Early Music America Spring 2013 - (Page 65)

BOOK reviews Edited by Mark Kroll Time Will Tell. Donald Greig. Thames River Press, 2012. 264 pages. Reviewed by Maria Coldwell. Donald Greig, bass/baritone and longtime member of the Tallis Scholars and the Orlando Consort, has written a remarkable first novel. The book alternates chapters set in the Renaissance (the supposed Memoirs of Geoffroy Chiron, a French singer and scribe who knew Ockeghem, Josquin, Compère, and many other musicians in the late 15th century) and chapters set in the present (1997-2015). It’s the story of a socially inept musicologist, Andrew Eiger, stuck teaching in an undistinguished Midwestern university, who stumbles upon his “Holy Grail,” the manuscript of an unknown 34-part canonic motet by a major 15th-century composer, in the chapter records at Amiens Cathedral. Andrew is traveling to a scholarly conference in Tours to present a paper, but more importantly, to meet with Emma Mitchell, the brilliant young director of an English a cappella singing group, “Beyond Compère,” and persuade her to give the premiere performance of the new piece. The only problem is, Andrew doesn’t yet have a usable edition of the motet; he can’t get the rhythmic notation to work out properly until he gets a dumb (but as it turns out, correct) suggestion from a trombone-playing salesman he sits next to on the airplane. Frantically trying to finish a good first draft of the score, a totally jetlagged Andrew almost electrocutes himself in his “Hotel des Lices” room, in a scene that is laugh-outloud funny. Andrew’s attempts to relate to the hard-drinking singers of Beyond Compère run afoul of the embarrassing differences between British and American English, and flaming sambucas at the French bar almost burn up the transcription before Emma can even get a look at it. Various misadventures follow before the plot comes to a clever conclusion; the “epilogue” brings some redemption to the character of Andrew the musicologist. My favorite parts of the novel are actually the Renaissance Memoirs, in which Greig manages to create totally believable personalities for the famous composers. The first lines of the book are “Josquin was a prick. Everybody thought so.” Ockeghem (the star of the novel) comes across as a kind mentor and respected elder statesman; Compère is spaced out and oblivious to the hatred Josquin has for him; and of course, Dufay loves his wines. In fact, all the singers and composers love their wine, and numerous parallels are drawn between the Renaissance singers and their 21st-century counterparts. Greig has certainly done his homework on life in Renaissance Tours as well as on musical All the singers and composers love their wine, and numerous parallels are drawn between the Renaissance singers and their 21st-century counterparts. subjects. The writings of real-life musicologists like David Fallows and Craig Wright are referenced both in the novel and in an “afterword,” which attempts to clarify how much of the Renaissance material is “fact” vs. “fiction.” There are also, of course, many insights into the travails of contemporary professional singers who are constantly on the road—what it does to their love lives, among other things. Emma’s romance with a fellow singer falls apart over issues of power within the ensemble, and she never ends up getting married. The different interests and habits of the singers on tour lead to certain habitual conflicts, which are tolerated but never go away. Greig’s own long experience of the touring life lends particular realism to these scenes. Altogether a good read—enjoyable and thoughtful at the same time. Maria Coldwell recently stepped down as executive director of Early Music America. She is a Medievalist with a Ph.D. in music history from Yale. Her most recent musicological writing was for The Grove Dictionary of American Music. Engaging Bach: The Keyboard Legacy from Marpurg to Mendelssohn. Musical Performance and Reception. Matthew Dirst. Cambridge University Press, 2012. 186 pages. Reviewed by Robert L. Marshall. This concise volume is a welcome and valuable addition to the burgeoning genre of Bach reception literature, as well as to the numerous recent studies concerned with German musical aesthetics in the 18th and 19th centuries. Its six chapters are well researched and densely packed with information. The book is also generously illustrated with almost 40 musical examples. But it consists of a curious, almost arbitrary, mélange of topics. It is odd, for example, to include a chapter on Bach’s four-part chorales in a book purporting to be about his keyboard legacy. After all, many, if not most (or even all), of them began life as vocal movements in his church compositions. Nor is there really anything at all pianistic about them: indeed, the chordal spacing often renders them unplayable as written. Nonetheless, the early editors (C. P. E. Bach and J. P. Kirnberger) published them on two staves, clearly for the convenience of keyboard players but obviously not as part of a “school” designed to impart keyboard dexterity. Nor did they intend them for the practical purpose of accompanying congregational chorale singing; more often than not the harmonizations were too complex for that. They did so, rather, to enable players to absorb their compositional and stylistic lessons more readily. Ironically, those works of J. S. Bach that, to judge by their collective title, were explicitly intended by their composer for the purpose of keyboard practice—the four parts of the Klavierübung—were largely neglected not only by the early writers and editors but also by Matthew Dirst in the present volume. > Linking to the books: Thames River Press www.thamesriverpress.com Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org York Medieval Press www.boydellandbrewer.com/ york_medieval_press.asp Venice Research www.veniceresearch.com Fortune Books www.johnmole.com/Fortune/ fortunebooks.html Suggestions about books to review may be sent to Mark Kroll at books@earlymusic.org. Early Music America Spring 2013 65 http://www.thamesriverpress.com http://www.cambridge.org http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/york_medieval_press.asp http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/york_medieval_press.asp http://www.veniceresearch.com http://www.johnmole.com/Fortune/fortunebooks.html http://www.johnmole.com/Fortune/fortunebooks.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Early Music America Spring 2013

Editor's Note
Reader Forum
Sound Bytes
Profile: Peter Nothnagle Early Music Engineer
Musings: Best of the Year
Recording Reviews
"Skillful Singing" and the Prelude in Renaissance Italy
Almira: Handel's Fountain of Youth?
Tempesta di Mare: Making a Splash with Fasch
2013 Guide: Workshops & Festivals
What I Did at Summer Camp
Book Reviews
Ad Index
In Conclusion: Teaching Recitative in Mexico

Early Music America Spring 2013