'Renfred's Masquerade' and Music as the Ultimate Muse

This book was one of those inspired by a very specific song and a very specific performance or interpretation of that song. It was a purely orchestral recording of Offenbach's "Barcarolle" from a cassette tape I got for myself as an undergrad. It was a time when I was discovering classical music and used whatever money I had saved from my part-time job to buy cassettes to listen to. This was way back in the late 1980s.

I found the piece not only romantic, but melancholy, and I used it more than once as a prompt for short stories when the time came for me to pursue writing more seriously. For this book I took to vocal performances of the aria for my muse. It's one of those songs that conjure so many images in my head, and Renfred's Masquerade actually started with one single image: that of a gondola sailing off in the night and two people sitting in it. But the very, very strong impression I had wasn't one of romance, but tragedy. 

It didn't help that I also bought a copy of E.T.A. Hoffmann's short stories, which included "The Sandman" and was one of the works that also found its way into Offenbach's opera. So double the muse-whammy, and eventually more appendages sprouted from that one image of the gondola until I ended up with extensive notes for Renfred's Masquerade. 

This book is a pretty elaborate fairy tale with a tangled backstory. I wrote it specifically to read like a gay YA fairy tale that takes place in an AU Venice. 

Every song mentioned or described in the book is an actual song I listened to. Offenbach's "Barcarolle" is the primary one, including the final notes of music toward the end. 

Other songs I used are Khachaturian's "Masquerade Waltz":

And Shostakovich's "Waltz No.2":

And, finally, for the penultimate ballroom scene with Davide and Nicola, I used Smetana's polka from The Bartered Bride. As with the other pieces I specifically inserted into the book via descriptions, the actual scenes were also written to fit each composition. For the polka scene, it's a rousing and terrifying moment for Nicola, who faces his shame and allows himself to be finally seen as he is. The final minute and a half of the song, in particular, influenced that scene the most. It's still so easy to picture poor Nicola panicking while Davide whirls him around and around to an upbeat polka.

None of those compositions are accurate for the time period I had in mind (maybe Offenbach comes closest), so I never referred to them by title or anything like that. Just descriptions of the individual songs and how they influence the dancers and the main characters. 

Renfred's Masquerade is currently 50% at all online bookstores this month, including Smashwords and Kobo. For a complete list of these stores and the blurb, go to the book page at Books2Read.