For those of you with a love of the funerary violin, that obscure genre of music rendered almost extinct after it was condemned by the Catholic church in the 1830s, you will be glad to learn that Rohan Kriwaczek’s brand new book An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin is now available on sale from Amazon (UK site only). Fittingly, Kriwaczek’s book is published by Duckworth, purveyors of the poetic oeuvre of William McGonagall.
If you don’t care much about funerary violin music but have a grudge against Pius X for his 1903 motu proprio on sacred music, this book may also be up your alley.
The New York Times gives a little more information about the book and the mysterious Guild of Funerary Violinists (you may need Bugmenot to get past registration).
Strangely, The Rosenberg Archive has been silent about this guild.
Fill me in about the Rosenberg site, I smell a hoax (finishing off birthday wine here).
The Rosenbergs are not so much a hoax, more of a parallel universe, a much better universe run by violin virtuosi. Some of the Rosenbergs' exploits bear an uncanny resemblance to the real-world activities of the violinist Jon Rose.
Happy birthday!