Spring Break (Daniel Jacobus Mysteries, 6, Band 6) - Hardcover

Elias, Gerald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0727887122 ISBN 13: 9780727887122

Verlag: Severn House Publishers Ltd, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

When reclusive, blind violin pedagogue Daniel Jacobus is invited to speak at a seemingly innocuous symposium on Baroque music at a prestigious music conservatory, he has no idea he is about to become enmeshed in an entrenched culture of sexual harassment and its cover-up at the highest levels.

And when a renowned faculty member dies of apparent natural causes, only the curious behaviour of a violin student at Jacobus’s master class is an indication to him that something may be terribly amiss.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A graduate of Yale, Gerald Elias has been a Boston Symphony violinist, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony since 1988, Adjunct Professor of Music at the University of Utah, first violinist of the Abramyan String Quartet, and Music Director of the Vivaldi Candlelight concert series.

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Spring Break

A Daniel Jacobus Mystery

By Gerald Elias

Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2017 Gerald Elias
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7278-8712-2

CHAPTER 1

Wednesday, March 18

News of the symposium's last-minute replacement created quite a buzz at the Kinderhoek Conservatory, even more so, in a certain way, than if Isaac Stern had not cancelled. As great as he was, Stern was a known quantity and had given a masterclass at the conservatory the year before. Jacobus, on the other hand, had an unpolished aura steeped in conflict and mystery. His arrival on campus aroused as much curiosity among the faculty as among the students. Yumi checked him in to his accommodations at the Campus Inn and then, after a brief rest and a dry hamburger, walked him to the Hiram Feldstein Auditorium of the Dolly Cooney Performance Building, the venue for the symposium.

The auditorium was filled to the brim with students, faculty, staff, and potential donors. Baroque music – or more accurately, the performance of Baroque music – had become a hot-button topic in the cloistered world of classical music in recent years, and Charles Hedge, emceeing the discussion, sought to capitalize on the passionate debate as a means to fatten the school's endowment. Backstage, Jacobus was cursorily introduced to the other three panelists, with whom he exchanged vague and meaningless pleasantries. Escorted by a young co-ed, they slalomed through pots of seasonal tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils decorating the stage. Jacobus stumbled upon one of them, was caught from falling by the young lady, and heard someone in the wings mutter, 'Already?'

Jacobus and the other three panelists sat at a linen-draped table in the center of the stage, where they waited for the event to begin. Jacobus shifted his behind in an uncomfortable classroom chair. How had she done it? he asked himself for the umpteenth time. How had Yumi sweet-talked him into being a panelist for this damned symposium?

Additional spring flowers had been positioned in the middle of the table, dividing him and Bronislaw Tawroszewicz – the other applied, or performing, musician – who were seated on the right side of the table, from the pair of academic musicians, Sybil Baker-Hulme and Harold Handy, on the left. The seating arrangement reflected the subtle though profound division between performers and scholars, which had persisted ever since someone first banged a log with a stick and someone else tried to explain why, and which continued to be a dubious hallmark of advanced music conservatories.

Yumi had given Jacobus the rundown on the other panelists. That he had never heard of them was more his fault than theirs, as blindness reduced Jacobus's interest in keeping current with music pedagogy. Even so, he'd never had much patience for reading about music. He learned from listening and playing and not from people writing about it.

Yumi had also prepped Jacobus with the ground rules for the discussion. Starting with Baker-Hulme, each panelist would present their opening perspectives on the topic at hand. That would be followed by written questions from the audience passed up to Dean Hedge. Each speaker was provided a microphone and a glass of water, and the three who were not blind had written notes spread out before them.

Jacobus collected his thoughts while Hedge, at the podium, annoyingly preoccupied himself with testing and retesting his microphone with snippets of prepared comments while waiting for the final attendees to cram into the auditorium. At the appropriate moment, Hedge cleared his throat into his microphone. He welcomed the packed assemblage to the 'Going for Baroque' curtain-raiser and expressed the heartfelt view that 'if all performances were so well attended, classical music would be declared alive and well!' The response, by design, was an affirmative roar. He then introduced each guest, reading down their substantial résumés. Finishing, Hedge invited everyone upon the conclusion of the symposium 'at nine o'clock or dawn, whichever comes first,' to a light reception in the lobby where they could 'interface' with the guest speakers.

'And now, ladies and gentlemen,' Hedge concluded, 'let's give a proud Kinderhoek welcome to our esteemed panelists.'

Not able to take a visual cue from the other panelists, and not having been in this position before, Jacobus was clueless how to respond. Should he wave? Should he bow? Should he smile? He could draw upon his memory to recall which facial muscles were necessary to simulate a smile. But any response he could think of seemed presumptuous, so he simply sat there. If they assumed he was being antisocial, so be it, there was nothing he could do about it.

When the applause died down, Professor Baker-Hulme spoke into her microphone, expressing her delight at being so warmly received. She then commenced her presentation with the same moral certitude that had created the British Empire, or so it seemed to Jacobus.

'After the death of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750,' she began, 'the music of the Baroque became, to paraphrase Handel's Messiah, "rejected and despised." It was repudiated by a new generation of more frivolous popular taste, which inaccurately deemed the Baroque's inherently contrapuntal nature as too academic and too intellectual. With few exceptions, the aesthetic of the Classical and Romantic eras, and well into the twentieth century, turned a deaf ear to the vast musical treasury that had lasted for one hundred and fifty years from the time of Claudio Monteverdi in the early 1600s.'

Perfect Queen-of-England enunciation, Jacobus thought. From there he began to extrapolate: Middle-aged. Prosperous. Confident. Wears nice clothes even at a picnic. Hair in place even when it's a mess. 'I'm more famous than you' kind of voice. For Jacobus, the mental exercise had become so ingrained over the decades since the onset of his blindness he was no longer aware it was even an exercise.

'The early twentieth century brought us a false renaissance of Baroque music,' Baker-Hulme continued, 'starting with the faux Baroque compositions of Stravinsky and Respighi, and followed by the misguided attempts to "improve" Baroque music by basting it with thick-as-molasses monstrosities like Leopold Stokowski's arrangement of the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor.'

Baker-Hulme recited the word 'monstrosities' with such flair that the audience had no choice but to agree with the absurdity of the idea and laughed en chorus. 'I refer to these abominations as nefarious Baroque,' she said. She went on to recount how true scholarship – with her at the helm – had brought Baroque music back from the brink of the abyss and concluded her statement with upbeat affirmation, sounding not unlike Margaret Thatcher addressing Parliament.

'As the result of decades of intense scholarship, with our understanding of historically informed performance, we can now recreate the musical glory of the Baroque era exactly as audiences of the period heard it! The way it was meant to sound!'

Jacobus could hear seats slapping against seat backs, as the audience rose to its feet in applause. After they resettled, he heard Dean Hedge step to the microphone, take a deep breath, and speak the single word: 'Next,' drawing a unanimous guffaw.

'I have great admiration for my esteemed colleague's scholarship,' Professor Harold Handy began. Handy's famous monotone, Yumi had told Jacobus, had earned him the mixed reputation of possessing a lively intellect and wry wit...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Severn House Publishers Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0727887122
• ISBN 13: 9780727887122
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Authorised Rep Compliance Ltd, Sarah Hall; +35315133758; sarah.hall@arccompliance.com; ; 71 Lower Baggot St; Dublin; D02 P593; Irland