From Our Comment Fields: Further Funerary Violins

From our Comment Fields. The plot thickens. See also here.

Jim Harris at Prairie Lights Books recently sent me an advance copy of AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF THE ART OF FUNERARY VIOLIN and I must take issue with his colleague Paul Ingram’s assessment that the book is a hoax. My belief is that the Rohan Kriwaczek hoax is itself a hoax. Let me explain. I am the director of MuseumZeitraim Leipzig and a former curator at The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. Research and scholarship at both institutions confirms that the Leipzig composer Hugo Wassmann, brother of the renowned artist Johann Dieter Wassmann, was an active member of the Lutheran wing of Leipzig’s Guild of Funerary Violinists in the 1890s. Hugo’s ultimate falling out with the Guild came in 1901 over his efforts to introduce the saxophone to funerary rights, a practice that would eventually take hold in the city of New Orleans with great success, although not among Lutherans. Hugo was a former captain in the Prussian army and regularly composed military marches inclusive of the saxophone. Here in Leipzig, the funerary violin has a long and crucial history, most often associated with Heironymous Gratchenfleiss. Gratchenfleiss’s extensive archives were in the care of Musikinstrumenten-Museum der Universität Leipzig, part of the Grassi Museum, but lost forever when the complex was gutted by fire in an Allied bombing raid on 3 December 1943. The un-sourced (and poorly translated) letter Kriwaczek quotes referencing Gratchenfleiss, dated 14 September 1787 (pp 62-63), which he simply describes as “by an unknown man named Fredrik,” is in fact by the pen of Fredrik Wassmann, grandfather of Johann and Hugo, describing the funeral of their great-grandfather, a funeral Gratchenfleiss performed. An original copy of the letter is in the archives of The Wassmann Foundation. The liberties Kriwaczek takes with his facts would appear to be part of a larger narrative strategy to make it appear he has created a hoax, when he hasn’t. What a dull book it would have been otherwise. Intriguing.

Tschüss,
Sophie Vogt
Director
MuseumZeitraum Leipzig

Live Funerary Violin Halloween Night at McNally Robinson

Beginning at 5:30 on All Hallow's Eve, Rohan Kriwaczek will be playing violin in the store. Take a listen! He'll be reading a bit and taking questions and then signing copies before he is wisked off to his Trans-atlantic flight later that evening.

TUE 10/31 5:30 PM
McNally Robinson
52 Prince St.
(between Lafayette and Mulberry)
New York, NY
(212)274-1160

Meet Rohan Kriwaczek and his Famous Funerary Violin

Rohan K will be in NYC this weekend for a few events. One Friday at 7 PM at the Last Rites Tattoo Theatre at 511 W. 33rd St., Suite 3N, 3rd Floor Between 10th and 11th. And he will be appearing on Halloween night (wooooooooooo!) at the famed McNally Robinson Booksellers on Prince St. More details will come. See you there.

Funerary Violins update

Emdashery follows up on Rohan Kriwaczek's book The Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin:

"I'm always curious about new and innovative ways to market a book. What James Frey did stunk big time, but selling a detailed accounting of a fictionalized history on an obscure and dark subject? That at least makes me smile..."

This has all taken us a bit by surprise, so bear with us here...We are rushing the book's release in the US and hope to have it on sale sometime in November (originally we were scheduled for January). And due to the very small initial printing, we are going back to press to meet the sudden demand for the book, so it may be hard to find at first, but we're doing the best we can. With a book this strange, I guess it makes sense that everything that follows will be touched by weirdness...

Previous posts on Funerary Violins can be found here, here, and here.
--John Mark

Funerary Violins on National Public Radio

Overlook and Duckworth publisher Peter Mayer was on NPR's "All Things Considered" last night discussing the controversy surrounding Rohan Kriwaczek's November book AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF THE ART OF FUNERARY VIOLIN, and the fascinating story of how he came to publish it.

To listen to the interview, read an excerpt from the book, and download some funerary dirges, click here.

And for a round up of the print coverage in the last couple days, click here.
--John Mark

An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin on "All Things Considered"

Peter Mayer, Publisher of The Overlook Press, will be on NPR's "All Things Considered" this evening to discuss Overlook's forthcoming An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin by Rohan Kriwaczek.

"It seems to be just another esoteric historical tome published to appeal to an academic audience: “An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin,” by Rohan Kriwaczek, a nonfiction account of a little-known genre of music that was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church and almost wiped out by the Great Funerary Purges of the 1830’s and 40’s, according to the winter catalog for the Overlook Press. Except for a few niggling details..."
--New York Times

"Is it a hoax? A surrealist joke? A misunderstood artistic statement? The rarefied world of independent publishers was buzzing with these questions yesterday after a new book about the ancient musical tradition of funerary violin was attacked for being fiction."
--The Guardian UK

"Maybe I have been fooled. It is possible. But it reads so extraordinarily serious and passionate. If it is a hoax, I can only say, I have my cap off.

"I just thought, whether it is true or not true, it is the work of some crazy genius. If it is a hoax, it is a brilliant, brilliant hoax."
--Peter Mayer, quoted in Daily Mail