job well done." They shared a moment or two of additional conversation, then the binders excused themselves, leaving Patroclus behind.