Grantville Gazette 46 gg-46

by Paula Goodlett

  "I take it that was not the case?" I responded.

  "No. As soon as we crossed swords, I knew I was dealing with someone who knew what he was doing. Fencing is both an art and a science. In a way, it is a dialogue between two people, almost like playing music together. I tested him, tried to dominate his blade, closed at a distance when I could strike and tried a false attack. When he did not panic or react without composure but simply parried and riposted knowing my attack was false, I knew he knew the tune and could play along with me. He was well trained in the German style, so he made lateral steps much more than we are used to down in the peninsula, and he used many more cuts than what I consider healthy, but he knew what he was doing, and that was both terrifying and exhilarating."

  "Why so?"

  "Well, because being able to fence with someone good, keeping up a conversation with very high stakes is a testament to the art. But I also knew then that if I made a mistake-and I am human, it could happen-there would be very little ground to correct it. In the end, I guess God loved me best, because the mistake was his, and I got the opportunity I wanted. It happened so quickly I am still surprised it ended that fast."

  "Can you explain?"

  "Sure." Master Girolamo stood up and looked around, beckoning to me to get to my feet. "Johannes, are those walking sticks we found in the house still behind that enormous piece of furniture they call a 'lazy boy'?"

  When I nodded he walked there and picked two sticks, giving me one. "Now imagine you are him," he said, and placed himself in front of me. "We were in what fencers call a misura larga, which is simply the distance from your opponent in which you can touch him with a lunge. It is a very dangerous place, where you do not want to stay too much, because the more you stay there the more are the chances you will get wounded or killed and vice versa. Better be a bit more distant and safer."

  Girolamo extended his arm with his stick and let stay it a little out of the line of his body. "I did something even riskier at this point, what we would call an 'invitation' as my arm was not protecting my right flank and the center of my body; I was basically baiting him to attack there. I was not truly expecting him to attack, because he should have known I was setting a trap. I was expecting a false attack followed by a true lunge somewhere else, and I was ready to parry the true attack with my dagger. Instead he went ahead and simply lunged in the area I left unprotected. I do not know what he was thinking. When he lunged," he signaled me to do it, "in the time it took for his point to arrive close to my body, I had all the time to parry with the shell of my sword and place my point right at his throat like this." I felt the point of the stick right at the base of my neck, a few fingers below my Adam's apple. "Then I moved my rear foot back, brought my torso forward and my sword went through the base of his neck all the way. He was unconscious before hitting the ground, and died shortly thereafter. There was nothing the surgeon could do. Such a shame."

  "You feel sorry about it, don't you?" I asked, lowering the cane.

  "Of course I do. No one sane of mind likes taking a human life, especially like this. It should have not happened."

  "Why?"

  "Because at the core of fencing is the art of defense, the skill of hitting someone without being hit back. There was no way he could have lunged so openly without being hit. He took a chance. And he could only have won if I had fallen asleep, because any trained swordsman who is fully awake could have stopped his attack without blinking. What a waste. This is fencing; you do not take those chances."

  "It is almost like you regret it. Maybe there is some good quality in you after all."

  "Oh don't get me wrong, I am glad to be alive, glad to be running while his body is probably in the ground now. And I know it sounds stupid, because, after all, I was there to kill him. I just wish. . I just wish he had not wasted his life so foolishly."

  "And then what happened?"

  "Oh, then things started going downhill pretty fast. The surgeon no sooner declared Vorhauer dead than one of the seconds jumped onto his horse and rode belly down toward town. I knew then I had to leave and fast. It took me four days to make it back here. I mostly rode at night on back roads and across fields. I imagine his family pressed charges against me and I am surprised no agents have showed up yet; they knew my name and the fact I was coming from Grantville. This is why, Johannes, I have to run now. You never saw me."

  "Where are you going now?"

  "I won't tell you now." Master Girolamo got up, picked up the few personal objects left to pack and began stuffing them in his pack. "However one of the things I learned from the Americans is that in a crisis there is also deep opportunity. And I learned about the Risorgimento, the resurgence. Interesting people would live in the peninsula 200 years from now according to the stories of another universe. So I guess it is time we find another Garibaldi and Mazzini." He grinned.

  "For now I will cross the Alps and then we will see. There are plenty of good causes to be picked back in Italy. If Germany can become one under the Americans, we can't let them have all the fun. You never know, you may hear about me sooner than you expect," he said and then started singing some uptime lyrics.

  O mia Patria, si bella e perduta!

  O remembranza si cara e fatal!

  Still humming the motive of this aria, Master Girolamo gave me a rough embrace and left the house. Riding into the sunset the Americans would say. Of course, that night it was more like riding into the moonset.

  Yesterday I received an anonymous letter with a very familiar handwriting that said Master Girolamo was across the Alps.

  Before he departed, Master Girolamo left instructions on how to handle the company and the rest of the investments. And I now know where to send the dividends, which, based on the orders we have in hand, should be significant.

  Master Girolamo also said I should inform you of what occurred as soon as I knew that he was safe, and that every communication to him will have to be addressed to Giuseppe Verdi. Witness that this letter accomplishes that.

  Please let me know if there is anything I should do for either you or Master Girolamo.

  With the greatest respect,

  Johannes Fichtold

  Giacomo lowered the pages. "Girolamo, Girolamo, always a bit too ready with the point and the edge. And once again you are leaving everything behind while you ride away from trouble."

  He looked up to see Elizabeth looking at him. "Did I ever tell you how he came to join me on my quest to Grantville?"

  Elizabeth smile. "More than once. I guess once a duelist, always a duelist."

  "Maybe so," Giacomo said. "Maybe so. But I fear for whomever will try to stop that gentleman. Or maybe we need to learn to call him Verdi."

  Elizabeth laughed, looked around, and said, "Everything's ready. Let's eat." She went to call the children.

  Giacomo folded the letter and tucked it in an inner pocket of his doublet. He then crossed himself and muttered a quick prayer for the safety of his friend. "Not that I doubt his ability to keep himself safe, you understand," he said at the end of the prayer. "But as many risks as he takes, he could use some extra protection."

  He crossed himself again as the children ran in.

  After the Ring: A Musical Perspective

  David Carrico

  Introduction

  What will music be like after the Ring of Fire? That was the question I set myself some months back when Paula Goodlett asked me for a panel topic for the 1632 mini-con at WorldCon in Chicago in 2012. The previous couple of years I had done a presentation on how down-time musicians might have reacted to 369 years of musical development being dumped in their laps all at once in 1631. But this new question would require me to do some forecasting-some extrapolation-to arrive at a presentation. But I managed to do so, and I made a presentation at WorldCon that seemed to be well received.

  When I got done building my presentation file, I had about twenty minutes of musical clips for a presentation time allotment of 70 minutes. I was actually a
little worried about whether I had enough. As it turned out, there was so much audience participation that I actually had to skip a few of the samples at the end because we were running out of time.

  The Editorial Board plan was for my presentation to be video-recorded and posted on YouTube. Unfortunately, we had technical difficulties, and my session was one of the ones that didn't get recorded. But Paula and I had a conversation afterward, the net result of which is I am going to attempt to recreate the experience of the presentation in a narrative form.

  Unfortunately, not only did the video not happen; I also managed to lose my only copy of my crib sheet with its very abbreviated hand-written speaker's notes. That means I'm trying to reconstruct this from my totally fallible memory as I listen to the audio track. Those of you who were at the presentation may therefore notice some slight differences in remarks or in sequence of clips because of that. But one way or another, the presentation went sort of like the following.

  Lastly, while I played audio clips at the presentation, to stay out of legal trouble with copyright holders, in this article I'm going instead to refer to discography, or in a few cases, point to Google and YouTube. There will be one MP3 clip in the article of an excerpt from a work that is not available commercially in any form.

  So sit back, pretend you're sitting in a crowded room with about sixty other people on rather uncomfortable conference room chairs, and let's go on a musical trip together.

  The Presentation (sort of)

  Hi. My name is David Carrico. The conference schedule says the topic for this session is what will music look like after the Ring of Fire. I'd rather talk about the much more interesting question of what will music sound like after the Ring of Fire.

  This is a very challenging topic. What I'm going to present to you now is my opinion of the kinds of things that could be happening within a generation or two of the Ring of Fire event. Just so you'll know, my bachelor's degree is in music theory and composition, which is an intensive study of how music is built and how to create musical forms and effects. That included a lot of study in what musicians call form and analysis, which means the study of how music was written in past eras, so that we can see how other composers wrote music, and either follow suit or go different ways, breaking rules. So I do have some reasons for my opinions, but they are my opinions, not demonstrated fact.

  I have a couple of caveats about this presentation. First, this is limited to my opinion, to my ability to conceive of what directions musical trends might go. Second, since it is an audio presentation, complete with sound clips, it is limited to my ability to find musical examples available today that are kinda sorta maybe like the things I hear in my head.

  I have quite a few audio clips. They are mostly excerpts of themes from various pieces, but there are two pieces that I will play in their entirety. I did try to take the clips from the beginning of each piece, but there are some where I had to take a sample from the middle of the piece in order to get the sound I need for this presentation. Some of the examples will consist of a comparison between a piece as it was actually written by composers in our time line versus a performance of the same music but in a different style or different instrumentation that will reflect directions the down-timer musicians could go. Some of the examples will just be indications of musical changes that could happen. And some of them will be things that I know are going to have an impact, but I'm not sure what the ramifications will be.

  Okay, so think about what happened. The down-timers got 369 years' worth of world music and musical development dumped in their laps with the Ring of Fire. How are they going to react?

  It will probably not be like anything we can think of. We are so used to thinking of music as a linear spectrum, of going from A to B to C to D. They're not going to do that. They got 369 years of world music dumped on them all at once. They're not going to explore all of the Baroque era music first, then move on to the Classical era music, and so on. To them, it's all one big pot of music, and every spoonful they pull out is going to be different. They'll be mixing things up in ways we haven't even dreamed of.

  This won't be like the technological development arc. With a couple of minor exceptions, there won't be the need to make tools to make tools to make tools to make widgets. 98 % of all up-time musical instruments can be made by 1640.

  Within two generations they'll be going "I want that instrument and that instrument and this musical style and that kind of chord progression." They'll be going in every conceivable direction at once.

  There are three big factors that will influence musical development in the New Time Line:

  New Instruments or highly changed existing instruments, such as:

  Piano

  Clarinet

  Low brass, like baritone horns and tubas/sousaphones

  Saxophones

  Modern Bassoons

  Putting Boehm key system on existing woodwinds like flutes, oboes.

  Mature guitars

  Banjo

  Modern percussion of all types

  Musical forms, new and highly changed

  Jazz, with its African influences

  Rock of all types

  Rap

  Mature classical styles

  Symphonies

  Sonatas

  Operas

  Choral music

  Fugues, quartets, concertos, etc.

  Country music, both bluegrass and country rock

  Musical ensembles

  Large groups

  Symphonies

  Choirs

  Differences in how the voice is used in producing music

  I want to try and give a hint, a flavor, of what some of those sounds might be like. Of course, since I can only sort of conceive what that will be like, and since I'm not a genius of a performer, I can't create it for you. Instead, I've had to scout along the fringes of our current musical environment, searching for things that are kinda sorta similar to what I think might occur in the future of 1632.

  So here we go. These won't be in any particular order.

  This first piece was written by Johann Sebastian Bach sometime between 1722 and 1742.

  Prelude and Fugue V in D Major BWV873, from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II. My sample was taken from CD 160 142 in the Vienna Master Series put out by Pilz, entitled The Well-tempered Clavier Vol. 2/II, Christiane Jaccottet, harpsichordist

  But in the post-Ring of Fire era, around 1680 you might hear something like this.

  Fugue No. 5 in D Major, from Jacques Lossier plays Bach, Telarc CD 83411, Jacques Lossier, pianist

  That's the same musical theme in both pieces. But the second time it's done in a very jazzy style. Different style, different instruments.

  (I think it was here I got a question as to whether or not the instrument makers of 1632 could build a piano. As I recall, the questioner was concerned about the big steel or iron harp that helps keep the soundboard together. The answer is yes, but the stickiest point won't be the harp. It will be the steel wire needed for the strings.)

  And then there's this one:

  http://jaymestone.com/albums Allemande from the French Suite No. 6 BWV 817 by Johann Sebastian Bach, written between 1722 and 1725. From Jayme Stone's album, Room of Wonders. (Buy his music.)

  It is canon in the story The Sound of Sweet Strings in Ring of Fire III that sometime in 1635-6 Claudio Monteverdi published a Sonata for Banjo and Continuo. I think it would have sounded a lot like this piece. And I think that the banjo will have a big impact on the down-time musicians.

  Sometime in the 1680s, if you were in a tavern in Amsterdam, you might hear a song like this one:

  Long Black Veil, from The Long Black Veil by The Chieftains BG2-62702 RCA Victor.

  This piece was written by Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1740s:

  Contrapunctus V, from The Art of Fugue — (My excerpt was taken from Bach — The Art of Fugue put out by Archiv Produktion, performed by Helmut Walcha, who was considered to be THE authority on Ba
ch in his generation.)

  But post-Ring of Fire, you might have heard this:

  Contrapunctus V from Bach — Die Kunst Der Fuge put out by Classic Production Osnabruck, LC 8492, cpo 999 058-2, as performed by the Berliner Saxophon Quartett.

  Saxophones give a very different sound to this piece, and would have really attracted the down-timer musicians.

  It was at this point that I said that I think that post-Ring of Fire the saxophone will become the second national instrument of Scotland. I have this vision of the massed saxophone players of all the Scottish military regiments being led in parade by the pipers of the Highland Scottish regiments.

  Another piece from the Bach Well Tempered Clavier, the Fugue in C minor BWV 847.

  CD 160 121 in the Vienna Master Series put out by Pilz, entitled The Well-tempered Clavier Vol. 1/I, Christiane Jaccottet, harpsichordist

  But post-Ring of Fire, sometime around 1690 someone just back from Havana might have written this:

  Tu Conga Bach From Bach in Havana, by Tiempo Libre, put out by Sony.

  Very different instrumentation, very different chords, very different rhythmic treatment of the same basic melody.

  Here's a piece by Georg Friederich Handel, composer of Messiah, written around 1706. It is the Sarabande from the Harpsichord Suite in D Minor, as arranged for orchestra.

  Sarabande from the Harpsichord Suite in D Minor, as arranged for orchestra, from Handel's Greatest Hits, various performers, put out by Sony.

  Sometime around 1680, if you had attended a salon at the palace of the Medicis in Florence, you might have heard something like this.

  Prayer in the Night, from the album The Opera Band, put out by Victor, performed by Amici Forever.

  And then around 1650 in a tavern in Hamburg, you might have heard this:

  The Wabash Cannonball, from the album Another Country, put out by RCA Victor, performed by Ricky Skaggs and The Chieftains.

  Frederic Chopin wrote this in 1847: