Mary lifted her hands. “He’s the designer of the organ, and he’s probably the best organist in the city…probably even the province.”
“Oh, hell no!” Casey said. Staci turned her head enough to see that her friend was red-faced. “No way are we…”
“Case…”
Staci’s voice cut her friend short. Casey turned toward her. “Stase, you can’t do this. After what he did to you, you can’t put yourself there.”
“Case, it’s not like we live in New York City. Magdeburg’s not that big. I’ve already seen him more than once. And with both of us being in the arts, that makes the circles even smaller.” Staci took a deep breath, then looked from Mary to Lady Beth and back again. “If I go, I will not approach him, I will not talk to him, I will not make polite conversation with him. And you will owe me for this.”
Mary nodded once. “Believe it or not, I do have some idea of how you feel. Remind me to tell you someday about the first society fling I ever staged. I snubbed a former friend for years after that one.” She tapped the tip of her nose a couple of times with an index finger. “Your stipulations are accepted. And you are right, I will owe you for this. You’ll find I always pay my debts.” Staci wasn’t sure how to take that, but Mary’s smile seemed genuine, not her hard-polished professional smile, so the knot in Staci’s gut eased a bit.
“Unless you have other questions, that’s all for now,” Lady Beth said. “You can go find dinner or a glass of wine.”
“Wine,” Casey said as she stood with alacrity. “Definitely wine.”
Staci shared a smile with Lady Beth as she followed her friend out the door. She missed the nods that the two older women exchanged, though.
* * *
“That went well,” Mary said after the door closed.
“About as well as could be expected,” Lady Beth replied, leaning back in her chair. “I wasn’t sure how Staci would take it. I mean, she’s never been a drama queen, and even now that she is center stage in the spotlight has never had the prima donna attitude. But after what Bach did, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d had a hissy fit.”
Mary shook her head. “Not her temperament. She’s the consummate professional, or at least on her way to being that. The worst she would have done is said no.”
“And I don’t doubt she would have done exactly that if she’d chosen to,” Lady Beth said with a ladylike snort. “Marla might be the queen-empress of hard-nosed artistes at the moment, but Staci would most likely be crown princess. Between growing up under her mother’s hand and then hanging with Marla the last few years, she has a spine and she’s not afraid to use it.”
“One of Marla’s pack of performers has said that Marla has sword steel for a backbone.”
Lady Beth snorted again. “I hadn’t heard that before, but boy, does it fit. And Staci’s not far off that mark, I’d say. But what would you have done if she said no?”
“If I’d thought there was a real possibility of that,” Mary said, “I would have used a different approach.”
“Hope Bach turns out to be worth this,” Lady Beth said.
Mary stood and brushed her hands down the front of her dress. “Oh, I think he will. You said yourself that he seems to be really messed up by what he did. If that’s really the case, then the situation can be salvaged. And if it’s not, then we deep-six him, to use one of John’s naval sayings. Either way, it’s resolved. Binary solution set.”
“Heh,” Lady Beth responded as she stood herself and moved out from behind the desk. “So, you going to tell him about this?”
“No,” Mary replied with a grin. “He can wait on tenterhooks until the concert. He may have come to his senses, but that doesn’t mean he still shouldn’t pay a bit of a price for being such a cast-iron bastard.”
“You’re a hard woman, Mary Simpson.”
Mary shrugged. “I was the Lady of Pittsburg. I’m now the Dame of Magdeburg. Comes with the job description.”
Lady Beth laughed.
December 15th
Johann stood in the wings of the opera house stage. There was nothing on the stage, of course, other than the plain curtain backdrop. That was okay, since other than prefatory remarks, he wouldn’t be on the stage anyway. Once he moved to the organ console in the orchestra pit, every focus would move to that location, especially since the spotlight operator would set a light on him there.
He spared a moment to look upward and think, “God, You who created both Escher and Johann Sebastian, if ever You have looked after me, let it be tonight.”
Johann raised his arms in front of him, checking one more time that his new coat didn’t bind his arms. And as it had done in all the previous checks, his arms moved freely through the needed range of motions.
He had thought about his dress for the concert with some care and consideration. He had worked with a tailor who was used to the mélange of clothing styles that were present and prevalent in Magdeburg. The decision to go with up-time-style long trousers had not been difficult to make. He’d even had the tailor put stirrup straps under the instep of his boots to help them stay in place when his feet were dancing on the pedals.
For a coat, though, he had stayed somewhat more traditional, eschewing the shorter coats and short-waisted jackets of the up-timers in favor of something more like the longer frock coats of the down-time. He shrugged. He just liked the way the coat hung and looked on him. It was a more substantial look. A simple linen shirt with a simple pleated neck cloth completed the ensemble.
Johann ran his fingers through his hair and over his smoothly shaven face, then adjusted his cuffs.
“Nervous?” Heinrich asked from where he stood beside him.
“About the music? No. Never.” He held his right hand out before him; it was rock solid steady.
“But about Fräulein Staci…”
“Not nervous, but…uncertain.” No bravura gestures this time. He had no word from anyone as to who would be here tonight. He simply had to trust that Frau Mary would deliver on her promise.
Heinrich’s mouth opened, but closed again a moment later after no words were said. Apparently he was uncertain as to what he could say in the face of that. Johann certainly understood that feeling, for his own lack of certainty as to what he could or should say was rather strong.
They stood together, then, waiting for the moment. And that moment arrived before long. People had been filtering into some of the box seats on the second level for some little time, and now Frau Mary Simpson and Frau Lady Beth Haygood, accompanied by several others, including their brother Christoph, moved down the stepped floor from the main doors and took seats in the central section toward the front.
Johann could see Fräulein Casey and Fräulein Staci standing behind Frau Mary, and his heart soared. His heartbeat surged so strongly that for a bare moment it felt as if it was going to shatter his chest.
Everyone took their seats as the older woman took hers. The two younger women settled directly behind Frau Mary. Frau Mary looked toward the stage, and gave a firm nod.
“Go.” Johann gave Heinrich a nudge, then stepped forward toward the front of the stage while Heinrich carried the music portfolio toward the steps down to the orchestra pit and the organ console. He came to a stop near the front edge of the stage where the spotlight flared on and focused on him, and essayed a formal bow—a bit more florid than his usual, but not wildly so.
“Good evening,” Johann said. He pitched his voice a bit deeper than his normal speaking voice. He heard just a bit of echo from the back wall, which indicated his tone was strong and was carrying well. “Thank you for coming to this small affair. Our purpose tonight is twofold: first, to inaugurate the organ here within the opera hall, providing the first of what we believe will be many such performances over the years to come; and second, to celebrate the music of an up-timer composer, one Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music as brought back and told by the musicians of Grantville. And I must im
mediately clarify that no, despite our great similarity of names, this Bach is not me, and I am not him, much as I wish I could lay claim to both his talent and his genius.”
Johann had a self-deprecating grin on his face at that point, and there were several chuckles heard from those in the seats.
“Nor is, or was, the man descended from me. That honor actually belongs to my brother Christoph Bach.” Johann gestured to where Christoph was seated. Christoph stood and took a bow, to the sound of a light spattering of applause and more chuckles.
“Lectures concerning the man and his music will occur at later times,” Johann continued. “Tonight is for the music, not for talking. But I must first of all thank the Royal Arts League as led by Frau Mary Simpson for supporting the building of first the Royal Opera House and the organ itself.” There was another round of applause at that.
“And second, I must dedicate this concert to another performer: Fräulein Anastasia Matowski, the prima ballerina of the Magdeburg Ballet Company. Her skill and art are of a consummate level, and if you have not seen her dance, you are an impoverished soul. She is worthy of the music you will hear tonight.”
Johann could see that Staci had stiffened at that final announcement. He hoped that it hadn’t distressed her. He gave another formal bow which he subtly directed toward Staci, then turned for the steps.
* * *
“Well!” Casey huffed. “The gall of the man.”
“Shh,” Staci whispered.
She leaned back in her seat, and considered what she had just seen and heard.
Johann didn’t look well. His face was very hollow-cheeked, bordering on gaunt. His eyes looked a bit sunken, but for all that, there had been a feverish gleam to them. What he’d said…that touched her, strongly, despite her intention to avoid the man.
At that moment, the music began.
* * *
Johann settled onto the bench and looked down to place his feet. He looked up to where Heinrich had placed the sheet music on the music rack, and took a deep breath.
“Courage,” Heinrich whispered from where he stood to turn pages.
Johann released the breath, gave a firm nod, and placed his hands on the manuals. He paused for just a moment, waiting for…now.
He played the opening for the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, the simple trill followed by the downward run. And from there, the music just flowed from him. Statement followed statement, chords built, resolved, and poured into cadences. New statements followed, new chords, new resolutions. Complexity increased, lines crossing, pedal tones entering to buttress harmonic structures, then leaving to allow the higher voices more room to work their magic.
Pages turned. Johann heard it, and realized that he had his eyes closed again. He smiled at that, but didn’t open his eyes. He felt closer to the music this way, as if what was pouring out was really part of his own soul rather than that of a man who had not yet lived, and never would now.
The prelude whirled its way through to its conclusion. Johann waited a bare moment, giving the audience the space to react, then began the fugue. In moments Johann was caught up again in the feeling that the music was like bobbing along on a stream or a river. He remembered feeling that the very first time he’d heard the work in Marcus Wendell’s band room. He still felt it now, even after practicing it for months. And it was, after all, appropriate, since Bach meant brook.
* * *
Staci had never been a particular fan of classical music in the up-time before the Ring of Fire. Oh, she danced to it, but it hadn’t been something that she would listen to for fun, like Marla did. And especially anything pre-Mozart just wasn’t on her list of things to spend time on. But she had heard this piece. The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was perhaps the mostly widely known piece of classical music in the up-time world. Staci, like a lot of her generation, had first heard it in the soundtrack to the movie Fantasia. Ironically, seeing that movie as a young child was one of the influences that had awakened in her the desire to dance, as one of its episodes involved animals doing ballet.
Tonight, for the first time, Staci really listened to the piece, listened to the bravura of the toccata, then followed through to listen to the currents of the fugue. And for the first time, she began to see what Marla had always loved about the great organ works of Bach, that there was at the same time a majesty and a lightheartedness.
Being a dancer, she was very aware of kinesthetics, and she found herself watching Bach’s movements as he performed, the rises and dips of his shoulders, the shifting of his head positions, the leaning to one direction or another to balance the movement of his feet. It occurred to her toward the end of the fugue that Bach was, in a way, dancing on the organ, especially in the pedal passages. That caused her mouth to quirk, since she had seen a demo once of a mat that laid on the floor but was marked as if it were a musical keyboard and people could dance from key to key and make sounds. It would take a team of dancers—a team of very good dancers, she decided—to match what Bach was doing before her. Just for a moment, that thought amused her.
* * *
Johann brought the fugue to its resounding conclusion. After holding the final chord for a moment, he lifted his hands and feet at the same moment and sat back on the bench. The final vestige of the chord echoed in the auditorium, then faded away to inaudibility, and at that exact moment the applause began.
He opened his eyes and grinned up at Heinrich, who returned a quick lopsided grimace of his own, then spun on the bench and shot to his feet to acknowledge the applause.
Frau Mary and Frau Lady Beth seemed to be leading the response, but most others seemed to be clapping with a will. And Johann’s heart lifted when he saw that Fräulein Staci was clapping—not as energetically as Frau Mary, to be sure, but more than a desultorily polite recognition as well. His vision blurred for just a moment, and he folded into one of his formal bows to hide it, and take his eyes off the cause while he rapidly blinked his eyes to clear them.
Each of the people attending had been handed a program of the pieces to be played, including brief notes about each of them. True to his promise at the beginning of the event, Johann spent no time discussing them but returned to the bench at the console, where Heinrich had already arranged the music for the next piece.
No deep breath this time; simply position the feet and the hands and launch into it.
* * *
Staci looked at her program. The next piece was something entitled “Wir glauben all an einen Gott,” which translated to “We All Believe in One God,” a reminder of the pervasive nature of religion—particularly Lutheranism in its various flavors—in the USE, and in Magdeburg in particular. It was apparently something called a chorale prelude, whatever that was.
At that moment, Bach began the performance.
It proved to be quite a contrast from the opening piece. It felt like it was in four-four time, and almost felt like a march—very definite, very strong character, very much an “in your face” kind of piece. Assertive, aggressive, even, she thought. Inevitably, stray thoughts of trying to choreograph something to it crossed her mind, and she toyed with the idea. It could be done, she decided, but it would take a corps of really strong male dancers to do it. Too bad they didn’t have one of those at the moment.
She shelved that thought and followed the progression of the music to its conclusion, watching Bach all the while.
* * *
Johann brought the chorale prelude to its rousing conclusion. The applause started this time as soon his hands left the keys. He grinned at Heinrich, who grinned back. Johann came to his feet to acknowledge the applause. Again it was led by the older up-timers, but again Staci was also clapping, this time a little harder than before.
Another formal bow was in order, so Johann made it, this time with a very evident smile. His eyes still remained fixed on one particular part of the audience, though.
The applause lasted a bit longer this time, so he gave another bow, then returned to the or
gan and once again almost immediately launched into the third work, another chorale prelude, “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.”
* * *
Hmm, “Awake, the Voice Is Calling Us”…as a religious song title, it wasn’t any worse than some of the hymn and praise song titles Staci had heard in the Grantville churches.
For all that this chorale prelude was also in four-four time, it had a lilt and a bounce to it. Staci began to think that Johann Sebastian Bach must have had a sense of humor, because this one made her smile.
She could dance to this one, she decided. And so she did, head moving in time to the music, feet flexing and shifting a bit on the floor, shoulders shifting a bit, in time with the movements of Bach’s body where he sat on the bench.
The congruity of that did not escape her when the piece came to its joyous conclusion.
* * *
Johann bounced to his feet immediately upon finishing the chorale prelude. The applause increased more, and he heard a “Bravo!” or two as he took his bow. Again he was smiling. It was hard not to with that piece. It absolutely danced, and for the first time it occurred to him that what Staci felt in dancing had to be much like what he experienced when he played that work. It was a startling moment of insight to him, and his eyes whipped to where she sat. There was a bit of a smile on her face…the first he had seen since the evening of the disaster.
That he took in, that he placed in the core of his heart, and the hope that it fueled increased, twofold, threefold, maybe more.
* * *
Staci examined her program as the applause died down and Bach returned to the organ bench. Next up was something called “Little” Fugue in G Minor.
She had always thought of fugue as being some kind of old-fashioned antique of music. But listening to what Bach presented tonight was beginning to show her that maybe she was being just as judgmental about that as her grandparents had been about the music she listened to.
Again with the four-four, she thought as Bach launched this work. There was no toccata or prelude or other work paired with the fugue. It stood alone.
1636- the Flight of the Nightingale Page 34