Ring of fire II (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  The next hour or so was filled with music of the time, the contrapuntal works for which the good maestro was known. Mary watched the audience as much as she did the performer, and noted that although a good many of the people did pay him some attention, there were others who never once looked his direction.

  The question of where Prime Minister Stearns was kept popping up in her mind. He had accepted her invitation, but as of yet still hadn't made an appearance. That wasn't like him. For all that he wasn't her favorite person on the face of the earth, he was unfailingly polite to her and would have made his excuses if something had arisen to prevent his coming. She kept wondering what had come up. After the third time through those thoughts, she firmly banished them to the back of her mind and spent the rest of the time listening to the music.

  At length Maestro Frescobaldi's portion of the program came to a close. He stood and gave his bows, spoke to the princess for a moment after she motioned him over, then resumed his seat. The harpsichord meanwhile was removed. Then the screen was drawn aside to reveal the stark lines of the ebony Steinway, gleaming in the candlelight.

  Mary's heart seemed to swell as she saw Marla leading the other players into view from behind the other screens. Tall in her royal blue Empire gown, Marla looked well from the audience, she decided. The richness of the velvet, with no ornament except the many small gold buttons lining the long sleeves; the high white collar framing her dark hair and face; the pearls-all combined into a picture of elegance that truly made Marla the focus of attention. The women in the hall all leaned toward each other and whispered behind fans and programs at the sight of the gown. Mary smiled. The seamstress would undoubtedly be receiving inquiries tomorrow.

  The whispers redoubled as Marla raised her flute. No one in Magdeburg had seen a metal transverse flute before, and the Bohm keys just added to the mystery of what sound it was going to produce. Mary saw her give the slight dip of the head that gave the count to the others, and they began.

  The first notes of the first movement of Vivaldi's La Primavera took flight, and everyone in the room stopped. The rapid notes as Marla played the solo part on the flute just mesmerized every listener. Mary looked over at Princess Kristina, who was staring at Marla, eyes gleaming, watching her fingers fly. The thin grouping of instruments behind the solo flute-violin, viola d'amore, Baroque flute and piano-sounded unusual to Mary, but she had to admit that they did justice to the piece.

  It seemed like only moments passed, and suddenly it was done. A spattering of polite applause was offered. As the others filed out behind the room dividers, Franz came out and raised the piano lid, propping it to its most open position. He turned and took Marla's flute, then left.

  There was a burst of conversation as the transition occurred, but as soon as Marla sat down it began to quiet. Mary was impressed that, by the time Marla began, the room was still again. She had anticipated that Marla would eventually become the focus of the audience's attention, but in the event it occurred much quicker than she had expected.

  Franz slipped down the side wall of the hall, emerging from behind the room divider screens to watch this portion of the concert from the back. The piano pieces rolled smoothly, one to another. His heart lifted and soared with each, watching Marla; watching her every graceful move at the piano-never quite still, always moving, leaning forward, back, to one side or the other, hands lifting, floating across the keys.

  The 'Little' Fugue in G minor, BWV578, by Johann Sebastian Bach, greatest scion of that incredible family of musicians, now never to be if the butterfly effect theory was correct. It was performed without flaw, and was received by a burst of spontaneous applause at its conclusion.

  The first movement of the Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K525, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, perhaps the greatest German musician of the so-called Classical era. Again, performed flawlessly. The applause was greater this time, and the listeners flowed into a semi-circle around the performance area.

  The Bagatelle in A minor, by Ludwig Beethoven, otherwise known as "Fur Elise," a lilting composition that sounded deceptively simple but in fact required more than a modicum of skill to play well. At its conclusion, the princess clapped furiously, obviously taken with the beauty of the piece.

  And finally, Etude No. 12 in C minor, from Opus 10, by Frederic Chopin, usually called the "Revolutionary Etude." Marla paused for a long moment, as she always did before she played this one. Someone coughed in the silence, and Franz jumped. Finally, she raised her hands and attacked (the only word Franz could use) the keyboard. As with the very first time he heard it, he was astounded by the rolling arpeggios, the percussive chords, how the music seemed to emerge from chaos. He tore his eyes from Marla, and looked around. Everyone was transfixed by her electric performance of the piece. When the final chords were hammered home, the room rocked with wild applause, which Franz joined for a moment before slipping back up the wall and behind the dividers.

  The amazing young woman stood at the end of the piece, and despite being in a gown, gave a bow to acknowledge the applause. After she walked behind the screen, there was a moment of quiet, then conversation erupted all over the room. Everyone who had a program was pointing at it, everyone who did not was either looking for one or was gesticulating in the air. They all seemed to understand the term Intermissio which lay between the piano and the voice music in the program. Some few of them had headed for the wine table with alacrity, and a few more were picking up the remaining tidbits from the buffet.

  Girolamo turned to Il Prosperino. He said nothing; merely raised an eyebrow, as if to say, "I told you so."

  Andrea nodded in response, acknowledging the point. "How soon can you make me a piano?"

  Girolamo shrugged. "Perhaps a year."

  "Why so long?" in a surprised tone.

  "First, I must finish refurbishing the one I purchased, which is dedicated to a special patron. Despite what I have already learned, I will learn more by doing, which is a slow process. While that is going on, I must locate an iron foundry that can cast parts according to my specifications. Even more critically, I must find a reliable source of relatively fine gauge steel wire. Then, and only then, will I be able to begin crafting my own pianos." He thought for a moment. "I have a facility in Grantville, but I believe I will relocate to Magdeburg."

  "You will not return to Rome?" Andrea eyed him with even more surprise.

  "No. Even if the Casati family were to forgive my putting a sword through a son's shoulder, everything I have learned in the last few months tells me that the future is here," he waved his arm around, "here among these Germans."

  Andrea shook his head.

  "I mean it," insisted Girolamo. "You think what you have seen and heard tonight will not change our music?"

  Josef and Rudolf joined hands with the others and said, "Do well," then slipped out the way Franz had come in. Franz, Marla, Isaac and Hermann looked at each other, no one wanting to say anything. Finally Franz laughed. "To quote our good friend Ingram Bledsoe, 'Knock 'em dead.' "

  Franz turned Marla to face him, looked into her gleaming eyes. "Continue as you have begun. You have won them over, now seal it." He kissed her hands. "Go. They await you." She squeezed his hands and turned to follow Hermann.

  Franz and Isaac slipped back down the wall behind the dividers, to emerge at the rear of the room and join their friends. The applause that greeted Marla resounded around them. The four of them stood together at the back, not able to see very well because many of the patrons were standing, but listening nonetheless.

  Her butterflies were gone, Marla noticed. She was calm, now that she was finally getting to do what she had prepared all this time for, what she had always dreamed of. She turned her head to give a slight nod to Hermann. They began.

  "Thy hand, Belinda…" The opening words of Dido's farewell recitative sounded in the room, and Mary closed her eyes and drank in the sound of that lovely voice. Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas had always been one of her favorite early operas
, and the despairing recitative and aria where Dido realized that she had driven away her love and subsequently died never failed to grip her. It was a lovely choice by Marla, not just because it was from later in the seventeenth century and so would be easy for those present to relate to, but also because the classic story taken from Virgil's Aeneid was one that almost everyone in the room had heard before in many forms. Here was a fresh new form, and one of beauty, sung by one of the finest young sopranos she had ever heard.

  "When I am laid, am laid in earth…" The aria began; Mary abandoned herself to the music, drifting with its rise and fall, until the final plaintive line, "Remember me, but oh, forget my fate."

  The room was hushed. Someone at last broke the rapture and began to applaud. The room echoed with the sound for some time. Isaac and Rudolf nodded to the others before slipping back behind the screens to return to the head of the room. When the applause began to fade, they stepped out and joined Marla by the piano.

  Hermann began an introduction, and soon Marla's voice was soaring again, this time with the beautiful melody of Mozart's "Laudate Dominum" from Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, K339. Mary remembered wondering if Marla knew what she was doing when the young woman told her that they were going to adapt this song, re-scoring the central section for a trio instead of a quartet. Now she didn't wonder, she just melted into the music and let that effortless soprano voice carry her along. Isaac's tenor and Rudolf's baritone added to the glory of it, but the solo ending, where Marla sang the final phrase, just was heavenly.

  Once again the room was hushed. It took longer for someone to begin the applause this time, and it lasted longer. Marla, smiling, took a bow with both Isaac and Rudolf, and they exited.

  The rest of the evening moved from one triumph to the next: "Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion" from Handel's Messiah was followed by "Senza Mamma" from Puccini's Suor Angelica. Each was received by great applause. Marla bowed, beaming.

  Franz, knowing what was coming next, held his breath. If the audience would stumble over anything in the concert, it would be this piece. It had taken some little time to transpose it to a key that was at the same time low enough to retain some of the darkness of the original music, yet was high enough that Marla could sing it comfortably. They had finally achieved it two weeks ago, and Marla had diligently practiced it since then.

  She opened her mouth, and sang.

  "Wer reitet so spat durch Nacht und Wind?

  Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;

  Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,

  Er fa?t ihn sicher, er halt ihn warm."

  Franz could almost feel the temperature in the room drop as the opening verse of Goethe's poetry mated with Schubert's music in Der Erlkonig was revealed. The story of the father and son's ride home continued to unroll; shivers chased one another up his spine, and the hair on his neck began to bristle. Once again, Marla was bringing to a performance an indefinable something that he never heard during rehearsals. It was as if being in front of an audience raised her to a plane where her voice was a tool in the hands of God. He looked over at Isaac, to see him with his arms wrapped around himself. From the look on his face, he was feeling it too.

  The song progressed. In each succeeding verse, the child grew more and more panicked at the sight of the pursuing Erlking, and the worried father tried to calm him, assuring him he was safe. The tension in the great room was building, more and more.

  The last verse arrived, and Franz braced himself for the ending. Marla arrived at the final line, and declaimed:

  "In seinen Armen das Kind…"

  with a very pregnant pause, then

  "war tot!"

  Immediately applause broke out. Franz could see that this time it was led by none other than the very flamboyant gentleman standing with Signor Zenti. Whoever he was, he obviously liked that song, and to Franz's great relief was dragging everyone along with him. Marla was breathing deeply as she took her bow. Even after the applause died down she stood with her head down for several long breaths. Finally she straightened, smiled, and moved on to the penultimate section of the program.

  Mary was almost wrung out at this point. Marla had so far delivered an absolutely bravura performance. She was so proud of the young woman, her protege in part. In the afterglow of the intensity of the Schubert, she finally admitted to herself that perhaps she was living a little vicariously through her young friend, but perhaps even more her relationship with Marla had helped to fill the void in her heart caused when she and John-no, to be honest, mostly just she-had driven their son away.

  Looking at her copy of the program to refresh her memory of what was next, Mary saw that Marla had filled the twentieth-century section of the concert with songs from three musicals. She didn't object-they were, after all, from three of the most memorable productions done in the last twenty years before the Ring fell, and the selections that Marla had chosen were among the strongest. It would be interesting, however, she thought to herself, tapping her finger against her lips, to see how some of them would be received.

  Marla sailed through the next few songs, almost breezing through them. "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita led the way. Isaac then joined her to do the duet "All I Ask of You," also from a Lloyd Webber work, The Phantom of the Opera.

  They then moved on to selections from Les Miserables, by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schonberg and Herbert Kretzmer. Marla led off with Cosette's wistful "Castle on a Cloud." She then stepped back and took a rest while Isaac stepped forward and sang Valjean's pleading "Bring Him Home," which led to sustained applause, then followed it up with Marius' "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." His pure tenor voice rang with sorrow, grief and anger throughout the song, and at the end generated applause almost approaching that offered to Marla. Finally, Rudolf stepped out from behind the screen, and joined them in performing "Do You Hear the People Sing." The rousing conclusion of the song led to another round of sustained applause.

  ***

  Franz moved to the wall as soon as the applause began, slipping behind the dividers until he reached the front of the room again. The final section of the program, entitled Christmas, was about to begin. Isaac and Rudolf each smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder for a moment as they moved past him on their way out. Once the applause began to wane, he took a deep breath, tugged on his jacket hem, picked up his violin and bow and checked that the newly-attached chin pad was still seated solidly. He softly tested the strings to see if the tuning had held, took another deep breath, and walked out to join Marla.

  He took station at the end of the piano. She looked over from where she stood in front of the curve, melting his heart with one of her brilliant smiles, then nodded to Hermann to begin.

  The introduction was short and soft, then Marla began to sing.

  "Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!

  Alles schlaft; einsam wacht

  Nur das traute heilige Paar.

  Holder Knab' im lockigen Haar,

  Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!

  Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!"

  Marla's voice was so soft and warm that Franz got lost in it and almost forgot to raise his violin to play. He gave a swift prayer that he would play well as she began the second verse, tucked the violin between his chin and right collar, positioned the bow in his left hand over the strings, and began to play a descant over her melody.

  Franz was unaware of the picture he presented to the audience. Their other friends had dressed in attire that was normal for musicians of the day: knee britches/culottes, waistcoats, long coats with large sleeve cuffs over it all, embroidery with brass thread that in the evening's light looked to be gold, and much lace at sleeve and collar openings.

  In contrast, Franz was dressed in long trousers, much like the styles worn by the up-timers, such as Admiral Simpson. They were black velvet, and looked very well indeed. He had wanted a coat out of the same material, but the black was so costly and so difficult to acquire that his jacket had i
nstead been made out of the same royal blue velvet of which Marla's dress was made. And it was a jacket; rather short-waisted, instead of the long-tailed coat that was the rule here and now. Marla in her Empire dress and he in his trousers, jacket and short hair presented to the audience a glimpse of the future. The portrait was most striking.

  The descant repeated over the third verse, then Marla dropped out for an interlude. Franz played the verse melody solo over Hermann's soft accompaniment. He poured his heart into the simple music, letting his violin sing.

  Once the interlude was over, Marla sang the next two verses with Franz's descant, but when the final verse began, both he and Hermann ceased playing, and Marla sang a capella.

  "Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!

  Hirten erst kundgemacht

  Durch der Engel Alleluja,

  Tont es laut bei Ferne und Nah:

  Jesus der Retter ist da!

  Jesus der Retter ist da!"

  Marla held the last note for a moment longer than strictly called for, letting it resonate within the room. As it died away, the audience burst into applause. Franz gave a thankful prayer, and grinned in relief-he'd done it! He'd played his part, simple though it was, flawlessly. All of the challenges had been surpassed, all of the work had paid off, all of his fears had proved groundless. He now knew, without a doubt, he would once again be the musician he had been before the attack that crippled his left hand.

  He looked to Marla and saw that brilliant smile again. She held out her hand to him. He stepped to her, joined hands, and they took a bow together. Then he stepped back once more and pointed to her, focusing everyone's attention on her, which let him escape. When he stepped behind the screen, Isaac, Josef and Rudolf all pounced on him, clapping his shoulder, pumping his hand, and hissing congratulations to him. He reveled in it for a moment, then hushed them as the applause out front began to die down. Gesturing to them that they should slip out again, he laid the violin and bow down, sat and leaned his head against the back of the wall. The final piece of the night was about to happen, and he didn't want to share that with anyone.