1635: Music and Murder (48 page)

"As it happens, we have one last song to sing tonight, even though it's not in the program. It's a fun song, so we hope you enjoy it as well."

Lady Beth sagged back against the wall with visions of the girls singing 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus', or something equally inane. She watched as Marla raised her hands again and launched the girls into song.

The melody was very familiar. She recognized it in the first measure of the song. But the words—they weren't what she expected. It wasn't until the first phrase was completed that Lady Beth realized what she was hearing. She clapped both hands over her mouth to keep herself from laughing out loud until she could gain control of herself. Once she thought she could trust her voice, she dropped her hands and leaned over to Casey, who had a hand up to cover her face as her shoulders shook.

"Tell me . . . " Lady Beth had to stop and force down a giggle that was trying to climb out of her throat. "Please tell me that isn't 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer' in Latin."

"I can't . . . " Casey whispered back, " . . . because it is."

"Where . . . how . . . "

"Marla showed me the music. An up-time church music director named Philip Brunelle did it. I don't know where she found it."

"You knew about this?" Implied was, "and you didn't tell me?"

"Mm-hmm. She wanted it to be a surprise."

Lady Beth forced more giggles down. "Oh, it is that."

The song finished a moment later, amidst the chuckles and guffaws and clapping of the parents and patrons. As she joined the laughter and applause, Lady Beth decided that not only was the concert a success, but so was Marla.

Monday, January 1, 1635
The Feast of the Solemnity of Mary

Master Giacomo Carissimi looked around the great room. In front of him he could see Admiral Simpson and Mary, returned from her adventures. He could see a few other naval uniforms in the room. With Mary and the admiral were Jere and Lady Beth Haygood, Mary's voice and hand for the arts programs in Magdeburg. The two women were looking at the program and chattering away. Giacomo smiled when he noticed that both husbands looked to be a bit bored.

Giacomo's friend Girolamo Zenti sat to one side. To the other was Master Heinrich Schütz with Amber Higham on his arm and accompanied by his assistant Lucas Amsel.

He was ready for the Royal and Imperial Opera Hall to be completed. This time next year the concerts would perhaps be held in a proper hall, not just in the biggest room that could be found.

Conversations washed around him as he thought about that: about the stage where operas –including his own
Brutus
, completed earlier in the year— and ballets and concerts would be staged, about the organ to be built, about the oh so many details that had to be worked out with Kelly Construction and then monitored. A lot to do . . . but when it was done, what a pleasure it would be!

"Master Giacomo!" Girolamo's voice was quite loud.

He was startled. "Yes?"

Everyone laughed.

"See?" Girolamo said. "He was off in paradise, thinking about something undoubtedly to do with music. What was it this time, master, the treatises to be published?"

"No," Giacomo replied. "If you must know, I was thinking about the new opera hall." His expression was sober, but when everyone laughed he laughed with them.

At that moment, as if by signal, people all over the room began standing. Within a moment, everyone was standing, including Giacomo and his friends. He watched as the royal family, King Gustav and Princess Kristina, proceeded to the royal seating area, followed by the Stearns family and Don Francisco Nasi. Once the king was seated, everyone sat.

Giacomo leaned forward a little with anticipation.

****

Franz stepped through the door of the great room and strode to the podium. He already knew the room was filled to the bursting point. Marla had already told him that up-time fire-marshals (whatever they were) would have prevented the performance on the grounds of too many people in the building. There were more people here than for the July concert, more glittering dress, more jewels, more . . . everything. Some of that was due to Mary Simpson being present in Magdeburg again, spurring her arts league cohorts to achieve her goals. But even more of it was due to the two people present in the royal seats tonight. He came to a stop beside the podium, laid his hand on the music stand and made two bows: one directly to the presence of Princess Kristina and her father, Gustav Adolph II, King of Sweden and Emperor of the United States of Europe; the other to the audience in general.

****

Marla was so excited she was almost vibrating where she stood next to Master Andrea in the front row of the soprano section. This was it! Tonight! The first performance of
Messiah
in this universe, this history, this Europe, the first of several performances this week. She was sure that the audience of nobility and influential burghers would accept it. But to her, because of the work of the Zopffs, this was the first step in bringing all of the up-time music to Europe. Tonight!

Master Andrea leaned toward her ever so slightly, and whispered from the side of his mouth, "Stop bouncing!"

****

Franz stepped onto the podium and drew his baton from his sleeve. Holding it in both hands, he looked around the performers gathered before him; the orchestra on the floor, and the choir of fifty voices on the risers behind the instruments. His gaze ended on his wife, almost luminescent in her blue gown, and he touched a fingertip to his lips for her. Her smile broadened as he thought he saw her nose wiggle in reply.

He looked down at the baton held before him in both hands and took a deep breath. When he raised his head again, he found all eyes on him, waiting expectantly. With deliberation he raised his hands. Instruments were lifted to the ready positions. Vocalists focused on him even more intently.

With a slight lift of the baton, he led them into the wonder of
Messiah.

****

Master Heinrich Schütz closed his eyes and let his chin rest on his chest. His statement at the beginning of the
Messiah
adventure that he had expected to learn from Master Händel had been nothing but the truth. He had studied the music until he almost had the full score—he had copy number two—memorized. He had been present in as many of the rehearsals as he could manage, including two of the full dress rehearsals. But tonight, tonight was when he would put the capstone on his learning, here in the audience as it was performed for the first time. Here where he would feel the feelings of the audience.

Schütz had learned much of the man Johann Sebastian Bach, had read and heard much of his music. There was no question in his mind that of the two, Bach and Händel, Bach was the superior musician. His music was often exquisite, often powerful, and always so very well done. As a contrapuntalist, in particular, Händel could not be compared to Bach. Yet Schütz in many ways preferred Händel's music—there was a quality to it, a . . . a vivacity in most of it that was sometimes lacking in Bach's. And so, tonight, he was to hear the masterwork of Georg Friederich Händel.

The opening chorale section of the opening section, the
Sinfonia
, sounded,
forte
and deliberate. It was indeed a stately piece, and Schütz soaked it in. It repeated in a
piano
dynamic, almost as if there was a quiet echo in the room, concluding in a sustained chord.

He opened his eyes to watch as Franz gave the cut-off for the chord, then literally in the next moment gave the attack to begin the fugal section of the
Sinfonia.
The violins carried the opening line alone, until four quick measures later Franz cued the second violins to their entrance, followed four measures later by the violas, cellos and basses. There had been several discussions, Heinrich remembered, as to what tempo this section should be played at—the slower tempo that was the score's direction, or the faster tempo that was more traditionally used. He was glad to hear that Franz had settled on the latter.

Eyes closed again, Schütz listened as the string parts chased each other through the fugal section, now
forte
, now
mezzo-forte
, now
forte
again, until they reached the concluding chords.

****

There was something in the air tonight, Marla decided; something that conducted excitement. The choir had reached that fine point where every person was so focused, so poised, so
ready
for what was coming that the air almost sizzled. Her brother would have said they had their game on.

The tenor soloist stepped forward. Archard Daecher looked like a walking skeleton, but the young man had a voice that in its own way was nearly the equal of Dieter Fisher's. Marla could see heads nodding in the audience as he sang the opening words of the arioso
Comfort Ye, My People
.

****

"The voice of him

That crieth in the wilderness,

'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Make straight in the desert

A highway for our God.'"

Master Giacomo Carissimi sighed as the tenor arioso ended with that declamation. Such a strong voice. Such precision in the singing. His friends Master Andrea and Frau Marla had done well indeed in preparing the singers if they were all up to this plane of musical offerings.

****

Mary Simpson smiled as the tenor launched into the air
Every Valley Shall Be Exalted
. Oh, how she had missed this music. It had been part of the annual cycle of great music that had once been part of her life as the Lady of Pittsburgh. Every Christmas and Easter, all or part of
Messiah
was being performed somewhere in town, and she almost always managed to attend at least one performance. She hadn't realized how much she had missed it until she made it back to Magdeburg after her adventures and discovered that her arts league had marched on without her. Did they ever! First the July orchestra concert, and now this staging of the greatest of oratorios, which did a lot to fill a void in her heart.

She was glad that Marla wasn't so traditional that she staged the work in the original voicing and instrumentation. Mary had never been fond of the massive performances that had been so common at one time—three hundred voice choirs, and the like—but she did like something larger than the sixteen singers and twenty instrumentalists that were what Handel—no, Händel, must get that right—had used in the original performances. The fuller sound was appropriate.

Mary shook her head.
Enough thinking, woman. Listen to the music.
She abandoned herself to the sound of the finest of the tenor selections of the work, letting the sheer beauty of it drive every thought from her mind.

****

The evening progressed. The opening chorus
And the Glory of the Lord
was received well by the audience—as it should have been, Master Giacomo decided. The voices were so together as to sound as if they were produced by one throat. Hearing the music like this had so much more impact and beauty even than the recordings that he had heard in Grantville. No matter how beautiful the sound of the recording, it was not the same.

This was the future! This was what he was working for, why he had accepted the challenge from the royal family of establishing the Royal Academy of Music—to bring this music to the world.

****

Dieter Fischer stepped back into the ranks of the men. His
basso
had been appropriately
profundo
on
Thus Saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts
and
But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming
. His huge voice had almost made the audience's curls wave, Franz thought to himself. No wonder Master Andrea had worked so much with him.

The chorus
And He Shall Purify the Sons of Levi
went well, with the appropriate parts light and dancing as Marla had drilled into the singers. He smiled a little as he led them, having a brief flash of the rehearsal where she had compared the singers to heavy-footed dancers.

Wilmod Eichelberger, the twelve year-old boy who had earned the contralto solos—much to everyone else's surprise—stepped forward to sing
O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion
. Some of the women in the alto section had resented that choice at first, but by now all were behind him. Franz suppressed a wince when he recalled what Andrea Abati had said about the boy: "If young Wilmod had been born in Italy, he would have been a
gentilhuomo
of some note." That was high praise from the sometimes acerbic Italian; high praise, indeed. But it still hurt to think about.

Franz caught Wilmod's glance, raised his baton, and cued the orchestra for the beginning of the recitative and solo.

****

" . . . the Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

Marla took a deep breath as the choir released the last note and the orchestra finished the conclusion to
For Unto Us a Child Is Born
. So far everything had gone well. Next up was the
Pifa
, or
Pastoral Symphony
. After the opening
Sinfonia
, it was the only purely orchestral selection in the work. Its placement in the work was fortunate, coming as it did after the longest choral section. It gave all the singers a chance to catch their breaths, especially she and Andrea, who would be singing solos after the
Pifa
was done.

The orchestra was doing a superb job on this, she noted with a slight smile. But then, if there was any one section that they should play perfectly, it should be this one. When Franz had told her of what happened on the day when the players had tried to slough their way through the
Pifa
, she hadn't known how to react. Did she go strangle some players, did she remonstrate with Franz for being so harsh with them, or did she chew her nails about something like that coming up so late in the rehearsal process? In the end, she had settled on feeling very proud of how Franz had handled the whole thing. It showed a mature grace that she wasn't sure she could have measured up to.

Oops, that was the end of the Pifa
. Time to sing again.