Time Will Tell (25 page)

‘So here it is,' he said, holding his hands wide. ‘You can see how it works. It begins with the
bassus
parts and the
discantus
and then soon – remarkably soon actually – the other parts enter. The tenor part works like
Missa Prolationum
– same notes, different mensuration – so you're singing slightly faster than the bass parts and, of course, at a fourth above.'

Other than Allie and Ollie who were deliberately ignoring the presentation, sitting in silence drinking their Sambucas and coffee, everyone was grouped around the manuscript. Marco and Charlie began humming their part in canon.

‘It's interesting that he doesn't use alteration and imperfection. He's using some kind of mid-way notation system, so you read it as if it's modern notation. I finally cracked that riddle.' Andrew waited for the praise that he was sure was due. Marco and Charlie, ignorant of the rules to which Andrew was referring and not caring, exchanged a look of bemusement before returning to their rendition.

‘Where did you find it?' asked Susan who, rather distractingly, had pressed her body against Andrew and was looking over his shoulder. The question delivered a rush of hot air disturbingly close to his ear.

‘Er, well, as I say, it's a secret, but let's just say somewhere in Northern France. I would tell you, but…' He shrugged, a gesture which he hoped explained his predicament and, in so doing, rubbed against Susan's breasts which were nestling against his back. Was she trying to lead him on? Was this an attempt at seduction, the first promise of erotic adventure that he had heard success brought? Would Susan, and others like her, be beating a path to his hotel door in the near future?

‘The original's safe,' he continued, ‘but I have to confirm a couple of details before I reveal it. That's why it's a secret. I'd like its first performance to coincide with its announcement to the academic world.'

‘So you want us, as a group, on our own, to perform it then? Not a collaboration with anyone else?' Emma was looking directly at Andrew. This, he understood, was a form of contract, each term outlined slowly and firmly, direct eye-contact the unspoken, binding handshake.

‘Yes,' he said, trying to match her deliberateness. ‘Of course, you'd need to get more singers, but you can do that?'

‘Oh, we all know other singers and we can certainly expand the group, but is it realistic for the first performance to be the first time anyone hears about it? For one thing, the promoter would need to know what it was before they agreed to the concert. And the way to maximise publicity would be to announce it to the world in press releases and the like. After all, at least thirty-four people are going to know about it when they rehearse it.'

Andrew had given no thought to the people who would be involved in organising a concert – the promoters, the back-room staff – or to the buyers of tickets: the audience. His imagination had been guided by stories of epoch-making first performances. The history of music tended to gloss over the prior processes, such preparations, condensing the composing of the piece, its rehearsal and administrative prelude into the singular glorious moment of its first night. Stravinsky's
Rite of Spring
apparently provoked a riot, but did that really happen? Stravinsky had written many other challenging pieces before that one. And the first performance of Handel's
Messiah
apparently had King George II leaping to his feet, so impressed was he by the Hallelujah chorus. Or was the monarch simply stretching his legs after sitting down for nearly two hours? Such mythical events were products of a falsely retrospective historical view which Andrew, in his excitement, had embraced; Emma, it was obvious, had considerably more experience and he would do well to heed it.

‘Well, obviously we'd have to let many other people know in advance,' he said to Emma, hoping his peremptory response masked his naïveté, ‘but what I mean is that you would be the group who would perform it first.'

‘We'll need to talk about this properly,' said Emma. There was no humour in her voice; this was serious. ‘I'm very excited. Who else knows? Which other musicologists, I mean?'

‘None, actually,' said Andrew. He caught a look of surprise on Emma's face. ‘I made a decision early on that I needed to be absolutely sure about a lot of things before I told anyone. You really are the first people to know.'

He offered the last observation, both flattering and defensive, in an appeal for complicity. He implied that he had maintained secrecy until he was certain of the manuscript's authenticity, partly out of respect for their professional standing; to have approached them any earlier would otherwise have compromised them. This rapid revision of his motives cast his actions as a gift: this was their opportunity to be an important chapter in the story of a major musical event.

‘What's this bit? I recognise this,' said Marco, and he hummed a three-note phrase.

‘Yeah, I do too,' agreed Charlie. ‘It's the opening phrase of
Prenez sur moi
, isn't it?'

Marco sang the same phrase but now with the French words of Ockeghem's three-part chanson, a text that invited the other singers and the listener to follow his example.

Andrew realised immediately its significance. Here, in the motet, the phrase occurred on the word
mei
, the dative form of the personal pronoun meaning ‘to me'. He could barely excuse himself for not noticing it, even if it was hidden in the middle of the texture almost like a
leitmotif
rather than, as was the convention, being part of the opening statement.
This is my piece
, Ockeghem was saying,
and here is my signature
. Andrew had spotted the use of the canon at the fourth, the interval used in
Prenez sur moi
, but failed to notice this specific musical quotation. What else had he missed? Setting aside his immediate excitement at this new proof with a reflex that he had developed over the last twenty-four hours, he claimed the insight as his own.

‘Yes,
Prenez sur moi
. You spotted it. Well done,' he said to the tenors, his praise delivered in a tone of weary superciliousness that he habitually adopted when speaking to his students.

‘Hurry up please, it's time. Hurry up please, it's time,' said Allie, relaying the brasserie's request to pay up and leave.

‘Any last Sambucas?' asked Ollie, prompting another chorus of ‘Sam-boo-kah'.

Allie and Ollie were well in their cups now, Emma noted, Allie's eyelids almost at half-mast, Ollie's eyes unnaturally lucent as if he'd picked up some new scent. There was no stopping them now and it would be unwise to, Ollie in particular likely to bridle at any suggestion that he wasn't in control.

‘It's a really interesting project,' she said to Andrew, ‘but we need to talk about it more. Can I keep this?' She pointed to the manuscript. ‘I assume you've got a copy of the original somewhere?'

‘Yes, of course. I wrote this out especially for you on the way over,' he lied. ‘It's only rough, but I'll do a proper edition and send it to you when I get home.'

‘You mean you worked on this last night on the plane? Did you get any sleep at all?'

‘Not really,' Andrew admitted.

It was extraordinary that he was still standing and explained to Emma why he looked so terrible. ‘You should get some sleep,' she said. ‘Get back to the hotel and we'll settle things up here.'

‘A hundred and twenty francs each,' shouted Allie as if on cue. ‘More if you had Sambucas. They're twelve francs each.'

Andrew was suddenly exhausted. Ahead of him lay sleep, even if it was in a sagging single bed. With people clustered around him he'd begun to feel hot and claustrophobic, the lights were too bright and, as he turned, all he saw were Susan's shiny red lips before the room started to spin. He sat down quickly and groped in his briefcase for his wallet, as voices swirled around him.

‘That's the right amount. You get back to your hotel. Are you all right on your own?' It was Emma.

He would be fine, said Andrew; he just needed sleep. He picked up his briefcase and said goodbye. Several members of the group waved and Susan pecked him on the cheek and, as the waiter unlocked the front door for him, he heard that strange chant again – ‘Sam-boo-kah! Sam-boo-kah!' – followed by screams.

The Memoirs of Geoffroy Chiron: Livre VI
ed. Francis Porter

Martius 17, 1524

The pain is much worse now. I have not slept at all this night, the bells that tolled the hour my only company. The tincture Cosset gave me for the pain has no effect and I will summon him to my bed when daylight comes. I have not eaten for three days yet I have no hunger, my stomach tender and swollen like that of a pregnant woman. I do not know why God has chosen to punish me in this way and my only hope is that my affliction upon this earth is weighed against my time in Purgatory. I pray to God and to Jesus Christ, my only saviour, and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that my suffering is brief. I have touched the bones of St Martin; I have given generously to the Church and to the poor; I have served God in His Temple throughout my life. I trust in the Lord's judgement and today I will make my full and final confession before God.

Circumdederunt me funes mortis et torrentes diabuli terruerunt me. Funes inferi circumdederunt me; praevenerunt me laquei mortis. In tribulatione mea invocabo Dominum et ad Deum meum clamabo exaudiet de templo suo vocem meam; et clamor meus ante faciem eius veniet in aures eius.
[The sorrows of death surrounded me and the torrents of iniquity troubled me. The sorrows of hell encompassed me; and the snares of death prevented me. In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and I cried to my God; and he heard my voice from his holy temple: and my cry before him came into his ears.]

 

Easter fell early in the year that Jehan composed his
Miserere mei
[1491]. Spring, he said, was a creative time in nature where the symbol of our risen Lord was manifest in the growth of plants and trees, a sign of hope and optimism; it was the autumn and winter months, the time for preserving and storing the fruits of the summer, when we transcribed the music. As the scripture says:
Omnia tempus habent et suis spatiis transeunt universa sub caelo
[All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven].

As always, I was not involved in the earliest stages of Jehan's composition. It was most frustrating. What have you been doing, I would ask him. Composing, he would reply. That, I knew, consisted of him sitting in a room on his own, thinking.

How, I asked, hoping he might ask for my help, could he keep all that music in his head? How could he test it, rearrange it, hear it? I had asked such questions about his masses and motets many times before and he had always answered them by saying that it was like the jugglers at the
Place Foire le Roi:
he needed to study the musical ideas as they tumbled over each other in the aether. I could only marvel at his great abilities, like those of Orpheus himself.

When finally spring had turned into summer then faded into autumn, he asked if I could come to his house. Knowing that the motet would be written in thirty-four parts, I brought plenty of vellum with me; I even stopped at the scriptorium in St Gatien and begged for extra supplies. He laughed when he saw me carrying such a heavy burden.

‘You won't need all that,' he said. ‘One sheet of vellum will be enough.'

I thought that he meant that we were only to work on one part at a time, and perhaps in time I would need another thirty-three. Realising this, he smiled.

‘It is a canon,' he said. ‘And a canon takes up very little room.'

Thereupon he described the design. The
bassus
part would be the model for the
tenor
part, and the
contratenor
and
discantus
parts would be canons independent of each other. He explained that it was his commentary on the old style of composition which, for too long, had privileged the
tenor
over the other parts, as a consequence of which tenor singers considered themselves more important than other members in the choir. He sat back in his chair and I took up my stylus. The piece was to be in
tempus imperfectum
with minor prolation, at a slightly slower speed than was customary because, with all those parts, the ear would not otherwise be able to discern the details.

When we had completed the
bassus
part, he dictated the Latin instructions that would instruct the other basses and the tenors how to extract their parts from that single example.

‘So now, Geoffroy, we have written sixteen parts. That didn't take long! And can you tell me, how many
mensura
we have written? I would like to get some sense of the scale of the piece.'

I added up the units of
mensura
. There were ninety-two.

‘Ah, ninety-two. A good number, don't you think?'

I mumbled something. Whatever his purpose, I assumed it was beyond my understanding.

‘Oh, and Geoffroy. Eight parts for the basses and eight for the tenors? What do you get if you multiply them?'

I knew that, as Treasurer, he was knowledgeable about arithmetic and had no need of my help to produce the answer of sixty-four. And, because he had asked the question idly, as if something new was occurring to him, I offered no answer.

‘Sixty-four,' he said. ‘Sixty-four. Ninety-two. Good numbers. Familiar numbers, don't you think?'

I nodded. They were familiar, but I couldn't work out why. I understood from his prompting that there must be some deeper significance, and I searched my memory. Psalm 64 [65]:
Tibi silens laus Deus in Sion et tibi reddetur votum. Exaudi orationem donec ad te omnis caro veniat
[A hymn, O God, becometh thee in Sion: and a vow shall be paid to thee in Jerusalem. O hear my prayer: all flesh shall come to thee.]? No. Psalm 92 [93]:
Deus ultionum, Domine Deus ultionum ostendere. Elevare qui iudicas terram redde vicissitudinem superbis
[The Lord is the God to whom revenge belongeth: the God of revenge hath acted freely. Lift up thyself, thou that judgest the earth: render a reward to the proud.]? No. Certainly, as the cube of four, sixty-four possessed a symmetry, but ninety-two did not possess similar properties. I was confused and beginning to feel rather foolish. Jehan's smile, affectionate as it was, was also beginning to annoy me. Then he gently chastised me.

‘Geoffroy Chiron. Geoffroy Chiron. Did you never as a choirboy work out the numerical value of your name? Did you never work out the cipher and did you never call each other numbers? I know you did, for I heard boys doing it all the time.'

I understood. The value of my name was ninety-two and sixty-four: ninety-two for Geoffroy and sixty-four for Chiron. I could not find the words to thank him, humbled as I was, and he smiled at me, pleased by my delight.

Then he explained that he had been inspired by further correspondences and had decided to celebrate it in musical form. His initials, J and O, had values of nine and fourteen respectively. ‘Multiply those by four and you have the number ninety-two, the same as your first name.' His name, Johannes Ockeghem, had values of eighty-one and sixty-four. Therefore there would be eight
bassus
parts and eight
tenor
parts which, when multiplied, created the number sixty-four, the value of his and my last names. And there would be nine
contratenor
parts and nine
discantus
parts which, similarly treated, gave the value of eighty-one, the value of his first name. ‘I won't even need to sign the manuscript!' he declared triumphantly.

It did not take long to complete the task. There it lay, a rough outline of a composition in thirty-four parts, yet upon the page were shown only three. It was like one of the illuminated pages by Jean Bourdichon or Jean Fouquet, not in its surface beauty but in the way that, through its density, it contained detail and beauty in miniature that could keep one occupied for hours. And as I copied it out later that evening, I began to appreciate its subtleties and discover the balance and design that Jehan had been working on all those months, an order and harmony in each of the parts and of the whole. More than ever, I was anxious to hear it. 

 

Jehan wrote to Compère to tell him that he had completed the composition. It would obviously be some time before the performance could be organised. With so many singers involved, all in different cities and towns across the lands, it would be difficult to find a date on which all could attend, and Compère was not born to administer; he could barely take care of himself.

Nevertheless, Compère wrote back immediately and assured Jehan that he would begin planning. He was still in the employ of the King, Charles VIII, who had turned his back on Tours and was travelling around the country to raise money for future wars [1491], a pursuit that required Compère to accompany him as a demonstration of the artistic aspirations of France. This frustrating, wandering lifestyle was a further threat to the planning and the performance at St Quentin, yet Compère assured Jehan that it would take place.

And, indeed, confirmation of his good intentions arrived in the form of a letter from Perchon, the famous composer, who wrote to his former teacher saying that he looked forward to seeing him at ‘the event that Compère is organising'. At that time everything seemed possible and I was happy for Jehan. He was now an old man and increasingly it was me who bore the burden of his duties to St Martin.

In the autumn of that year, we had a surprise visitor: Josquin Desprez. He had been granted two months' leave from the Sistine Chapel in Rome to obtain benefices in various churches in Northern France. When Compère had been granted his benefice at the church of St Quentin, he had done so on the understanding that he brought with him experience and commitment, of which hosting the performance of Jehan's piece was a demonstration. Yet Desprez's attitude to the benefices offered by churches in the North can be summed up in one word: money. St Omer, Bourges, Amiens and Chartres were amongst his destinations, though he concentrated on towns in the region of his birth: St Ghislain, Cambrai, Douai and Tournai.

Although Desprez was not pursuing benefices in Tours, he made the city his first stop. He seemed different. He still bore a fierce, dark countenance, yet his speech was more controlled, his anger tempered.

Jehan invited me to dinner and assured me that Desprez would, on this occasion at least, acknowledge my presence. Though I did not look forward to it, the meal passed agreeably enough. Desprez was older, and with age had come a less choleric humour, though I still did not trust him. He was clearly dissatisfied with life in Rome and complained of the politics and the favouritism, the heat and the Italians themselves. He was, at least, speaking honestly.

Jehan and he discussed music. Desprez had brought some of his recent compositions and Jehan was genuine in his admiration. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the genuine desire to forgive the differences of the past but, for whatever reason, Jehan, in answering Desprez's casual enquiry about whether he had composed anything recently, told him of his
Miserere mei.
Desprez immediately became animated, saying that he too had considered writing a larger piece, that he was interested in six-part composition and that we should not be bound by tradition and limit our expectations. Jehan did not show him the sketch, but described its construction which Desprez said excited him. And when and where would it be performed, he asked? Jehan explained that Compère was organising the event to which Desprez would obviously be invited. At the very mention of Compère's name, it was as if he was possessed by a demon. Desprez's brow thrust forward, his lips curled and his eyes turned black. But suddenly, in an instant, he became the relaxed, charming man that he had been earlier that evening. Was Jehan sure, he asked, that Compère was capable of organising this event? Could he, Desprez, perhaps help in any way? Jehan thanked him, and assured him that Compère was capable of making the necessary arrangements and neither of us thought any more of it.

Months passed and Jehan and Compère continued to correspond, though nothing further was mentioned of the plans for the performance. It was I, rather than Jehan, who was the more anxious about the fate of his composition. I urged him to contact Compère; the King still planned to invade Italy, and thus Compère, still part of the Royal retinue, was detained. Jehan, though, was not so easily seduced as I was by a glorious vision of the first performance.

After many requests, finally Jehan broached the subject in a letter. Compère's reply came as a shock. Desprez had written to Compère some time ago – not long after Desprez's visit to Tours – and informed him that, in consultation with Jehan, Desprez had now taken on the responsibility of arranging the performance of Jehan's grand motet. Desprez said that the church where he had recently obtained a benefice, St Géry in Cambrai, was better located – those invited would find it far easier to travel there, and the larger town would have no difficulty in offering hospitality to such numbers – and that Jehan had agreed. But the deception went deeper. Desprez also maintained that he had visited Jehan at Jehan's request, thereby implying that Desprez was favoured by France's oldest composer. Not only was this lie designed to advance Desprez's reputation, it was an obvious attempt to suggest that Desprez was a closer friend to Jehan than Compère.