Updated: Nov 27, 2020
The choices an author must make:
Background hunting for In Concert, a novel of love and suspense
You can read In Concert just for the adventure and frightening suspense without knowing anything about Johan Sebastien Bach or about classical music, but for those who have read it for the great action, here are some things you may be curious about.
There are historic facts, and then there are historic maybies. An author has to make choices about those facts that many believe might be true.
In the novel, In Concert, Rebecca Gregory and Lewis James are in grave danger because someone believes she owns three very famous manuscripts – the original manuscripts of missing violin concertos by Johann Sebastien Bach.
The stalker threatens their lives and the life of Rebecca’s five-year-old son, Benjamin, all because of about 60 pages of music.
Really?
Well, here’s an idea of the present value of original manuscripts that do exist. On July, 13, 2016, the original manuscript of a known piece by J.S. Bach was sold. Though the piece is much copied, published and very available to musicians, the piece sold was the original manuscript, owned privately and not seen by the public since 1969.
That original was auctioned at Christie’s auction house in London for 3.3 million dollars, a price that rivals that of any original piece of art. The piece sold was the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E flat Major for lute or keyboard, catalog number BWV 998.
If three original manuscripts of Bach’s missing violin concerti were found, imagine the millions to be made. Imagine the lengths any lover of power might go to if he thought he knew where they were.
I knew these violin concerti existed because of the research of many musical historians. We know Bach or perhaps one of his sons re-used these pieces as a concerti for keyboard, a common practice at the time.
I knew that the concerti that do exist are revered by musicians, are lovely to hear and a lot of fun to play.
Also, even in the existing, known violin concerti, (in Emajor, A minor and the concerto for two violins in D minor,) there are missing parts, and transcriptions which put to question the intentions of the composer. Anyone who finds these missing pieces has found something of value for sure.
But our stalker believes that Rebecca has something even greater -- three whole original manuscripts. He will do anything to have them
I knew that Bach’s musician sons had inherited his music, but that his son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach had been forced to sell many of his originals in order to pay debts. Wilhelm Friedemann had the reputation of being difficult to work with, of being profligate and hard-nosed.
But there are scholars who think it was not profligacy and waste, but the changing times, the changing expectations and the habit (which Friedemann shared with his father) of demanding to be treated as befitted his skill and intelligence. This trait made holding a job difficult. His father also had job difficulty when others treated him as a dispensable servant. Father Bach wouldn’t put up with under-estimating his value.
The writer’s difficulty is in depicting a man like Wilhelm Friedemann in a way that makes re-discovery of the manuscripts probable. Fiction is not fact, but one likes to choose supportable facts to depict fiction.
In Friedemann’s case, it is still unclear which are the facts, and which are a historian’s guesses based on the little anyone knows. We know his personality caused job losses. We also know that he was a consummate improvisor, struggling to use the knowledge his father gave him, but also trying to make his own music. He frequently could not sell his skills or himself, for whatever reasons.
In writing In Concert, I had to choose which historical view of him to use.
But where were those manuscripts? It is also known that Wilhelm Friedemann’s daughter inherited some manuscripts that he did not sell. Many of those were accidentally destroyed by a later generation of her family in America.
However, other manuscripts were cared for carefully. One of Wilhelm Friedemann’s students was Sarah Itzig Levy, the great aunt of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. Sarah Levy inherited some of J.S. Bach’s scores from her teacher, Bach’s son. At her suggestion, her fellow Wilhelm Friedemann student, Carl Friederich Zelter became teacher to both Mendelssohn children. Zelter also encouraged Felix and Fanny’s father to collect any Bach manuscripts he could find.
This family collection and a manuscript gift from Great Aunt Sarah’s sister, Bella Saloman, the Mendelssohn grandmother, made possible Felix Mendelsohn’s revival of Bach’s music, through his championing of the St. Matthew Passion and subsequently of many other J.S. Bach works.
The Mendelssohn collection of Bach manuscripts did not include the missing violin concerti.
All of these connections made difficult writing choices. The choice of how to uncover the missing concerti, and put Rebecca Gregory in danger from a powerful and vicious person depended on deciding that the concerti may have been among the pieces sold by Wilhelm Friedemann. Then, I had to decide who might have bought them, and how they may have traveled from one place to another through the next generations.
And that is how I ended up visiting Austria and Hungary. That part of the research for In Concert put me in those great countries at a desperate time in the recent history of Europe. I will tell you that story in a next essay.
Here's the scoop on the known and unknown concerti for violin by J.S. Bach:
Known Violin Concerti by Bach
BWV is a catalog of Bach's Works ( Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis in German)
Concerto in A minor for Violin, Strings and Basso continuo, BWV 1041
Concerto in E major for Violin, Strings and Basso continuo, BWV 1042
Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, Strings and Basso continuo, BWV 1043
BWV 1041 was later rearranged as a concerto for harpsichord, BWV 1058 in G minor.
BWV 1042 was later rearranged as a concerto for harpsichord, BWV 1054 in D major.
BWV 1043 was later rearranged as a concerto for 2 harpsichords, BWV 1062 in C minor.
Concerti for violin that are believed to exist:
Bach is thought to have written several more violin concertos at Weimar and Cöthen, and it is likely that many of his harpsichord concertos were arranged from earlier violin versions which have since been lost; thus, the violin concertos in G minor BWV 1056R and D minor BWV 1052R and the D minor Concerto for violin and oboe BWV 1060R are the conjectural originals of works which have come down to us as harpsichord concertos.
These are the pieces our stalker and kidnapper believes Rebecca has. He is certain she has them hidden away, and he will destroy anyone to get them. So, music lovers, and action lovers alike will enjoy this story.
By the way, that manuscript sold by Christie's is for lute or keyboard? Here is the story of that sale.
The Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat Major (BWV 998) is a favorite among both harpsichords and lutenists. Like many works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), it can be played on different instruments, which is expressly indicated on this score in the composer's handwriting: "Prelude pour la Luth ò Cembal" (for lute or keyboard).
Updated: Sep 1, 2019
“Mom,” my youngest son, Owyn, says from his end of the phone. “Can you make a Sasquatch onesie?”
This is the son whose wife, Stephanie, is expecting in about three months. This is the son who at eight years old sewed a set of colorful flames for the front of our fireplace. (The fireplace had to be closed until the chimney got repaired. He missed watching the fire.). This is the son who calls his wife “Mizz Yeti”. This is the son who went to art school.
“What’s a onesie?” I ask.
“It’s this piece of baby clothes that’s all one piece.”
“Aha,” I say. “When do you want to go shopping with me?” (Not doing this craziness by myself when I can get Mr. Artist Son roped into sewing time together.)
So, the next Saturday Owyn, Stephanie and I end up at Fabric Depot. It turns out we arrive on the last Saturday in the life of Portland, Oregon’s most famous fabric store, so we are part of a mob. We soon depart the mob and its long lines. We drive out to Milwaukee, Oregon’s also famous Mill End Store where we buy a half yard of five kinds of fake fur.
Five half yards for a onsie? you wonder. This can be explained by understanding the mind of youngest son, Artist, Yeti -Sasquatch lover, and imaginative fellow. By the time we have looked over patterns and furry fabric, he has also decided that the onsie should actually be a furry sleeping bag with hood and large Sasquatchy ears.
Plus, he wants to make a mobile of Yetis, Sasquatches and eventually, yes, one unicorn.
And any fabric not already dedicated to these projects will become a crazy quilt of fur for a child’s big-girl bed.
Son, Owyn, picks out the patterns for the onesie-cum-sleeping-bag, and for the monkey-face dolls who will become yetis. I pick out the giraffe pattern that will become the unicorn.
So, now, we plan to dedicate several Saturdays spaced out over the next year or so. And this is fine with me. My kids are fun to spend time with, and now that they are adults, I can send them home at afternoon’s end when I need to write (or nap, depending on the project.)
Priority becomes the mobile. Here is a photo of the first two parts. The yeti is a snow version of a sasquatch. Body by Mom using the reliable Singer Featherweight. Faces by Son, using scissors, needle and thread. For face fabric, we have raided my quilting fabric (none of which was fake fur.)
Son admits halfway through the first face that he really likes to make things, but he believes his least favorite medium is hand sewing. That’s mainly because the eye of the needle is hard to see and get thread into.
This means he is well on his way to cheater glasses – those reading glasses that he’s been teasing me about for four or five years. This project has many benefits for Mom.
And here is the unicorn. Again body by Mom and Featherweight, tail and horn by son. Face, his favorite googly eyes.
Now, the question is how to hang these furry faces above the crib.
It turns out that he has already bought a clamp-on hanger, and I have a pattern to cover the mobile frame, thank you to Nancy Fierlinger and her book Vintage Knits for Modern Babies. Of course, her knitted pattern features darling pastel bunnies hung from a hoop that is covered in a lovely knitted rose color.
Ours, however, is knitted in black, to go with the colors in the fur.
All through this project, which we’ve enjoyed for four Saturday afternoons, I have wondered about poor baby. She is now born and healthy, and looks to have lovely red-gold hair like her mama. She likes to stare at her mama’s face and at ceiling lights and at the three sizes of dog that are her siblings.
Last weekend, she stared a lot at my shirt print of dinky skiers. The print is so small that each ski looks like a long foot on some hunched over animal.
I told her they were Jackalopes. She smiled and stared some more.
But how will she take to a mobile of furry friends hanging over her every dream?
Is one unicorn enough to overcome meeting Four Woodland Ghosts at such an early age?
How long before she can join us in these nutty, art projects?
And do we know a good psychiatrist who can help a child with such a dad and grandmother?
P.S. I'll show you the Sasquatch sleeping bag once it has ears and paws. the baby is not going to need that thing until next winter.
Updated: Nov 3, 2021
By Louis Nizer
Pyramid Books, of Doubleday,
New York, New York 1961, republished in many subsequent years.
And still available from many sources.
The six cases discussed by this famous courtroom lawyer contain more drama than any scene in a movie I have watched, or any legal thriller I have read.
These true stories show Louis Nizer’s method of preparation, his concern and care for the psychological well-being of his client and client families.
They show his team’s ability to keep hunting and unraveling until the truth comes pouring out.
I’ve read this book four times, since I found it in a thrift store—a hidden gem that happened in its original days to be on the New York Times bestseller list for 72 weeks.
It is not the famous trials nor the famous people that make this book a great re-read, it is the process of law applied by a determined bull dog.
You’ll be riveted.
Yes, indeed. this book found online, is just as worn as a book can be.
Think its owner read it a lot?
Review by Rae Richen
