“I did pay a visit to the mother and she knew Meta was somewhere out in Oklahoma, but hadn’t any idea where. That gave me little to work with.”
“So you tried to draw her out with an accusation in the press.”
Wittmann didn’t know how to respond. Castell’s observation was undeniable, but was it an accusation itself?
“Yes, Charles. I did.”
The collector paused before saying, “I’m not sure I would have proceeded that way. But I’m not sure I wouldn’t have either. In point of fact, procedural issues aside, it worked.”
“Insofar as it’s prompted this counter-article by her loyal boyfriend.”
“You’re right,” Castell said. “Let’s be careful, though, not to denigrate those we would prefer to befriend to reach our objective. I thought the article was, from what I know, accurate. My main point is this, Petr. I am still interested in making sure the manuscript is never lost again, and while I might have enjoyed owning it for a time, the tides have changed. What can you do to get me, still indirectly, still anonymously, if that’s possible, in touch with Ms. Taverner? Or even Mrs. Hajek?”
Wittmann stared at his wristwatch on the bedside table and said, “I’m pretty sure this can be accomplished through my Princeton person.”
“Mandelbaum. All right. You’ll notice I’m not abandoning you. At all. Not every transaction goes the way we conceived it. Platitude, yes, but platitudes have muscle. Comes from the French for plate, but also rectitude. Look, you’ve always been resourceful and have helped me acquire some remarkable things over the years. Let’s get this score, and if not, I would at least like to fund its scholarship, in which case we will go through my foundation. If I can’t possess it, I’d like to be associated with it. Can you make that happen?”
“I’ll do my best, Charles.”
“Good, thanks. I have to take another call now. Look forward to hearing,” and he hung up.
Wittmann didn’t know whether to scream, laugh, curse, or throw the phone at the wall. Charles Castell had offered him a way out, sure, right. But to pursue it he would have to face truths—another platitude; how they proliferate, he thought, grimacing—he didn’t want to face. One of which was that this sonata was more powerful than those who came into contact with it, possessed or didn’t possess it, played it, died preserving it.
WHEN META AND HER COMPANIONS arrived in New York, Gerrit bought a copy of his newspaper in the first airport kiosk he could find and saw the article listed at the bottom of the front page, sending readers to the Arts section, where its opening was printed above the fold along with a cropped photograph of the score. Turning a few pages inside the section, he continued reading and he saw that less had been excised from his text than he’d expected. Interesting new material had been added, material that gave the sonata richer historical background and made mention—necessary, if annoying, Gerrit realized—of the conflicting accounts about how the manuscript ended up in the United States. The byline was, as promised, shared. He was overall pleased with his first reporting on the Prague Sonata, knowing more lay ahead in the immediate future, especially after Meta and Mandelbaum met that very afternoon with the other musicologists who had agreed on short notice, setting aside busy schedules, to gather and analyze it.
“Reading something and having lived through it are such different experiences,” Meta told Gerrit, after handing the paper to Otylie, who, still in a happy daze from the flight, sat on her other side in the backseat of the cab they shared going into town from La Guardia. “Thank God you were taking notes all along. Not that it didn’t ruffle my feathers. But you couldn’t have written this otherwise.”
“Not as factually, at least,” he said.
Meta squeezed his hand.
“I don’t think it’s fully sunk in what you have managed to do, dear,” offered Otylie. “It does not seem entirely real to me, either.”
“It’s real all right,” Mandelbaum said, reaching over from the front seat to take the paper she handed him. “But, lest euphoria get in the way of less pleasant realities, we’ll need to contact Wittmann the moment we get to the city.”
Unbeknownst to Petr, Mandelbaum had booked a room for himself in the same hotel where his disquieted colleague was staying. They needed to come to some resolution about all this, and face-to-face would be best, he felt. He had consulted with Meta the day before, the two of them alone in the lounge of the Cornhusker, and once they’d determined who among the most respected authorities on the period and the composer should be invited first to inspect the discovery, the subject of Wittmann—“Bête noire extraordinaire,” groaned Paul—naturally came up.
“Sure he might have acted more collegial. But you did send me to him because you trusted his erudition and his opinion. In a weird way, I think his competitiveness, or whatever it was or is, spurred me on rather than defeated me,” Meta said.
“Remember that old palindrome, Able was I ere I saw Elba?”
“Right, you did say he’d either be my Canaan or my Elba. Well, I was more provoked, even challenged, by Petr ‘Elba’ Wittmann. You know what, though. This isn’t over yet. He could still help us and maybe himself at the same time.”
Mandelbaum saw where she was headed. “A formal statement of retraction?”
“It might allay some of the confusion he’s caused,” she said, looking past her mentor out the high-floor window and over the snow-covered buildings of Lincoln.
“I’d suggest we consider inviting him to get over himself already and put his very seasoned eyes objectively on the score, but part of me wonders if he hasn’t rendered himself an irrelevancy.” Her gaze returned to Mandelbaum, who was studying her carefully. “Getting knowledgeable, seasoned, objective eyes on the score is exactly what is most important now,” she went on, her expression firm and open. “Its composer deserves no less.”
“You’re sure you’d be willing to do that?”
“Paul, he’ll never be a friend of mine. Never someone I would personally trust. But something professional from him on this might clear his smoke and mirrors, make it so all the light is focused on the one thing here that matters most.”
“And what about this collector contact of his?”
“The manuscript’s not mine to sell, give away, or anything else,” she said. “Right now I see that as more a blessing than not. But if this man can help somehow, I’m not in the business of turning away help.”
A hastily arranged colloquy of three prominent outside experts—American, British, and German, the latter two living and teaching in the city—met in Mandelbaum’s old digs at Columbia’s music department. All agreed that it was imperative to widen the field and bring in authorities from Europe and elsewhere in America to weigh in on the discovery as soon as possible. Petr Wittmann was not a member of this first group, but after a tense conversation with Mandelbaum, it was agreed that he would extend his stay in Manhattan for another few days in order to examine the complete score. He also agreed to telephone Charles Castell, who was amenable to funding research on the manuscript as well as insuring it until an institution might be identified in which it could find a permanent home. Wittmann considered this his best and only course of action, knowing from past experience that though such arrangements would not result in a commission, Castell was generous with reimbursement of expenses and honoraria. This was his sole path and he took it with grudging consolation.
Having gone over the wording with Paul, Wittmann released a statement to the Prague journalist he had been working with, and provided it as well to Gerrit Mills for publication in his paper and anywhere else he deemed appropriate.
“On learning that Mrs. Bartošová is alive and in receipt of the sonata manuscript whose provenance and sole proprietorship have been firmly established based on internal evidence in the document itself, I wish to convey that Johana Langová, of Prague, Czech Republic, is delighted that the score has been returned to its rightful owner notwithstanding the means of its delivery, and in light
of this new information she relinquishes any claim of ownership. As for my own involvement in this matter, my concerns and actions were solely based on ensuring proper handling of a unique cultural artifact. I look forward to working with the American team, along with an international collective of musicologists, on the further study of the document and will assist them in any way I can. On a personal note, I congratulate Ms. Meta Taverner on the discovery and diligent work involved in reunifying such a remarkable document.”
Gerrit commented, “Well, I wouldn’t consider that a particularly salient example of eating humble pie, but the bastard did the best he could manage.”
“Caviar pie is more to his taste than humble,” said Mandelbaum.
Meta asked to see the statement herself. She read it through, word by word. After tucking her hair behind her ear, she turned to Otylie, sitting next to her on the couch in Kate Taverner’s apartment, and explained, as briefly as she could, what had happened and what Wittmann’s admission meant. “Sometimes in life what’s broken can’t be put back together,” she said. “Other times, like this time, what’s broken refuses to remain so.”
“This is right,” Otylie agreed, a smile illuminating her wrinkled face, not thinking at all about Petr Wittmann. “Or maybe it was never truly broken at all.”
NOT ONE TO BE RUSHED, OTYLIE’S FATHER continued to leaf through the score at his own pace, although the music dealer’s tantalizing hint that something of great consequence was to be found at the end of the first movement prodded him on. When Jaromir did finally come upon two staves of music hurriedly written in a very different hand at the bottom of the specified page, his heart leaped.
Is this—?
Yes, we were guaranteed by Karl’s son, Ludwig, that these measures, a brief sketch, are in the hand of his great-uncle and namesake. We believe it incontrovertibly proves that the sonata is by none other than Beethoven himself.
All this incontrovertible proof only served to renew Jaromir’s suspicions. If, as you’re claiming, this is a previously unknown Beethoven sonata, why haven’t you sold it before now?
With a look an adult might set on his face before gently rebuking a wayward child, the antiquarian said, My friend, you ask an interesting question. The answer is that my father, recently deceased, never offered it for purchase because he preferred to keep it for himself. As for me, I believe one cannot be a seller and collector both. Conflict of interest, bad for business. So I have decided to place it on the market along with other materials my father stashed away in order to do what any merchant must do. Pay bills and stock more inventory.
Why me rather than a museum or library? Jaromir prodded.
The man quietly coughed, looking over his shoulder, then back. We prefer to deal with individuals, as a rule. Museum directors and librarians are, believe it or not, less than expeditious when it comes to fulfilling their financial obligations. That, at least, has been our experience over the course of three generations.
Jaromir couldn’t contradict anything the seller told him, although that cough seemed manufactured. But then, people do cough. He continued to peruse the rest of the manuscript, feeling increasingly light-headed. The paper, ink, and stitching thread looked very much like those of other eighteenth-century manuscripts he already owned. The provenance was, it seemed, impeccable. The seller was established. And while the master hadn’t affixed his signature to the work, the sketch at the end of the first movement could serve as something better. It might be viewed as a bonus, in fact. Beethoven was famous for writing quick musical notes on any piece of paper that happened to be handy, to be returned to later for possible incorporation into another work.
One other thing, sir, if it might have any bearing on your decision, the merchant said, seeing that his customer was now seriously weighing the purchase.
Yes?
Karl’s son told my grandfather that he believed young Beethoven had given this manuscript to a student he’d fallen in love with, a Fräulein Maria Anna von Westerwold. And that when she broke off with him, he asked for its return. It is our working theory that the master had a fair score written out for her. This is all anecdotal, mind you, and we offer it to you with the understanding that its value doesn’t depend on the validity or accuracy of this little story. We have no way to prove or disprove it.
That would explain why it is in a copyist’s hand.
Even so.
But then, where is the original?
Precious few of Beethoven’s early manuscripts have survived, alas.
Did Ludwig, Karl’s boy Ludwig, say why it was never published?
Again, conjecture. And conjecture is not necessarily fact, but he believed that his granduncle was so upset by the breakup with this pupil and the tragic family circumstances surrounding its composition that he put it away and never returned to it.
Jaromir Láska knew that it now came down to a question of money. He had been circumspect lately, had he not? Had added nothing to his precious collection in nearly a year, instead saving a little here and there behind his wife’s back, against the day when he might be offered something very rare—no, something unique. Something that would be the crown jewel in his collection. This sonata manuscript, were he to buy it, would be just that.
The asking price he was quoted, while steep by his usual standards, didn’t seem unreasonable. He asked for a ten percent discount, given that he had been an occasional but steady customer, and also for terms. An invoice was drawn up, a down payment was tendered, and Jaromir left Vienna for Olomouc in a state of shock, of bliss, of blind triumph. He wanted to tell every passerby in the street and every fellow traveler in the coach that the neatly wrapped parcel tied with navy blue ribbon he carried under his arm was a manuscript by the greatest composer of all time. Nothing he would ever own would mean more to him than this. And if his beloved daughter never inherited anything else from him, this sonata manuscript would be a legacy, he surmised, that would afford her endless joy.
THE FIRST KNOWN PUBLIC PERFORMANCE of the Prague Sonata coincided with the 230th anniversary of Beethoven’s birthday on December 16, the same year the sonata manuscript was reunited. Mandelbaum had hastily managed to secure Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for a short-notice midday performance in New York City. The program included two other works, those that had been played by Tomáš Lang on Šporkova decades before—Haydn’s Sonata in E-flat Major and Beethoven’s first sonata in F minor—as performed by Samuel Kettle, in his first concert appearance in the United States in many years. The performance, underwritten by Charles Castell, who sat in anonymity at the back of the hall, was free and open to the public. Besides Gerrit and the Mandelbaums, Otylie Bartošová Hajek was in the audience of a hundred or so, as were Kate Taverner and Gerrit’s parents. Near them, toward the front of the auditorium, sat Meta’s friend Gillian, for whom the sonata performance was, as promised, a birthday present, just as Meta’s original introduction to Irena—the gesture that had set all this in motion—had been Gillie’s gift for her thirtieth.
Dualing prezzies, wrote Meta in her inscription to Gillie on the program. Always better than dueling ones.
Sylvie and the two Kettle children were there. Marta Hašková had flown in. Grace Sanders was in attendance with her husband, two grown children of her own, and her brother and his boyfriend. Jiří had scraped together funds to make the trek, saying, “You came to my opening, I’m here for yours.” All these friends were in attendance, together with a number of fellow musicians and musicologists, as well as Margery and other colleagues of Gerrit’s, and a nattily if datedly outfitted hairdresser from Queens who had become fast friends with Otylie in the days before the recital.
As Sam Kettle launched into the Beethoven, opus 2, no. 1, Meta sat offstage, listening in nervous ecstasy. His presence here with his family, who were all staying at her apartment in the East Village, was the fulfillment of a promise she’d made to herself in Prague to do something special for the Kettles. And that they were living under Meta
’s roof—the kids camped out under her piano, just as she’d slept under Sam’s—through Christmas and the New Year only made that fulfillment richer.
She did finally have to break down and borrow money from Mandelbaum to make it happen, but going into debt to her mentor was made easier by Otylie’s insistence that any money that would come from publishing rights or a sale to Beethoven-Haus in Bonn or any other of a number of institutions that might preserve it must be shared. Offers from the unnamed Castell, as well as several institutions, to purchase the artifact were on the table, but at this moment nothing was settled, nothing ruled out. For the time being and the immediate future, everything was focused on the sonata itself. It was real; it was not unscathed but safe. It was, in a word, beautiful.
Meta understood that there was much yet to explore, including the historical terrain in which the sonata traveled from one custodian to another and ultimately ended up in the hands of Otylie Bartošová’s father. She understood that some critics would deny Beethoven credit for this youthful music, created centuries ago at a time when he was otherwise silenced by grief for his lost mother. No matter. Even at this somewhat early juncture, after months of searching, Meta and other colleagues now had better than rudimentary ideas, solid ones indeed, to prove any naysayers wrong, knowing it would be the labor of years.
“But what are years for?” Gerrit asked her when she shared her worries with him.
Applause from the theater. Enthusiastic applause, cheering. And Sam smiling to her offstage before going back out to take another bow. Using meditative techniques she’d learned from youth, Meta cleared her mind of all things musicological and speculatively historical, and became again a pianist. A pianist at one with this sonata whose outer movements were lovely and very much of their era, but whose center movement foreshadowed, in both its light and its darkness, the compositions of a revolutionary.
The Prague Sonata Page 48