1635: Music and Murder (44 page)

"Where is your violin?" Matthäus asked the question that was foremost in Franz's mind.

"At home," Isaac answered. "Franz, I will not be able to play for you in this work."

Matthäus started to expostulate, but ceased when Franz held up his hand. "Why not?" was his simple response.

"Franz, who am I?"

"Isaac, one of my very best friends." Franz wondered where this was going.

"And?" Isaac was looking at Franz with expectation.

"One of the finest musicians that it has been my very great pleasure to know, hear and play with."

"And?"

The light finally dawned in Franz's mind.

"You are your father's son."

"A Jew, not to put too fine a point on it."

Franz nodded slowly.

"I cannot play or sing in this work. I am sorry." And from the expression on his face, Isaac was indeed regretful. He looked to say something else, but shrugged instead and looked to Franz with a bit of nervousness in his expression.

Franz stood for a moment, then held out his hand for Isaac to grasp. "As you will, my friend. There will be other music to play. Until then."

Isaac wrung Franz's hand strongly, opened his mouth as if to speak, then shrugged again. He touched a hand to his forehead, then turned and left.

Franz and Matthäus stared after him. After a moment, Matthäus stirred.

"Will you let him return later?"

"Of course." Franz stared at his other friend.

"Many of the other musicians will mutter and criticize him and you."

"They have not the right." Matthäus started to object, but Franz held his hand up again. "You know his story. I know you do, for I told it to you." Matthäus nodded, remembering the story of a son declared dead. Remembered, too, how he had shivered when he heard it. "Until the others have paid the kind of price Isaac paid for his music, they have not the right to complain or criticize." Franz quirked his mouth. "And besides, religious toleration is the rule now, remember. Isaac has the courage to stand by his convictions. We should have the courage to respect that."

****

Marla looked out at her girls. "Right. Now that you can read music reasonably well, the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls choir is going to have a Christmas concert."
That
started a buzz in the ranks. "You're going to learn a lot of new songs, and you'll like most of them." She pulled a sheaf of paper out of her portfolio. Here's the first one."

The next few moments were taken up by the whisper and crinkle of paper being passed. Here and there a giggle punctuated the process.

"Take good care of those pages." Marla hid a grin as she noticed the girls rubbing at the ink on the paper and sniffing it. She'd always hated mimeographed stuff when she was in school, but now that she was on the other side of the teacher's desk she was ever so thankful that Lady Beth had managed to score one of the precious new machines. It had arrived just in time to speed up the music preparation for the choir process quite a bit, and right now she needed every edge she could get. Her already maxed-out schedule was now officially over the line into insanity, what with conducting the
Messiah
choir rehearsals four nights a week.

One of the girls held up a hand.

"Yes, Albreda?"

"This song is in Latin, Frau Linder."

"Yes, it is. And it won't be the last song you see in Latin, either. For that matter, we'll learn songs in French and Spanish for this concert, as well."

"But I'm not very good at Latin, and I don't know French or Spanish at all!" Albreda was looking a little panicked. Marla remembered that she was one of the scholarship girls. Her father was a mere accounting clerk for one of the master weavers, and she probably hadn't been exposed to other languages much.

"Ah, but you are taking Latin," Marla responded. "So that will help. And for those of you taking French or Spanish, singing songs in those languages will help you learn them. It won't be hard. Promise."

Albreda settled down somewhat, although her eyes were still a bit wide.

"Okay, everyone sing the melody this time through." Marla played an introduction on the piano, nodding where she wanted them to begin. The voices were unsure at first, but after a couple of beats they all came in.

"Adeste fideles

Laeti triumphantes

Venite, venite in Bethlehem . . ."

****

Franz looked to Ralf and Emil. "You are the lead trumpeters. Do you want to play this with the new instruments or the old? I care not, so long as you can play it in the right key."

The two men looked to each other for a long moment. Ralf, the older of the two, finally shrugged. "Let us try it with the new. If need be we can revert to the old valve-less horns, but I would rather have the valves and tuning slides."

"Then get ready, if you will."

The two musicians walked back to their seats. The rest of the orchestra ceased their conversations almost immediately, waiting expectantly. Franz waited until Ralf and Emil were seated and had their instruments in their laps before he stepped onto the podium.

"Section 12, if you please." He waited for pages to finish turning, until he could see everyone's eyes. Once he had their attention, he raised his hands. Instruments were raised to the ready at that signal. The tip of his baton gave very small movements as he counted, "Two, three, four . . . "

The broad downbeat of the
Andante con moto
beginning of
For Unto Us a Child is Born
sounded, and Franz led them onward.

****

"No, no, no!" Marla stopped the chorus with a jerk. For a moment, she looked around for something to throw, but by the time she found a pencil her self-control had reasserted itself. "That's not right. It's got to be lighter than that." She searched for an example until a mental light came on.

"How many of you folks saw
A Falcon Falls
when the ballet company staged that three months ago?"

Most of the almost fifty
Messiah
chorus members raised their hands.

"Good. You know what you sound like?" Heads shook across the front of the choir. "You sound like those clog dancing soldiers, all heavy feet and no bounce." That got a bit of a laugh.

"You remember how the ballet dancers danced, how they seemed to just barely touch the floor. That's how you must sing right here. You must dance this line, dance it lightly. There will be a time later to be strong, but right here . . . dance it with your voice." Faces showed comprehension, which encouraged Marla. She raised her hands. "From the beginning."

She gave the downbeat for Hermann on the piano, and on the second off-beat the sopranos entered, as lightly as ever she could have wished.

"And He shall purify,

And He shall purify . . ."

"Yes!" She surrendered herself to the flow of the piece.

November 1634

"
Thus saith the Lord . . . "

"Stop." Andrea Abati closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Dieter Fischer was still looking at him with that same placid but confused expression he'd been wearing all evening. Andrea scrubbed his hands over his face, then took a deep breath.

"Dieter, you are not singing a ballad to a girl you want to romance." Dieter nodded, just as he had in every conversation they'd already had this evening. "You are the prophet of God here. You are the voice of Haggai. You need to sound like that prophet, not like some love-sick swain mooning after a bit of skirt." Dieter's expression moved toward a frown—or at least as much of one as Andrea had ever seen on his face.

The voice master was beginning to wonder if all the world was playing a practical joke on him. Here, finally, he had found a voice that could sing part of his beloved
Otello
, and the man could not take direction! It was enough to send him to a monastery—well, maybe not that bad, but still . . .

A thought occurred to him.

"Dieter, have you ever known a stern old priest or pastor with a big voice?"

The confused expression was back, but Dieter nodded. "We lived in Rostock until I was fourteen. Pastor Johannes Quistorp was like that."

"Did he ever give you a fiery scolding?"

"No."

Andrea wanted to scream.

"Did you ever see him scold someone like that?"

A smile dawned on the big man's face, and he nodded. "My uncle." It was apparent he remembered the event well.

"I want you to sing like that scolding, with that kind of scorn and fire. Can you do that for me?" Dieter's eyes lit up; he nodded with fervor. "Good. Hermann, if you please."

Andrea closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall as the harpsichord sounded the introductory measure, waiting for Dieter's entrance.

"Thus saith the Lord,

The Lord of Hosts:

Yet once a little while,

And I will shake . . ."

The voice master's eyes snapped open at the first note. It was rich. It was resonant. It dripped fire and sternness. It was not the least bit romantic. Andrea listened as Dieter completed the recitative, almost spitting out the words and taking the moving lines at a run.

". . . saith the Lord of Hosts."

Dieter's final phrase was stately, proud, and forceful enough that Andrea almost thought he was hearing one of those old prophets. Whoever that old pastor was must be a veritable Elijah, that the thought of him inspired Dieter to this level. Andrea muttered a quick thank you prayer to God for that man.

"Good, Dieter. That is the sound we want." Dieter's smile was back. "Now, let us make it perfect."

****

Despite the cold weather outside, Marla was sweating by the time the evening's rehearsal was over. Part II of
Messiah
was the longest of the three parts, containing twenty-three sections to part I's twenty-one and Part III's nine.

The first half of Part II was definitely not happy music. And it didn't help that five of Part II's eleven chorus sections occurred in the first seven sections of Part II. By the end of the first two,
Behold the Lamb of God
 
and
Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs
, Marla's arm felt almost numb from the effort of dragging the singers along. They kept making the basic mistake of allowing the slow sad sections to droop in tempo.

Fortunately, the third and fourth chorus sections,
And With His Stripes We Are Healed
 
and
All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray
, were somewhat livelier. The choir did much better with those; enough so that by the end of the rehearsal Marla's mood had improved and her arm felt better. They still needed work, obviously, but a good start had been made tonight.

She dropped her hands from the final cutoff, allowing the chorus to relax.

"Okay, folks, that's it for the night. Look at your music before next rehearsal. Especially the ones we looked at tonight, the ones that seem so slow. We have to do better than we did tonight. We start practicing with the orchestra in a little over three weeks. You have to know your parts by then—all of your parts." She waved at them. "Go home."

Franz came up and set his hands to rubbing her shoulders. She started to melt.

"You are tight tonight."

Marla looked back at him. "What did you expect? You heard them. It was all I could do to keep them within eyesight of the correct tempo for
Behold the Lamb of God
, and
Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs
was even worse." She sighed, and leaned back into his arms.

"Do not be so hard, Marla. They do well." She snorted—a ladylike snort, but it was definitely a snort. "'Tis true. At least you've not had to fire any of them."

"True." The thought of what Franz had had to go through with Herwin Vogler made her pause for a moment. It was true; the chorus rehearsals had not had anyone as recalcitrant as the violist that Franz had finally discharged from the orchestra not long before the big concert last July.

Marla's mood mellowed more as the last of the knots were worked out of her neck and shoulders. She turned back to her husband, who brushed sweat-soaked tendrils of hair back behind her ears. "The revolution progresses," he said.

"Yep. But meanwhile, I'm tired. Take me home."

"As you command, my dear."

God Above, she loved that man.

****

Marla answered the knock. She opened the door to reveal a young man carrying a bundle. His family resemblance to Patroclus Zopff was so strong that this must be the storied younger brother Telemachus. Franz stepped up behind her and set a hand on her shoulder as she said, "Yes?"

"Herr Sylwester? Frau Linder?"

"Yes?" This time from Franz.

"I have . . . you must . . . my brother . . . "

Marla bit her lip to keep from giggling as the young man, obviously flustered, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He squared his shoulders, opened his eyes and started again.

"My name is Telemachus Zopff. I am come from my brother Patroclus Zopff."

Marla had to suppress another giggle as Telemachus rattled that small speech off and released a small puff of breath at the end.

"Come in, then," Franz replied. They stepped out of the doorway to allow the young printer to maneuver his bundle into the house. Marla cleared a space on the table that was serving as a desk. A moment later, Telemachus was unwrapping the bundle.

The first thing the printer held up was a familiar lavender book. "Patroclus says to say that we have completed the setting of the treatise." He handed Marla the book with a flourish. "And here is the final set of proof pages." Telemachus laid his hand on the stack of paper tied with twine.

"Good!" Marla resisted the itch to immediately untie the proof stack and get to work. It would be a bit rude, after all. She smiled at Telemachus, and was rewarded by a shy smile in return.

"Will you take some ale, Herr Telemachus?" The young man nodded vigorously in response to Franz's question. While Franz stepped out of the room to fetch the ale, Marla gestured to the nearby seats, and gathered her skirts to sit. Telemachus followed suit just as Franz reappeared with two mugs of ale for themselves and one of water for Marla. She accepted it with thanks. She still hadn't developed a taste for beer or ale. She probably never would.