She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Chord of Evil, and reported the following:From Page 69:Visit Sarah Rayne's website.As Phin stared at it, a dizzying kaleidoscope began to whirl through his brain – a maelstrom of things half read, of fragmented stories half heard and imperfectly remembered, and of almost-forgotten rumours. He knew some of the stories and he had only ever quarter-believed them. He thought most people had only ever quarter-believed them. And yet there it was, written in sad, faded ink—Phineas Fox, music historian and researcher, for his second outing might have found himself imbroiled in any one of half a dozen plots, ancient or modern, classical or rock or jazz, any of which could be based on true stories.
Toby’s voice, asking what he had found, broke in, and it took a moment for Phin to realize where he was. He put the music carefully down on the table, and sat back, his eyes still on it.
‘Phin, for pity’s sake—’
‘The title,’ said Phin. ‘My God, that title—’
‘What about the title? Is it Giselle again, like the painting?’ Toby came round the table to see.
‘It’s not Giselle,’ said Phin. ‘It’s Siegreich.’
Siegreich. The word spiked deep into Phin’s mind.
Toby said, ‘What’s a siegreich? Whatever it is, it’s making you look bloody peculiar.’
Phin said, ‘Music with that title is believed to have been composed sometime during the early 1940s, in Germany.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s a piece of music that’s almost a legend,’ said Phin. ‘One of those curious stories that sometimes emerge from wartime. The kind where you don’t know what’s true, and what’s embroidered truth, and what’s outright fiction. The story is that the Nazis got hold of a composer who was living in Germany and persuaded him to write a piece of music for them. And when the Nazis used persuasion—’
‘Point taken. For persuasion read force.’
But for Chord of Evil, I latched onto the infamous tritone – the ‘Devil’s Chord’.
The devil’s chord has been described as one of the most dissonant music intervals that exists – so much so, that it was banned in Renaissance church music. Church music was supposed to be a paeon of praise to God, and the tritone was considered so ugly that it wasn’t thought suitable. Medieval arrangements even used it to represent the devil, and Roman Catholic composers sometimes used it for referencing the act of the crucifixion. Its dissonance can work to advantage in some cases, though. It’s remarkably effective as background music in films, where it can serve as a warning to the audience that something bad’s about to happen. That harsh discordance that tells you the killer’s outside the door with an axe. Think shower curtains in Psycho.
It occurred to me that the devil’s chord might make a guest appearance in a composition that had become part of music legend. But what could that legend be?
Well, as somebody once said, if you can’t find a genuine legend, create one of your own.
Music has often been composed to celebrate great events – coronations, births, victory in war. But what about a legend in which a piece of music was written to celebrate not a happy, or a triumphant event, but something far darker? Something so menacing its existence was kept secret?
It was at that point that I saw the whole plot. I could see Phineas Fox peeling back the layers of a secret that had lain undisturbed for three quarters of a century – glimpsing edges and corners of it, and ending in delving into a very grisly fragment of musical history indeed.
And so, Chord of Evil was born.
Writers Read: Sarah Rayne.
--Marshal Zeringue
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