Free Time Will Tell by Donald Greig Page A

scholarship and doubtless add something more provocative, perhaps a new attribution. Or maybe something that tied Ockeghem more closely to Compère and Josquin, and once again raised the question of how much the older man had taught the younger? Then there were papers by other international scholars: on Ockeghem and musical puzzles; on Ockeghem and his links with churches in Paris; on Ockeghem and his relationship with Dufay (there were rumours that the meeting between the two of them in Cambrai in 1462 was not the only one); on Ockeghem and the liturgy; and two or three papers that would present the findings of the kind of archival research that would provide details of the composer’s personal life. Andrew’s hope was that some new piece of information would emerge which would make reference to the motet and even tie it to Ockeghem, a discovery the significance of which only he would fully appreciate.
    Even without knowing the intended purpose of the piece, there was plenty to be going on with, the only possible problem being the very thing that made it so valuable: its uniqueness. Somewhere there might be another version of it, perhaps a better copy, clearer and more accurate, which would make his discovery a composer’s sketch like the Bouchel composition scribbled in the back of a choir book in Cambrai in the 1450s. Andrew didn’t want his scrappy version to be trumped by some later edition, and the longer he waited the more chance there was of such a catastrophe occurring.
    The hand in which the manuscript was written had given him pause for thought. When he’d first begun to copy down the notes in the library in Amiens Cathedral, he’d noted the distinct characteristics of the writing. He’d realised immediately, and with some sadness, that it was not in Ockeghem’s hand. Ockeghem’s signature was steady and upright, the lettering like modern Gothic, composed of hard angles, no more so than the ‘e’ which had the appearance of a flag on a pole. The script of whoever had written the music and the
Miserere mei
text was considerably more rounded, yet more functional as well; any flourishes were kept to a minimum, as if there was no time to attend to careful calligraphy. Where the ‘g’ of Ockeghem’s signature had a studied, neat swoop that ended with a horizontal serif, the tail of the scribe’s ‘g’, like all the other writing, sloped diagonally from left to right and ended with a loop.
    In fact, the scribe’s work seemed almost amateurish, far from the carefully spaced layouts of something like the Chigi codex, the text only loosely aligned beneath the notes, often abbreviated. It even contained a misspelling. It was clearly a very first rough sketch, perhaps dictated, from which a more careful and considered copy would have been made. It was no performing copy either, for no group of singers gathered round a choir lectern, let alone one consisting of thirty-four voices, could have read from something that small.
    â€˜Would you like a drink from the bar, sir?’
    Andrew had been oblivious to the pre-flight checks and take-off. Instinctively he hid the score.
    â€˜Oh. Er. Yes. Tomato juice, please.’
    â€˜Tomahto juice?’ she confirmed.
    â€˜Tomahto juice, yes,’ he replied, making the Ts slightly wetter than usual.
    â€˜Worcester sauce with that?’ she asked, dropping a solitary ice cube into the clear plastic glass.
    â€˜Er, no thank you.’ He took the proffered drink and snack. Sipping the thick juice, he heard the song in his head: ‘You say tomayto and I say tomahto.’ Pronunciation. That was another matter he needed to consider. How should Emma Mitchell’s singers pronounce the text? If the piece had been written for Tours, then any final consonants of the Latin texts would only be pronounced at the end of a grammatical phrase. The sound would probably be more strongly nasalised than modern