One of the fascinating things about Joseph Haydn’s life is that parts of it are very well documented, but there are long stretches where we have very little information about the day to day, let alone the month to month, aspects of it.
All the more reason to try to fill in some of those holes by postulating that Kapellmeister Haydn, once he was employed in the service of His Serene Highness, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, might have spent some time doing a little detective work, especially if that was connected with solving a murder mystery involving a plot to assassinate Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Maria Theresa.
That’s what mystery writer Nupur Tustin does in A Minor Deception, the first of her ongoing series of Joseph Haydn Mysteries, which, Haydn lover that I am, I’m abashed to say, I’m very late to the party in discovering.
When I first began reading the novel, I was a bit apprehensive, as the opening pages contain a list of nearly 30 characters, some historical and some entirely fictional, who play a part in the story, and I worried that although I recognized most of the historical personages, I’d never be able to keep so many characters clear.
I needn’t have worried. Tustin does an excellent job in juggling the characters and reminding the reader just who is who, so I was never confused.
That said, her novel is so intricately constructed and so well plotted, that to try to summarize even the first few chapters would do it a disservice. I’ll just say that if you like mysteries, if you like whodunits, if you like historical novels, and especially if you love Haydn like I love Haydn, I think you’ll enjoy what Nupur Tustin has concocted. I’ll just add that she has learned her lessons from Agatha Christie (or Christie’s followers) very well.
With one exception, I think her historical research is absolutely impeccable. She certainly paints the marriage of Joseph Haydn and Maria Anna as realistically as it must have been.
The one big exception occurs right at the start of the novel where there is this:
The sound of two violins, a cello, and a bass playing a section from a string quartet…
But a string quartet consists of two violins, a viola, and a cello, not a cello and a bass as she has it. She compounds that error by repeating it later on.
Now the novel takes place in 1766 when Haydn was 34, at a time before he had written any of the great string quartets for which he is justly famous. He had only written the very early ones, which are charming divertimentos, but even they are played with a viola and cello, so I have no idea how she made such an error.
That blunder aside, this is a fun read for any fans of Haydn or historical whodunits.
Now on to the remaining books in her series.
REAL TIME UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The ink had barely dried on the above (or the pixels were still settling in) when I noticed that writer Nupur Tustin has a contact page on her web site at ntustin.com. So I felt it was my duty to send her a note to ask her about the error before I published. My hopes weren’t very high, as I’d had previous experience with the web sites of other writers. Often those sites are set up by third parties and then ignored for years. But I felt it was worth a shot. And wonder of wonders, seemingly moments later I received this reply:
Thanks for getting in touch, James. I’m glad to hear you enjoyed Minor Deception. Haydn referred to his quartets (what we traditionally consider quartets) as well as to pieces written for any combination of 4-5 strings or other instruments as Divertimentos. One of these, found in a monastery in Austria, actually did have two violins, cello, and bass. So you’re right, what we consider a string quartet typically has viola and cello. But this particular piece had two violins, cello, and bass.
I had to think long and hard about using the word “quartet” to describe it rather than “Divertimento”. But I eventually chose the former because I felt it would be less alienating and foreign to the modern mind. And given that we have four strings, and the genre wasn’t quite fixed, still in flux, still forming, I didn’t feel I was doing the term or the piece an injustice describing it that way. I hope that helps.
My respect for Ms. Tustin, which was already quite high, just took an octave leap.
Here is an example of an early Haydn quartet, Op 1 No 1. Very lovely music, but only hinting at the greatness to come.
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