And After the Fire Lauren Belfer Nyt Review
A Literary Couple Grapple With Bach and His God
Husband and wife both publish books in May: Given the vicissitudes of publishing, it would have been quite a feat even if they had bent every try to it. But this was non uppermost in the minds of Michael Marissen and Lauren Belfer, though they had been working more or less in concert for a decade.
Mr. Marissen, 55, is a musicologist and professor emeritus at Swarthmore Higher; Oxford University Printing is issuing his "Bach & God," a volume of scholarly essays from the last twenty years. Ms. Belfer, 61, is an established novelist ("City of Calorie-free," "A Fierce Radiance"), and HarperCollins has but released "And After the Fire," which has much to do with, well, Bach and God.
Mr. Marissen had an extremely conservative Dutch Calvinist upbringing in Ontario. Though he now declares himself an agnostic, he has put his profound knowledge of the Bible ("it was shoved down my pharynx") to use in examining the sources and deeper meanings of Bach'due south sacred texts, especially as regards their attitudes toward Judaism. Ms. Belfer had a liberal, minimally observant Jewish upbringing in Buffalo. No surprise, she shares many of the qualities of her latest heroine, Susanna Kessler, whom she describes as atheist-Jewish. "And After the Fire," partly based in history, posits the rediscovery of a fictional Bach church cantata with a peculiarly ailing text.
Over a late lunch at Bar Boulud in Manhattan, where they live, the ii discussed their working process, Bachian pillow talk and writing a novel with musicological accuracy. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
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What I find most fascinating about these books is that here is Michael, taking a hard look at Bach's works to come across what ethical bug they might present, especially with regard to anti-Judaisim. And at that place is Lauren, inventing a piece of work of Bach that seems more anti-Semitic than almost anything Bach really wrote. Is it possible that Lauren is muddying the very waters that Michael is trying to clarify?
LAUREN BELFER I would say no. It merely creates a context for how I came to this thought. When I was growing up, Earth War 2 was very close. I lost family members in the war. When I see articles in the newspaper nearly lost works of art being rediscovered, I always follow the story.
About 10 years ago, I received an announcement for a class about the music of Bach, part of a Swarthmore College program that brings kinesthesia members to New York to teach classes for alums, and I but had a feeling I should sign up. Equally it turned out Michael was offering the class, though I didn't know him at the fourth dimension. Not knowing very much about Bach at that indicate, I was overwhelmed at how gorgeous the music was. And yet when we began to study some of the sacred music, I was quite taken aback by how some of the pieces lash out at Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and it was hard for me to reconcile the glorious, exalted music that meant so much to me with these other pieces that had ethically problematic subject area thing.
And then one evening later grade, as I was walking to the subway, I suddenly thought, "Well, what if I institute a work of art that had been stolen in World War II?" And and so I thought: "But everybody finds stolen paintings. What if I found something unlike, a musical masterpiece by Bach? And what if information technology had an ethically problematic libretto, so that the people who found information technology had to struggle with what to do with it?" And that was the jumping-off indicate for the story.
MICHAEL MARISSEN Actually, it might be worth pointing out right abroad that the anti-Jewish polemic in the fictional cantata is not really any worse than what's in Bach'southward vocal works. There are church cantatas that are just equally bad. Information technology's just that they're not as explicit.
This comes up a lot in my scholarly work. I'g accused of existence inconsistent. Some of my colleagues say: "It'south fantastic that you lot sort of made Bach adequate for us again past making the 'St. John Passion' not seem and so bad. Why are you earthworks up this horrible stuff in the church building cantatas?" Bach was simply post-obit Luther'due south view that there is a time and a place for anti-Semitism, and that the Passion season is not information technology. There are other times in the church twelvemonth where it is appropriate and welcome, and those are the places where yous actually do become information technology in Bach.
Paradigm
What'southward more, if anyone was muddying the waters, it was me. I wrote the text. It was a sort of game, in a way. We thought that instead of merely reporting on the general content of this fictional piece of work, information technology might exist fun to effort writing an opening chorus in rhyming German that had the proper accents.
And the proper bile.
MARISSEN Exactly. Information technology got everything in there. But we also made sure that it was not just something we were making up merely something you lot could find in either the writings of Luther or in the New Testament.
BELFER Michael created the music, too, the manner he described a few bars.
MARISSEN Yes, we didn't actually write a score. It's easier to write [bad] 18th-century theological verse than it is to write really neat music.
When did the 2 of you get from educatee and instructor to interested parties to collaborators?
BELFER After the course, I contacted Michael, and he started advising me on research. We became closer and closer friends. Michael was still teaching, and nosotros traveled to Deutschland together to piece of work on the book.
MARISSEN As Lauren said, I start started every bit a full general historical adviser, and I didn't seek to become more than involved, just eventually you just get fatigued in.
I don't hateful to pry, simply I couldn't help wondering what your pillow talk must have been like.
MARISSEN I don't think we ordinarily talked about Bach at night. But nosotros had plenty of time during the day, considering we live together and piece of work together in the apartment.
BELFER People say to us, "How can you live in the same house and work at abode all twenty-four hours without making each other crazy?" But nosotros never practise make each other crazy. We talk about what we've been doing and kind of feed off each other.
MARISSEN Nosotros certainly read each other's drafts.
Yes, I suspect that this is the most musicologically vetted novel ever.
MARISSEN That's what I've been saying. It has the highest level of musicological verisimilitude of any novel ever written.
BELFER If nosotros had any moments of possible tension, information technology was around this result of verisimilitude, because I might write something like "X is true." And Michael would say: "No, you can't say that. It's but 99.9 percent true."
Let's talk about book titles. Between you, you have come up up with one very blunt one and one that is both elusive and allusive.
BELFER "And After the Fire" weaves in several strands in the volume. It is originally from the Volume of Kings in the Hebrew Bible, merely I first came upon it in the oratorio "Elijah" past Mendelssohn, who figures in the historical part of the novel. I was thinking about the contemporary characters in the novel, who are all, in their dissimilar ways, coming to terms with what happened in the war and the Holocaust. And the pregnant of the word Holocaust is a consuming burn down. And so I recall all of my characters in the contemporary section are struggling to come to terms with life after the burn.
And, Michael, you originally called your book of essays "Essaying Bach and Religion."
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MARISSEN Well, that was the championship that I suggested to the publisher, and quite reasonably, they said I might want to consider something a little snappier.
And the early reaction to it?
MARISSEN People who know about it are just saying funny things, like Reilly Lewis, the conductor of the Washington Bach Consort, who said: "'Bach & God'? That's redundant." I replied, "Simply if it's a contest, we listing the winner first." Of course, it's not a contest. The book really is very much well-nigh the importance of religion to an understanding of Bach'due south music. What I'm trying to prove is that in some of Bach's music, at to the lowest degree, you tin't really understand unless you have the historical and contextual stuff. I'm against the general idea that great art is really fine art for fine art's sake, and everything else is irrelevant.
BELFER I'chiliad not looking at the question of what Bach himself believed or didn't believe. I'k trying to look at a problematic work of art and at people struggling over what to do with it today.
Are y'all willing to talk most what y'all're doing next?
BELFER Well, I do accept some other idea, and I'm moving forrard with it, and that's as far as I can go.
MARISSEN I've embarked on a new edition of the four-part chorale harmonizations of Bach from his song works that students take for centuries been using every bit models in learning harmony and counterpoint, substantially a textbook. Those pieces would do good a lot from re-editing from the original manuscripts then that nosotros get the correct notes and the correct words and the right stanzas from the right hymns and so on. I'm really not planning to do any more than writing about religious polemic. I've done my fleck.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/arts/music/a-literary-couple-grapple-with-bach-and-his-god.html
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