1636- the Flight of the Nightingale

by David Carrico

  “Can he understand me?” Staci asked.

  Although it was not a rhetorical question, Casey had no answer.

  * * *

  For a long moment Johann observed the closed door, then gave a sharp nod and turned away.

  Staci, he mused to himself. She was a woman of passion, he decided. A woman who knew what she wanted and was not afraid to say so and to work to that end. He liked that she understood his passion in turn.

  Thoughts crossed Johann’s mind of Barbara Hoffmann, daughter of Johann Hoffmann, Stadtpfeifer in Erfurt, his former employer. He knew there was an assumption on the part of the father and daughter that he would marry Barbara. It was such a common thing, that an ambitious musician would find an assistant’s place with such a man as the Stadtpfeifer, marry one of his daughters, and eventually assume the place of the father when he died or retired.

  Johann tried to bring Barbara’s visage to mind: round face, almost doughy in complexion, framed by limp brown hair, with weak short-sighted eyes peering out at the world in constant confusion and startlement. Another’s face kept forming in his mind: heart-shaped, with golden hazel eyes shining dancing gleaming above smiling lips.

  His steps slowed, then stopped. Could he even think of returning to Erfurt now? Could he even think of returning to Barbara—poor, placid, insipid Barbara?

  He became aware of someone standing nearby, and looked over to see a city watchman scrutinizing him. “Are you drunk, fellow?”

  “No, merely reaching a decision.”

  The watchman looked at him some more, then nodded. “Be on your way, then. Night streets are not for good citizens.”

  Johann took his advice and headed for his lodgings.

  Grantville, Johann mused as he wandered, such changes you have wrought. You have rocked the crucible of Europe, winnowed the ranks of the mighty, disconcerted the minds of the philosophers and scholars and pastors. Yet even in the midst of that you have deigned to reach down and touch the life of one poor musician.

  His steps slowed, then stopped again. “God,” Johann whispered. “You are indeed an Escher. What would have been my life is now revealed to be merely a figment, a parody, of what will now come to pass. I do not know your will for me for the future, but I pray that it includes both the music of Sebastian and the presence of Anastasia Matowski.”

  Interlude

  Magdeburg

  Early December 1634

  Johann Bach stepped into the room. He saw Lady Beth Haygood glance toward the door, notice him, and immediately begin moving in his direction even as she continued her conversation with a woman Johann did not know.

  “Master Bach, so good of you to come.” Frau Haygood held out her hand.

  Johann knew enough not to bow over her hand; up-timers by and large were rather egalitarian, he had found. Instead, he simply gave her the warm handshake he would have given another master musician. “Thank you for inviting me,” he replied. He looked around, then looked down at his plain coat. “I fear that I may be out of place.”

  “Nonsense.” Lady Beth gave a ladylike snort, if there was such a thing. “You were invited, you came, therefore you are exactly in your place. Everyone knows the rules by now, but if anyone sneers at you, feel free to sneer right back at him—or her, as the case may be.” The expression on her face could only be described as a grin, and a large one at that. Johann returned a smile to her grin, and nodded. “Now, find yourself a glass and join the throng. There must be someone here you know.” She turned away with another grin.

  The invitation to attend one of Frau Haygood’s salons had been unexpected. Twice a month or so she would gather an eclectic mix of people from Magdeburg and its growing exurb for an evening of conversation, sometime collaboration, and occasional confrontation. The practice had actually been started by Mary Simpson early in 1634 in order to bring together people that she felt should know each other, and had been continued by Lady Beth after Mary had begun her travels. The attendees included some of the most influential, important, prominent, and accomplished people in the land, drawn from all manner of disciplines and offices.

  Johann was aware that his being issued an invitation marked his arrival in the highest levels of Magdeburg society, and his approval by its guardians. It was flattering, and for all that he had dealt with influential patrons several times in his past, a bit daunting as well. He squared his shoulders and straightened his spine, looked around once more, and stepped into the current.

  “Would you care for wine, sir?”

  Johann looked toward the voice and saw a youth dressed in a short white jacket and up-timer-style long pants balancing a tray. He nodded. “What do you have?”

  The youth pointed to various glasses as he spoke. “Black Muscat, Riesling, and Elbling.”

  Johann fingered his chin, read the name on the young man’s pewter badge, and said, “What do you suggest, Barnabas?”

  The young man looked around, turned slightly and leaned his head close to Johann’s. “The Muscat is barely drinkable,” he murmured, “and the Riesling and Elbling are not much better than okay.” There was that American slang again, Johann thought. “The war, you know. But my friend Jacob is at the bar in the corner, and he has a couple of bottles of a good Hungarian Aszú under the bar. Tell him I sent you and he’ll fix you up.”

  Barnabas straightened, and continued in a normal voice. “The bar also has coffee and purified water, sir.” He pointed in the direction of the bar.

  Johann nodded his thanks and made his way to the bar, which looked like nothing so much as a wide board laid over two barrels and draped with a table cloth. He knocked once on the bar. At the sound, the young man behind the bar straightened. In dress he was the twin of Barnabas, except that his badge read “Jacob.” Physically, however, he was shorter and stockier, but looked to be about the same age as his friend.

  “May I help you, Master Bach?”

  Johann was taken a bit aback. “How do you know me?”

  Jacob grinned. “Frau Haygood always makes sure we know who was invited, and usually sees to it that we have a description. Besides, I heard her greet you when you entered.” He pointed to a couple of small kegs on stands. “I do have some schnapps and Weinbrand, as well as some fresh coffee if you desire it.”

  Johann nodded, impressed by the organization and attention to detail this implied. “Barnabas said you had some Aszú.” He kept his voice low.

  “Yes, Master Bach.” Jacob busied himself, selecting a yellow wineglass, holding it below the level of the counter as he pulled a decanter from under the counter to fill it. He placed it in front of Johann. “Here you are, sir.” He glanced at a clear glass jar at the end of the counter which contained several coins and a few of the Grantville bills. Johann took his meaning and felt in his pocket. He pulled a single one-dollar bill from the money clip he was now carrying and placed it in the jar. Jacob smiled at him in return. “Thank you, sir.”

  The Aszú was good, Johann decided after taking a sample of the wine. In fact, from his limited experience, it was better than good; well worth his contribution to the “tip” jar—another innovation from the up-timers. It was not the kind of wine that an assistant small-town music master was offered very often, and he decided that he would savor every drop.

  With another nod to Jacob, Johann turned away from the bar and began a slow stroll around the perimeter of the salon. Frau Haygood, as had Frau Simpson before her, varied the locales of her gatherings. One night might be at the house of a prosperous burgher; another in the town home of one of the Adel. He had heard that an early salon had even been held at the newly rebuilt Rathaus. The salon before this one had been held at the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls, where Frau Haygood was headmistress.

  Tonight—Johann grinned for a moment—tonight was held at the guild house of the Brewer’s Guild. He knew that the up-timers had a pronounced taste for beer over wine, so it didn’t surprise him that Frau Haygood had chosen to favor this particular g
uild. Too, from what he could tell, the way the guild would license anyone to brew beer, from the largest brewery to the youngest house frau who wanted to brew for her husband and his brothers, would appeal to the open-mindedness of the up-timers.

  But the reality of it, he decided, was that the weightiest factor of the choice of the guild house as tonight’s venue was the simple fact that it was one of the few spaces in Magdeburg, outside of the churches, that was with purpose designed for gatherings of people. There were rooms of various sizes in the building, and he knew from experience that the guild made more than a bit of coin from renting those rooms to families and groups for celebrations and meetings. He’d made a bit of coin himself playing with other members of the Magdeburg Symphony Orchestra at wedding celebrations and other parties.

  Johann looked into the various side rooms as he strolled past them. Here and there through his promenade he noticed people that he knew, most of whom were engaged in conversation with others. One or two who caught his eye nodded to him, but none offered to bring him into their immediate circles. But before long he heard the sound of a piano cutting through the hum of voices.

  His attention firmly attracted, Johann followed the sound to a corner of the room. Where before he had drifted on the currents of conversation, now he was as a vessel driven by the wind to his destination where he found Marla Linder seated at the keyboard of a piano. It was not a grand piano; not of a length that would compare to the Zenti piano that had been gifted to the emperor by that famed Italian craftsman. Rather, it was of the type called a baby grand by the up-timers. For all that it was smaller, he decided, it had a nice tone.

  Frau Marla was playing something very slow, not quite a largo tempo, but not far from it either, with a slow arpeggio in the right and plain chords in the bass, over all of which was a melody that almost sang. It was a simple piece, really; a child’s piece, almost. Yet in her charge it was an offering of lyrical beauty; not exactly understated but a work so bare of disguising adornment that Johann knew that the composer had to have been an up-timer of superlative skill, for no down-timer could have written the harmonies in the piece—not yet, anyway.

  Johann’s steps had carried him to stand behind the young woman as she drew the piece to a close with a series of quiet chords in the bass. She finished the last one, and let the resonances of the strings ring out and gradually fade away. At length she lifted her hands from the keyboard and let the strings damp.

  “Brava, Marla.” Someone spoke before Johann was able to open his mouth. He focused on the area just to the right of the piano, and saw what looked for all the world to him to be a musical tribunal: Maestro Giacomo Carissimi, master of the Royal and Imperial Academy of Music, was seated in the center, flanked on the right by Master Heinrich Schütz, Kapellmeister to the Vasa court in Magdeburg and on the left by Master Andrea Abati, the noted gentiluomo from Rome, now a teacher and producer here in Magdeburg.

  “Brava,” Maestro Carissimi repeated. His fellow “judges” nodded in agreement.

  “Bellissima,” Abati added. His soprano voice never failed to take Johann by surprise. Abati was his first contact with a castrato, and whenever he thought of what had been done to the young boy who grew into Andrea Abati, Johann wanted to fold his hands over his groin in protection. But he had to admit the man had a superlative voice of a most beautiful, almost haunting timbre.

  Master Schütz looked beyond Marla. “Ah, there you are, Master Bach. Come, pull up a chair and join us. Frau Marla has been arguing for some little time now that all arts, but most particularly music, need no reason for their existence but their existence. It seems to become a topic of discussion every time we are at one of these little gatherings. And she has just played this…what was the name again, my dear?”

  “‘Sonata Quasi una fantasia,’ otherwise known as the ‘Mondschein’ or ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, by Ludwig van Beethoven.”

  “And when was it written?”

  “I believe it was in 1801,” Marla replied with a bit of a grin on her face. Johann had learned that Marla loved to tweak down-time musicians with the thought that so much of this new music that so many of them were having to adjust to came from times that were well beyond their life spans. In truth, his own mind still spun from time to time with the thought.

  “So, Master Bach,” Schütz continued, “let us hear your thoughts on the idea.”

  Johann started to beg off, but the others encouraged him to join them. At length he settled himself into the chair brought forward from the wall by Franz Sylwester, Frau Marla’s husband.

  “Since I have come in in media res, so to speak,” Johann began, “I think it only fair to ask Frau Marla to restate her case.” He gestured with his wineglass—carefully, so as not to spill a drop of what he was coming to think was really an excellent vintage of Aszú. He watched as the young woman straightened on the piano bench and squared her shoulders. She took an obvious deep breath, and began.

  “You all know how much I love the music brought back in the Ring of Fire. And you know that I’ve made it my life’s work to spread that music throughout Europe. So I obviously feel some passion about music. I believe that music is its own reward. This idea used to be called ‘art for art’s sake’ in the up-time. There should be no constraints on what can be written or performed, that whatever the mind of a composer can conceive of should be expressed.”

  Marla paused for a moment. Johann heard the sound of murmurs, and looked around to see several other guests gathering behind the others. His attention returned to the young woman as she continued. “Music should be performed just because it’s music. It has no function other than to be music, to provide that avenue of enjoyment, to be a balm for the soul. And all things musical should be free, unhampered by requirements to justify their existence. Composers should be able to write what is in their minds and hearts without restrictions from a patron. All people—men, women, boys, girls—should be allowed to perform—to sing or play or dance to the best of their abilities. Music requires no justification. It simply is.”

  The murmuring was a little louder now. Johann did not turn his head, but he could see more people gathering behind the Schütz-Carissimi-Abati line.

  “So, Master Johann,” Schütz gathered the thread of conversation to himself, and the surrounding eyes as well. He gestured to Bach, and said, “So. How would you respond to that?”

  Johann postponed his response, sipping at his wine almost in panic. How to address this question—ah, it must be done with care.

  He lowered his glass from his mouth and held it with both hands. “Masters,” he nodded to Carissimi, Schütz and Abati. “Frau Linder,” he nodded to Marla with equal gravity. “It is not a new proposition, I believe. I know my own grandfather said words somewhat like those at least once, and I daresay that if one could call King David, the greatest singer of old, to the witness bar, he would say something alike that. Especially after King Saul threw the spear at him.” A chuckle sounded round the group that was observing. “All those who create beauty feel that beauty is all that is needed. But ‘Quodcumque potest manus tua facere instanter operare,’ as the great preacher said—‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.’”

  Johann raised his glass again and moistened his lips. “I submit to you that music is a created thing, as indeed are all things called art. And as such, we as musicians are addressed by that scriptural ordinance. It is not enough that we make music, for in truth we can be lazy and careless and slothful and reckless and devil-may-care about how we do it, just as a farmer or a joiner or a seamstress may be. But when we are, we are guilty of disregarding this stricture: that whatever we do, we should do to the best of our ability.”

  Heads nodded around the circle that had gathered as Johann took a slow breath, which he then released just as slowly.

  “But, Johann,” Marla turned on the piano bench to face him, “you didn’t talk about why the music should be made. You only talked about how we should make it. That
’s not the same thing.” She faced back to the other men. “I still stand by what I said.”

  Carissimi looked to Abati, who smiled and shrugged before nodding back toward Carissimi’s right hand. The Italian master then looked to Schütz and made a gesture with a smile of his own. The German sat up straight and harrumphed. Amber Higham came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Schütz almost absently lifted his empty hand and laid it atop the hand that rested on his shoulder while he directed his gaze toward the up-timer woman.

  “Let me attempt to build upon the foundation laid by our young Master Bach, then. It is indeed true that we who make music should take most seriously that instruction from Ecclesiastes which he mentioned. But you rightly point out that your issue is not about the crafting of music, but more about why music is made. And to discuss that, we must step even farther back; to first principles, as it were.

  “Tell me, Frau Marla, who created music?” At her puzzled glance, Schütz smiled. “’Tis obvious, child. Think back to your lessons: Who created all things?”

  “God.” Johann watched as Marla’s eyebrows drew down, as if she were suspicious about something.

  “Indeed, yes,” Schütz replied as he raised a finger. “First point: The Holy Word says ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…’”

  Johann nodded, and heard murmurs of agreement from around him.

  “So, God created us as we are. Therefore there is nothing that we can do that is outside the boundary of God’s intent. We must assume this includes the ability to make music.” Schütz smiled as another finger was raised. “Second point: Why would God do so?” He looked around the people grouped around the discussion. “No one has an answer?” A longer pause. “Oh, come now; one cannot read God’s Word without seeing the commands to praise God, to sing unto the Lord, to play instruments in His praise. So one is therefore forced to the conclusion that at least part of why God created man was for the creation to praise the Creator.”