by Eric Flint
"The popular music, the outgrowth of the music of the streets, took many forms. Most people would like a few types. Very few people liked them all. But in almost every case, the popular musicians became like heroes, and it became a status symbol to people to have a lot of these recordings. The more you had, especially of rare or new or avant-garde musicians, the more status you had among your friends. By the time I was in high school, a ridiculously large amount of money was being spent every year by people all across our nation to purchase these recordings.
"The styles of music diverged for a while, but inevitably they began influencing each other again, both between different types of popular music and between the popular music and the art music."
Marla stopped here, took a drink of cider, then picked up a CD and began to turn all the equipment on. "We're going to listen to a number of different kinds of popular music tonight. Some of it you may like, most of it you will find discordant, some of it you will out and out hate. But this is part of what music was right before the Ring fell."
* * *
Susan turned back into the kitchen from the door into the living room as music began to flow out of the speakers. She recognized the tune: "The Entertainer," by Scott Joplin. She was slightly pleased with herself that she knew it . . . Lord knew that music was not her strength, not like Marla and Paul and their mother Alison. Now that Marla was so involved with this bunch of boys—young men, rather—she had rather the feeling of the duck that had hatched a swan. Marla was growing and stretching her horizons, and Susan could only stand behind her and watch her go. It was good to see her living and laughing again, but it still was a little scary to see her surrounded by these young men all the time, talking about things that Susan didn't understand. If only John and Alison could have been with her. They would have been so proud of Marla, and Alison at least would have understood her and what was going on.
She dabbed at her eyes with her apron, then muttered, "Standing around leaking tears isn't going to get the dishes done, silly." She began running the water in the sink, added the soap, then gathered up the bowls, pans and plates and put them in the sink. As she was turning the water off, the outside screen door opened, and she looked around to see Ingram Bledsoe and Hans Riebeck coming in.
"Sorry we didn't knock, Susan," Ingram said, carefully closing the door, "but we didn't want to disturb anything."
"That's all right," she said, drying her hands on a towel. "You all want some water or cider? I'd offer you some cookies, but those two-legged vacuum cleaners in the other room have already Hoovered up everything I baked today."
Ingram chuckled, and said, "I'll take some cider, thank you kindly."
"I, too, bitte," Master Riebeck said. His English had rapidly improved since he had first come to Grantville back in March, but he was obviously still thinking in German and translating to English as he spoke. Occasionally, what came out sounded a little odd or stilted to American ears.
In the other room, the music had ceased, and there was a murmur of conversation. Ingram looked that way, then looked back at Susan and said, "How's she doing?"
She shrugged. "You're askin' the wrong person, Ingram. I'm a Linder born, and ain't no Linders been musicians before Paul and Marla. Grandpa used to say that he was goin' to sing in Heaven, but it would take Heaven for him to do it. The Linder women all sound like rusty gates, and the men all sound like asthmatic bullfrogs. Even Marla's older sister Jonni takes after us. No, it was the Easterly blood that brought Paul and Marla their talents."
She picked up her glass of water and swirled it around. "Alison used to say that her great-grandmother was half Black Irish and half Cherokee and was what the old folks used to call a cunning woman, but that even in her eighties when Alison knew her, she could still sing the birds out of the trees onto her fingers. She said all the talent came from her."
She raised the glass and swallowed the water. "John was mystified by them two kids," she continued. "He didn't understand them at all. Called them his cuckoos sometimes. He was proud of them, though. He'd about bust his suspenders any time that Marla sang, and he just about couldn't keep his feet on the ground when Paul played that guitar." She set the glass in the sink, and she stared into the soapy water. "It about killed him when Paul got the cancer. He lost about as much weight watching Paul suffer through the chemotherapy for the leukemia as Paul did. That's why they weren't here when the Ring fell . . . they'd driven Paul to his next treatment. Oh, drat," she said matter of factly, wiping her eyes with her apron again. "It's been over three years. You'd think I could talk about them without crying."
She was surprised when Master Riebeck reached a gnarled hand over and patted her shoulder. "Frau Susan," he said, "those we love, we love forever, we miss forever. My brother was younger than me. He died years ago. I miss him still."
"Thanks," she said softly. "I miss them, I worry about how they felt and how they handled our being gone, but I think the worst is that we don't know what happened to Paul. Marla had a bad cold, so she'd been sleeping over here for several days so she wouldn't infect him. She didn't even get to say goodbye. She took it hard, real hard."
Ingram nodded in agreement. "The Bible says Hell is a place of fire, but I seem to remember readin' about some guy who said that there was a place of ice in Hell."
"Dante Alighieri," said Master Riebeck.
"Whoever. I could almost believe that, 'cause that's what Marla was like after the Ring fell," Susan said. "Her soul was frozen, and she was pure cutting edge. I thank God every night for Franz Sylwester. I mean, I'm sorry he got hurt and all, but I think it was purely the hand of God that brought him to Grantville and to Marla. Whether they marry or not, he's made her live again, and he'll always have a place in my heart and my home because of it."
"Ja, and we say danke Gott for Fraulein Marla, because she gave him life and worth again."
"Ain't it funny how God works?" The two men raised their glasses in a toast to that simple truth.
A long moment of quiet followed, and the music from the other room intruded. A man with a silky voice began singing. Ingram raised his eyebrows. "Frank Sinatra? What's she doing tonight?"
"She said she was going to walk them through one hundred years of popular music tonight."
"Well, it sounds like she's only up to about 1940. She's got a ways to go yet."
* * *
Franz's head seemed full to bursting, and he was very glad to hear Marla say, "Okay guys, we're almost done. Let's take a quick break, and then we'll wrap it up with one last song."
She disappeared down the hallway to the bathroom, and everyone else just seemed to slump in their chairs. Isaac leaned over, rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands.
"Oooh," he moaned. "My head is spinning. Ragtime, Dixieland, jazz . . ."
"Southern gospel, black gospel . . ." Hermann added.
"Blues . . ." from Leopold.
"Country and western . . ." Josef and Rudolph said together.
"Rock and roll," finished Friedrich.
"Louis Armstrong . . ."
"Glenn Miller . . ."
"Harry James . . ."
"Billie Holiday . . ."
"Frank Sinatra . . ."
"Elvis Presley . . ."
"Brubeck . . ."
"Hank Williams . . ."
"The Beatles . . ."
"Johnny Cash!" several voices said at once, and they all started laughing.
After they regained their composure, Friedrich said, "How can so many different styles have developed so quickly? Our music develops slowly, changes slowly. Why did theirs change so rapidly?"
"We've already talked about the access to mechanical and electrical systems to play music," Marla said as she walked back into the room. "Another factor, though, is the changes in the place and authority of the church in society. For most of its existence, the church has been a conservative institution. That can be a good thing, at times. However, it can also be a drawback, for conservativ
e organizations tend to be very slow to change. Ultraconservative organizations actively resist change. Hence the boiling pot of Europe that Luther and Calvin have lit a fire under."
She moved to the stereo, and continued speaking while she searched for a CD. "One of the areas where the church exerted its control was in the arts. Musical forms changed very slowly over the years. But as a result of the changes that occurred beginning with Luther, the influence of the church—whether Roman, Lutheran or Reformed—over music began to ebb, and musical evolutions began to cycle faster. By the 1800s, musical generations were occurring on a level with human generations. By my lifetime, musical generations were occurring every five to ten years.
"Ah, here it is!" She picked up a CD and turned to them with a smile so filled with mischievous glee that the hair on the back of Franz's neck prickled.
"Okay, guys, one last style, one last song. I've been promising Franz for weeks that I'd explain what 'heavy metal' means in our rock and roll music, and tonight's the night. You're all along for the ride. The song is 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.'" She loaded the CD player, pushed the play button, and turned the volume up.
Franz leaned back as a bell began to toll out of the speakers, and then the speakers erupted. After his exposure to what the local band Mountaintop played, he could call it music, but it was of a type that even Mountaintop had not produced. The sounds were harsh, discordant, but there was beat, there was rhythm, there was a recognizable harmony. What impressed him the most was the relentlessness of the music. There were lyrics—he heard them—but his whole focus was grabbed by the sounds produced by the musicians.
From the beginning, he was snared by the textures. The sounds that Marla had assured him before were produced by a type of guitar—somehow combined with the miracle of electricity—had an edge to them, and edge that was like both a saw blade that cut and a string of barbed fish hooks that caught and tore. There was no virtuosity, no showcasing of a musician's skill at ornamentation. There was only pure relentlessness, pure passion, pure drive, that reached deep inside him and struck a resonance that vibrated his entire being. The song was not performed, it was executed, and he was the target of it, caught up in it, feeling nothing but the angst of the music.
After an eternity, the song gradually faded away. Franz fell back in his chair, suddenly released from the tension, feeling more drained than if he had been performing for hours. He looked around, and the others looked even worse than he felt—pale, eyes wide, breathing hard.
Marla looked around, smiling slightly, and asked, "Well, what do you think?"
"I think I've heard the triumphal march of Hell," Hermann muttered. "Nothing could have prepared me for that."
"Was that really popular in your time?" Leopold asked.
"Oh, yes," Marla said. "Millions of people, including my brother, loved the stuff. If he had . . . Let's just say that his heart's desire was to play it, and he was well on his way when he got sick."
"I liked it," Rudolf said, which provided everyone with their first glimpse of a disconcerted Marla.
"You did?"
"Yes. Oh, do not mistake me! I would not choose it to listen to all day long, nor do I think it will ever be accepted by our people—definitely not by the church. But there was a passion to it, and once you get past the harsh metallic sound you can tell that it was crafted well. We could learn about the use of discord and tension from that music."
Marla had smiled in the middle of Rudolf's comments, then started to giggle, and finally started laughing when he was finished. She calmed down quickly, wiping her eyes, and said, "I'm sorry, Rudolf, I wasn't laughing at you. It's just that you were righter than you knew when you described the sound as metallic. The band's name was Metallica."
"Appropriate." He smiled in return.
Marla stood and stepped forward a step or two. Franz watched with pride as she effortlessly gathered their eyes and attention.
"There's a lot more that we could listen to, but the point of the evening was to give you an overview of what we called popular music to wrap up the seminar. Now, we've walked down a long road all these weeks, but you've been given a taste of what up-time music is like, the sonorities and techniques it can add to your musical palette. I don't want it to replace everything that you have. I don't want you to become imitation up-timers. I want you to be the musicians you are, but along the way I want you to incorporate what you find good and worthy from our music. Help preserve its master works, but produce your own as well. Regardless of what happens with the war, regardless of whether Gustavus Adolphus wins or loses, regardless of whether or not Grantville survives, don't let our music die."
Franz stared at Marla, standing straight and tall, eyes gleaming like blue torches, passion radiating from her like heat, and his eyes blurred as tears of pride welled up. Now she was coming into her own, now she was calling them, challenging them to follow her, to be more than they ever thought they could be.
Hermann was the first on his feet. He stepped forward, clasped her hand, stared up at her and swore, "By my name, Fraulein Marla, I am with you. If your cause is lost, it will not be for want of my best effort."
Swiftly the others joined them, hands joined with Marla's and Hermann's. "The music of Grantville must not, will not die!" Thomas thundered.
"Amen!"
Coda
Magdeburg
August, 1633
Mary Simpson picked the letter up and read it once more.
From the Desk of Marcus Wendell
Dear Mrs. Simpson
I received your request that I come to Magdeburg and become involved in the establishment of an instrumental arts program. While I am very flattered that you think so highly of me, I must regretfully decline.
What you need is a virtuoso, and even in my best days, in my youth, I was never a virtuoso. I am definitely not one now. I am good at what I do, which is take children and turn them into well-rounded educated individuals who know something about the arts and music. Every few years, I am fortunate enough to have a student or two of sufficient talent that I can guide them into a life of music as a teacher or minor performer. But that experience does not equip me to do the work you are asking of me. Bluntly speaking, I have neither the temperament nor the tools to be what you are seeking.
Having turned you down for myself, however, now let me provide you with another possibility. I don't happen to have a virtuoso in my pocket, but I perhaps can point you to someone who can become a virtuoso.
Her name is Kristen Marlena Linder, although she prefers to go by Marla. She's young, about 21. Physically, she's rather striking. I wouldn't call her pretty—handsome is a better word. She's tall by our standards, about 5'10" or so, and she has that amazing Black Irish coloration that you sometimes see in the Appalachian hill families: coal black hair, skin so pale it's almost translucent, a dusting of freckles, and the bluest of eyes. There were girls in her class at school who were prettier, but if she was in the room, most of the boys preferred to talk to her. Marla is definitely a good example of that old cliché, the magnetic personality. And if she smiles, it's like switching on a floodlamp.
She was a senior the year of the Ring of Fire, almost ready to graduate. Musically, she was my drum major during marching season that year, and my student conductor and first chair flute player during concert season, but that's not why I'm bringing her to your attention. She is also an extremely talented pianist, easily the equal of many collegiate piano majors. But perhaps her greatest gift is as a vocalist. She can vocalize to about four and one-half octaves, maybe a little more, and has a usable range of almost four octaves. Her voice is unusual—she has the high range of a coloratura, but the timbre and power of a lyric soprano.
As an indication of just how good she is, the day before the Ring fell I heard from a college friend who is the brother of a woman on the faculty at Eastman School of Music in New York. He told me that Eastman was going to offer her a full scholarship in voice. She had scholarship offers from o
ther universities, but as you know, Eastman is a conservatory to rank with Juilliard. The official notice never arrived, of course. I never had the heart to tell her, because she was pretty badly torn up by losing her parents and brother, and this would have made her grief just that much worse.
She finally came out of her shell after meeting some down-time musicians this year, and for the last several months has been leading what I would consider to be a graduate level multidiscipline seminar in music history, form and analysis, and piano and voice performance with several down-timers using nothing more than a couple of old college textbooks, encyclopedia entries and liner notes from classical music recordings. They're all young and arrogant, of course, but she has not only held her own with them, she's earned their respect, to the point that they have basically accepted her as their leader and mentor. I don't have to tell you just how unusual that would be in our time that was. I am almost in awe of it now.
