Страница 12 из 105
As well as heavy involvement in her university work, she had found time to write the music for After Infinity, and the auditorium was filled with students of drama, of film, and of any manifestation of the avant-garde. An admired student genius had written the scenario and directed the film; great things were expected. There was to be no dialogue, in order that the immediacy of the early silent film might be recaptured and any taint of merely literary values avoided. There would, however, be music, for Chaplin had given his blessing to music as an accompaniment to film, particularly when he wrote the music himself. The student genius could not write music, but he discerned a fellow genius in Schnak, and she had provided music. She had rejected the idea of using a synthesizer, and had composed her score for a piano that had been doctored with pieces of parchment fastened over the strings, assisted by a Swanee whistle ingeniously played under a metal tub, and that simplest of instruments, a comb covered with tissue paper. The effect was of a vaguely melodious but unfocussed buzzing, punctuated by shrieks, and everyone agreed that it had added much to the general effect.
The film-maker was scornful of what he called “linear” quality in a script, so his film bounded along in unco
Subtle campus critics professed to detect a hint of irony in the music, but the majority, while admitting that it might be so, felt that it added a dimension to a brilliant film which would, if everybody had their rights, command a variety of international awards.
When, a few days later, the Faculty met to discuss thesis topics, they were astonished that Schnak proposed to complete her work on Arthur of Britain within one university year. She had done her year of courses for her doctorate and nothing stood in the way except the unusually short time she had allotted to her thesis-composition. A thesis of operatic length and complexity? They demurred.
“I am through with trying to control or advise Schnak,” said Dean Wintersen. “If it kills her or drives her mad, let it be so. I hope to hand over my supervision of work to a distinguished visitor.”
Of course there was curiosity about the distinguished visitor, but the Dean said it was too early to talk of what was not yet assured. As always, the Faculty wished to show its academic scruple by doubt and debate.
“This thesis exercise,” said a professor of musicological research; “who can say what it may involve? I am not at all impressed by this passion to complete what fate has ordained should be incomplete.”
“Ah, but you must admit that it has been done, and well done,” said another musicologist, who did not like the first speaker. “Look at Janet Johnson’s excellent reconstruction of Rossini’s Journey to Rheims. And what about Deryck Cooke’s completion of Mahler’s Tenth? What this girl wants to do is a forward, not a backward, step. She wants to display for us a Hoffma
“I have heard one of Hoffma
“Ah, but that’s the fault of the libretti,” said his enemy, who had indeed never heard a note by Hoffma
The question was directed to the Dean, and it gave him a chance to display those qualities which mark a dean off from ordinary professors. He did not, in fact, know anything about the Hoffma
“A certain amount of work will have to be undertaken before that question could be satisfactorily answered,” he said. “Of course we shall have to make sure that all that side of the work is properly handled. We are not literary experts. We shall have to arrange a committee for Schnak that includes somebody from Comparative Literature.”
This was greeted with groans.
“Yes, I know,” said the Dean. “But you must admit that they are very thorough. I had thought of asking Professor Penelope Raven to act. Would that be agreeable?”
There were other matters to be decided, and it was nearing the time when professors feel the need of a pre-di