Grantville Gazette - Volume V (33 page)

"This is what we call a grand piano," said Elizabeth. "It is five feet long. A full concert piano is longer, usually around nine feet. In our timeline, the first piano was built in Italy in 1709, I think. But it took many years and many other innovations before it became the instrument you see right now. The main difference between a harpsichord and a piano is in the actions. Instead of plucking the strings, pressing a key makes a hammer strike them. The instrument makes possible a broader melody. A phrase can grow louder and then softer and accentuation is possible. Nevertheless it took almost a century before pieces were composed with the piano and not the harpsichord in mind. Almost a century passed from Cristofori's piano to the introduction of pedals."

Looking around, she saw how carefully we were listening to her words.

"Oh, I wish all my students were like you!" she said, smiling deliciously.

"I think you will find plenty of theory in our books in the library, so let's be done with it. I'm going to play a classic piece. The very one almost any beginner learns how to slaughter in the first year of his studies. It's called "Für Elise" and was composed by a German named Beethoven. If you really want to learn about our music, Maestro Carissimi, you will have to deal with him. If you like it I will then play another piece by the same author, the "Moonlight Sonata."

"I am eager to begin, Milady," I managed to say.

And so, after a short pause needed to reach the opportune concentration (a gesture that apparently is common among artists of any time and place), she began playing again. I couldn't stop watching the way her hands moved skillfully on the keyboard. The sound was so strong and clear that Girolamo had to restrain himself from putting his head into the soundboard.

I had the impression that learning how to play a piano would not be too hard. In a few months, I felt, I should be able to play it as well as any other instrument I mastered. After all, I'm quite a virtuoso with organs and harpsichords. The biggest obstacles will be learning how to use the pedals, getting familiar with a seven octaves keyboard and learning how to control my touch, as in a piano the way one uses the keys affects the sound much more than in any instrument I played before.

The more I listened to the music, the more I began to understand how much this instrument could impact the way music is composed.

When using harpsichords, one has to be true to certain forms. Creation is limited by well-defined boundaries. Using a piano instead gives the composer the opportunity to use many more combinations and harmonies. The richness of those legati and arpeggi! The ways chords escaped from the instrument and seemed to fill the hall reminded me of the flocks of starlings that pass trough the sky of Rome every autumn. The power of this music is outstanding. Mastering this instrument will give any musician a creative freedom I thought impossible before.

Someone aware of my prejudices against female musicians may laugh when he discovers how much Mrs. Jordan helped me. But probably one cannot have a good learning experience without having to set aside many of the ideas they were considering a given.

Mrs. Jordan, Elizabeth, has surprised me almost every day since the first time we met. She is a good natured, intelligent, ironic woman; a woman of profound faith, even if not Catholic, a talented musician and a very good teacher. Once the initial embarrassment was gone, music brought us together and I am proud to say we have become very good friends, as close as decorum permits.

Her husband, a high ranking constable in the city guard, works as liaison with the constables of the other United States towns. So he spends most of his time out of Grantville. I don't know how much this bothers Elizabeth, because up to this moment I never felt comfortable and close enough to ask and she doesn't talk much about it. But, sometimes, I had momentary glimpses of how much she misses her husband.

They have two young children, Daniel and Leah. They are very lively, spirited and curious as any child should be. They are clearly a big part of her life and the sound of their games has been a pleasant background in the many afternoons I spent at Elizabeth's studying.

As you may have guessed already, Elizabeth has become my guide, my mentor, my teacher. I am not sure what I would have done without her.

I am not the only musician who is trying to learn something about the new music. Nothing truly surprising considering what treasure up-time music is. One of Mrs. Jordan's previous students, Miss Marla Linder, is teaching a group of German musicians, all very skilled I must add, and she let us borrow some very useful notes.

If the Germans are very good, Miss Linder is simply surprising. She has the flame, and I believe she will become famous very soon. She is still a little rough in some passages, but her talent is unmistakable and, being so young, she has huge room for improvement. With the right exercise and care, her voice will shine like gold.

We met the first time during an August afternoon in the school choir room. Elizabeth invited me to participate in a discussion that Miss Marla was having with her German friends. The topic was mainly "tempering." You see, temperament of keyboard instruments has changed a great deal in the course of history.

Many methods have been used in the attempt to produce pure octaves and pieces of music written in different eras have a different intonation. So, knowing the differences between the mean intonation we use now and the others is crucial for us.

Most of the music from the middle of the nineteenth century until the Ring of Fire, was written with equal tempering in mind and most of the music written in the eighteenth century was written using "well tempering." If one changes the original intonation, they necessarily change also the composition's harmonic organization, thus producing something different from the original music.

I appreciated how clearly Miss Linder touched such fine points in music theory. I believe she will make a fine teacher in the future, a rarity among great performers.

I didn't say much at the meeting. I just pointed out that as things are now, there are no standards in music, not in pitch. The pitch I am used to is higher than the pitch of the twentieth-century instruments and much higher than the pitch mainly used here in Germany.

I tried to explain that, for the moment, we cannot expect standards and we should do as we down-timers are already used to: a lot of transcribing when our music is played in a place whose habits are different from the ones of the place where the music was originally written.

In the following weeks I went to other meetings, and, with time, the ice was broken. Music helped to create a true camaraderie of musicians. Sometimes we simply escaped the many stresses of modern music and spent many evenings playing the notes we knew better, exercising in what our teachers call "Baroque jam sessions."

Even though Marla Linder played the first note, it was Elizabeth Jordan who took the brunt of my musical education. She set a very strict program of studies. From Monday to Friday after school we study piano for two hours, then I have my class of music theory and history. On the weekends I have to spend hours doing my "homework," exercising, studying and listening. Any Monday I have to be well prepared and pass a test on what I have done the previous week.

Since I began I've read plenty of books and I have been listening to hundreds of recordings. We decided that the better way to understand the evolution of music without being overwhelmed by so many authors and styles was to follow a strict chronologic path: late Baroque, Classic, Early Romantic, late Romantic and Modern periods.

The names of the many giants that should have lived after me are printed in my memory just like my daily rosary: Albinoni, Corelli, Geminiani, Johann Sebastian Bach, Lully, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Handel, Pachelbel, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Debussy, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Faure, Mahler, Smetana, the Strauss family, Tchaikovsky, Bellini, Bizet, Cherubini, Leoncavallo, Rossini, Puccini, Verdi, Wagner.

For each one of them I have to learn the different styles of their compositions: fugues, concerti grossi, sonate, symphonies, symphonic poems, waltzes, overtures and so on.

Some nights I dream I am in the center of a storm with music sheets twirling in my mind like leaves blown by a gale. I can only hope that when the wind stops blowing the leaves will fall in a pattern I can understand.

Three weeks ago, after an afternoon spent trying to make sense of Chopin's Opus 64, when I was feeling more frustrated than the dog chasing his tail the Polish composer was trying to depict, I asked Elizabeth why she was sharing this gargantuan task with me.

"See, Giacomo, when I first met you, I am ashamed to say I didn't know who you were. After you left I had to go look for your name in my college schoolbooks and in the library."

After a short pause she smiled and said "I know you don't want to read of what your future would have been in the timeline I come from, but I can at least tell you had an important role. Without you the music I know and have loved since I was child would have been different. I felt like I owed you a great deal. I also realized that, with you, I had to set the bar high, very high, so high I was afraid I could not even reach it. It was a challenge I could not resist."

Looking me straight in the eyes, she kept on, "I am new in this profession, Giacomo. I became a full-time teacher only after the Ring of Fire. I had to know what I was capable of and you were, are, the perfect challenge for me. Like your friend, Girolamo," she smiled again with that subtle smile that warms my heart, "I never leave a challenge go untouched. And believe me, no matter how hard it is trying to teach something to that stubborn head of yours, working with you has always been a pleasure."

I believe I became as red as Father Mazzare's tomatoes in August. But her resolve gave me another reason to not give up. I want her to be proud of me more every day.

After the invention of those devices that make it possible to listen to somebody play or sing even if they are long-time dead, one can listen to music in two ways: recorded music and live music.

Even if I had my share of the first kind, I've always preferred the second, because seeing who is playing with my own eyes makes my down-timer mind much more comfortable. Luckily, I found plenty of live music in the town of Grantville.

One may think that together with all the things they are busy producing, with the reorganizing of the German political structure, and with a war about to be declared, these Americans would barely find the time to sleep. Instead, they love to make music. And they do it plenty and well.

Music of all kinds, from the sacred hymns they play in their churches to the ballads sung by the common people. They have many genres: rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, soul and many others. Honestly, I am not able to describe my reactions the first time I heard that awful music called hard rock. But after that concert at the Thuringen Gardens, I understood perfectly how the hardened Spanish soldiers at the Wartburg could have been terrified by it.

Put a hard rock band behind me and even I, Giacomo Carissimi, your most peaceful musician, would gladly march to battle against any enemy just to put that noise far behind me. Some of the oldest Americans are sure that rock musicians adore the devil. I am prone to agree with them.

One of my favorite activities is listening to the high school band, what I call Mr. Wendell's kingdom. This is for the skill that this teacher has in dealing with his young students.

Their existence is a proof that the Jesuits were right in making the study of music such an important subject! They are simply spectacular. They use mostly wind instruments that are very different from what we are used to. These instruments use a device called a "valve" that regulates the flow of air in the instruments. This permits the players to play in all keys and produce richer sounds compared to what we are used to. I do believe, though, that the sounds are more apt for a battlefield than for a church. Nevertheless, seeing so many boys and girls learning how to play, and making so many efforts to be able to play together in harmony makes the teacher in me feel very happy.

Not many of them will become professional musicians, but, whatever the path they will take, the study of music will enrich their lives and will give them a key to see the world with.

Since the moment of my arrival, I have come to enjoy the relative peace of any moment I spend in St. Mary. Any time my busy days permit it, I try to find refuge and consolation inside its holy walls. When not in prayer or meditation I have long and useful conversations with Father Kircher SJ, whose reputation in the Company I found very well deserved. I recommend to you this man of rare insight, logic, savvy, wisdom and compassion.

I found a subtle pleasure in using my experience as master of chapel for the people of St. Mary, and I deeply regret not to be able to spend more time helping with the sacred music during the different services.

When I began participating in the choir rehearsals I was afraid that my arrival could have caused some jealousies, but I was proven wrong. Both Mrs. Linda Bartolli, the organ player, and Mr. Brian Grady, the director of the choir, did their best to make me feel at ease and part of the community.

At the end I think that, when working with them, I am receiving as much as I am able to give. I treasure the opportunity to learn more about the sacred music written in times and places that weren't my own. I have also learned to appreciate the mechanical wonders that are up-time organs whose mechanical and pneumatic parts are all powered by electricity. It's incredible the kind of tonal flexibility one can achieve with such a small case.

Many of the people who believe that after Pretorius'
Syntagma Musicum
the organ cannot be improved will be seriously disappointed. Linda once told me that the greatest honor for an organist is to play on an instrument built by an artisan named Silbermann whose organs will maybe be built more than fifty years from now. I am sure it is true, but I am well satisfied to play the one they have here in St. Mary.