Classical Music Buzz > Thoughts On a Train
Thoughts On a Train
Dick Strawser
"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." -- Henri Bergson
244 Entries

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Rogers Kent-Clarke, having arrived in Harmonia-IV, was shopping at Puccini's haberdashery when the composer mentioned an opera he'd recently completed since he'd died. Meanwhile, Dr. Kerr was preparing to return to Dresden in 1848 to rescue Wagner from the clutches of Klangfarben's plot.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 35
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

Wagner is one of the great conundrums in classical music.

"Wait, is 'conundrums' the right plural or should it be 'conundra'? That sounds stupid... While we've taken a break, do you have my good side for the opening close-up?"

The recording engineer looked steadily at him and without blinking said this is an audio recording only. Considering the man's temper, the engineer didn't want to point out there were no cameras in the room, only a couple of microphones.

"What do you mean we're not filming!?" Manfred Kaye exploded. "I spent hours this morning getting myself ready for this, got a haircut and even bought a new tie just for this recording!" He flipped the end of the tie up just in case the engineer didn't know what a tie was. "This is a fuckin' $450 tie! Jesus, you think I can just throw $450 around on a tie for nothing, on my salary?"

He knew he could, naturally, even though the guys working in the pop music divisions made tons more money than he did. Kaye flopped himself back in the chair and sulked while he had a flashback to when he first graduated from Monitor Merrimack College with a masters in composition: that was when he didn't have $450 to throw around on a tie. Hell, he didn't have $4.50 to throw around on a tie, then. So in that sense, "yeah," he figured, "I'm a success." Besides, he made tons more money than this lousy engineer, anyway.

The engineer leaned forward, suggesting they start again. Man Kaye sat up, straightened the unnecessary tie and started over.

“You know, I don't even care for Wagner. Oh, his music's okay, I guess...”

The engineer interrupted him, asking if that was really how he wanted to start.

"No, you're right," Kaye responded, "I should stick to my script. What I think is of no relevance. 'Just the facts, ma'am'..." Then he realized the engineer was too young to get the Dragnet inference. Actually, he was, too – it was something his grandfather always used to say.

Composer Man Kaye – that was what he really wanted to be, he thought, not some corporate lackey bringing down a five-figure salary and living in a big luxurious apartment overlooking Central Park. That's what he told people at work: he didn't mention you had to look out the bathroom window, toward the left, to see it two blocks away.

Wagner is one of the great puzzles of classical music.

We think of the great Beethoven as a titan striding across mountains, writing music about Universal Man, great masterpieces anybody can relate to. Wagner – not so much. He may have been a titanically arrogant man concerned more about money and posterity, building his own opera house as a monument not to Art but to His Art. He was the personification of Ego, the self-important artist who knew better than his critics, who looked down on his audience. And then there was that whole Nazi thing.

The engineer leaned forward to interrupt him again, asking if he realized how excited he was beginning to sound – ‘vehement’ was the first word he'd thought of.

"Sorry," Kaye leaned back, wiping his brow.

This new engineer annoyed him, always butting in. Couldn't he edit this stuff later? It was like he thought Kaye didn't really know his stuff.

"Like, I can't get my mind around that whole Jewish thing, you know?"

The engineer took a slow sip of his by now cold coffee and told Kaye his name was Goldberg and he liked Wagner's music. "I don't agree with his politics and maybe I wouldn't want to invite him over for dinner, but I like his music."

Over the years, even bringing up Wagner's name in conversation with his friends would unleash a torrent of discussion about the pros and cons of separating the man from his music, even if you weren't Jewish.

If Richard Wagner were around today (Kaye said, starting over), he would be the darling of the tabloids. He had several affairs before he divorced his long-suffering wife, Minna, then, inviting his newly married staunch supporter, Klaus von Bülow and his wife, Cosima, the daughter of Franz Liszt – actually, she was one of Liszt's three illegitimate daughters, if you get my drift...

The engineer interrupted again, correcting him: that was Hans von Bülow, not Klaus – a different, more recent scandal.

Right...

"This guy," Kaye thought, "thinks he knows everything: who makes the bigger salary, eh?"

If Richard Wagner were alive today, yadda yadda yadda... then he stole conductor Hans von Bülow's wife, Cosima, Franz Liszt's illegitimate daughter, away from him – and they had a couple of illegitimate children of their own before they finally bothered to get married. It was all part of that moral cesspool the 19th Century excused by calling it 'Romanticism.'

Just look at the music Wagner composed, almost exclusively operas with stories about tragic, illicit love reeking of sin and then seeking redemption only to find it in death. Except for 'Die Meistersinger,' supposedly a comedy with all that Nazi stuff about how great German Art is... and then 'Parsifal' where Wagner equates himself with Christ, for Christ's sake...

"Look," the engineer interrupted again, "do you want to talk about Wagner's life and music or just vent your opinions about him?"

"Jew…" Kaye mumbled.

"What's that?"

"I was starting to say, 'd'you wanna start over again?'"

It probably would've been better had they started their Composers Series with someone Kaye liked – Bach or Mozart, then tackling Beethoven before getting around to Wagner. Of course, throwing in someone French or Italian might've been nice, but this is how Ron Steele wanted it done. The idea was to start marketing them through Public Broadcasting's classical music stations.

Wagner was Steele's favorite composer. In fact, on those occasions Kaye got a chance to enter the CEO's inner office, he was always playing music from The Ring probably because it reminded him of "Star Wars."

Once SHMRG got the license to the whole "Star Wars" franchise, which he viewed as inevitable, Kaye's plan was to sue the pants off Mr. Wagner for copyright infringement. Artists need to be taught a lesson.

What he hadn't realized then was, once "Operation Fate-Knocks-at-the-Door" would fall into place, this whole series of recordings was going to be moot.

-*-

Richard Wagner was born on May 22nd, 1813. When his father died shortly afterward, his mother married an actor named Ludwig Geyer who adopted the boy. This early association with the theater proved a formative influence on the young boy – whose name, now, was Richard Geyer though after his stepfather died, he decided to revert to the name Wagner.

As a child, he saw Weber conduct Der Freischütz, then discovered E.T.A. Hoffman and Shakespeare. He wrote plays about chivalry in which lots of people died and he liked the idea of writing music for them.

His artistic beginnings weren't remotely like those by famous prodigies such as Mozart or even Beethoven. Someone described his works as "passionately begun but badly carried out." There was nothing ‘not amateurish’ about what he composed. Even as a young man, a symphony and his earliest operas all smacked of pale imitation, showing no real talent or particular promise.

Yet he was relentlessly self-assured that, eventually, he would succeed. He became a conductor in small opera houses, had difficulty getting his first major work staged, the opera Rienzi, which might have put him on par with other once acclaimed but now forgotten composers. He racked up considerable debt and was constantly evading his creditors, barely one step ahead.

Then something strange happened. While fleeing creditors by ship across a stormy Baltic Sea, Wagner remembered hearing the story of "The Flying Dutchman" which he decided to turn into his next opera. Somehow, Wagner's music changed forever.

Where this suddenly mature, clearly much more original-sounding and obviously great music came from was anybody's guess. It was like all these fingerprints we associate with Wagner's greatest works must have been buried deep inside him, fermenting over the years, when finally this stormy, bone-rattling sea voyage jostled everything to the surface by the time he was almost 30.

His career was not an immediate success. His ideas were radically different, his approach to opera going against the standard conventions. People didn't always like what he composed and singers couldn't always sing what he wrote.

During the 1840s, he wrote Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, full of mysterious goings-on in medieval German kingdoms. He became involved in politics, writing pamphlets and storming the ramparts during the failed revolution in 1849, barely avoiding arrest. The King of Saxony then issued a warrant charging him with treason, so Wagner escaped to live in exile, eventually settling in Switzerland.

Years of struggle followed, composing operas about medieval legends to his own texts, trying to get them performed and trying even harder to get them accepted. Raising money to build his own opera house, he composed Tristan und Isolde for smaller forces – easier to get performed – but it proved so difficult, it was withdrawn after nearly a hundred rehearsals.

It took 25 years to complete the four-opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung, premiered in Bayreuth where he finally built that special opera house of his. He died in 1883 internationally acclaimed – and frequently reviled.

Wagner was regarded as one of the most influential composers of the 19th Century, pushing the style of tonal music beyond the brink of acceptability, especially in Tristan und Isolde. He also blurred the distinction between recitative and aria, creating an unending flow of music. Without him, the 20th Century – for better or worse – would have been very different.

Manfred Kaye sank back in his chair exhausted from trying to keep himself on track and under control during the recording session, somehow able to manage everything in one uninterrupted take, much to the engineer's surprise. He wasn't sure it was all entirely factual but his intent wasn't to be scholarly, just to entertain. Skimming the surface was enough.

"Put a bunch of music under that – you know, stuff from The Flaming Douchebag Overture with bits from Tristan and the Ring, maybe "Star Wars" for something familiar – and it's a go."

The engineer just nodded.

-*-

Richard Wagner was practically born in the midst of battle. Napoleon's army defeated the German Alliance outside Dresden a week earlier. That summer, his mother took her son and fled to Teplitz, but his father, a police officer working for the French occupation troops, died in a typhus epidemic following the Battle of Leipzig only a few months later.

Imagine the baby Wagner, sleeping safely in his crib in Teplitz, the spa where Goethe and Beethoven were guests that summer, receiving a baptism of German culture. But there's no proof the Wagners ever met them.

The politics of post-Napoleonic Europe, following the Emperor's final defeat and exile, fermented for decades, creating explosive issues of nationalism over arbitrary borders that continued to erupt well into the 20th Century, leading to both World Wars and the conflagration engulfing the Balkans in the 1990s. Governments determined the results with little or no concern for where people lived.

Most significantly, there was still no single German state following the collapse of the loose federation formerly known as the Holy Roman Empire, just an even looser collection of city states and small kingdoms. German-speaking people across Central Europe had a culture but no nation, and this, in part, fueled Wagner's attitude toward both his music and his politics.

If German Art – in Goethe's words and Beethoven's music – could rally the culture, soon there would come a cry for a united German state: in the aftermath of the French Revolution, one that might depose its monarchies.

How many times had I lectured about this in my classes or in pre-concert talks about the "life-and-times" of composers like Beethoven, Schubert or Wagner, especially relating to ‘The Ring’? My friends called it "Kerr's Party Piece" since, for an hour, I could hold forth about the Napoleonic impact on classical music's history. You'd think it'd been my dissertation.

We tend to forget the volatility of that era, seemingly peaceful with no really famous wars, where censorship drove people with different ideas underground, how paranoia made governments even more oppressive in the face of opposition.

Could people see the parallels, how the philosophical premise of this dialectic was still alive today? If a government professes what is best for its people, there were those opposed to it simply because opposition was part of the natural human condition, regardless of the form of government. Some thought it quaint, a notion unrelated to our own lives.

Wagner, despite what we know of his writings today, was not essentially a political person except when it came to his own self-interests. His friends thought him wildly inconsistent: while they were calling for the Saxon king to step down, to be replaced by a republic, Wagner felt the king should be the "first and most upright of republicans."

Ridding the country – in this case, Saxony – of its aristocracy would limit the supply of much-needed money to fund his artistic concerns, opposing the equality of “all working people” if it didn’t make exceptions for artists.

His attitudes were a mixture of bits culled from Feuerbach and Proudhon, republicanism and the ideas of "reform from above." If he thought himself a "true socialist," his Communist friends, following Karl Marx's writings, derided this as "the thinking of aesthetes and would-be philosophers." It didn't take much to see that childhood amateurism rising again in his political writings.

His nationalist speeches at the "Fatherland Club" did not win him any favors with the Saxon aristocracy, nor did the conservative middle-class – his target audience – give him much support. As conductor at the Royal Opera House and therefore a court employee, Wagner’s association with the leading revolutionary minds in Dresden wasn’t the most practical of plans, professionally or personally.

In addition to the opera house's architect, Gottfried Semper, and the poet Georg Herwegh, there was the failed musician and revolutionary August Röckel as well as the Russian-born anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin, the political gad-fly of 1848.

In the years following the failed revolutions that had swept across Europe in 1848 into 1849, Wagner continued writing essays as well as working on new operas. In "Art and the Revolution," he looked for an infusion of new people into art's traditional audience, taken not from the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie but from the working classes. Industry, he now saw, was the "enemy of art" – the Revolution was meant to liberate men from "the constraints of an industrialized society," to disclose new beauties in order to bring them into a finer awareness of humanity.

If Mercury represented the avaricious financial interests (which Wagner saw primarily represented by Parisian bankers), Apollo "raised mankind to joyful dignity" according to traditional interpretations of Greek myths and the creation of humans. To this, he added the idea of Jesus "who suffered for humanity," to create a synthesis that would probably not sit well with many Christians today.

When Wagner visited Paris as Liszt suggested, he quickly discovered how French culture was controlled by politics and money. Since Wagner had no money and without it, no one paid attention to his ideas, he left the city bitter and humiliated. Later, he wrote the only way to cleanse the place would be to burn it to the ground.

It's interesting to think how the end of The Ring,its story outlined that same year, reflected this attitude, burning the old world of the gods to bring about a new, cleansed world, an age of humans.

Despite his utopian views, Wagner, like many Germans during his time, was anti-Semitic. There's no ignoring this, just as there's no excusing it. He wrote several nasty (and poorly written) essays including "Jewishness in Music." Much of this attitude, like his politics, was probably fueled by the pragmatic realization that whatever they had – aristocrats or Jews – Wagner had not.

He was against business when it failed to support him, against government unless it gave him what he wanted: it didn't matter who or what or how. That Hitler later idolized him should surprise no one.

It's difficult to separate Wagner the Man with his attitudes and ideas, both political and social, from the music he composed. What in our country would be considered patriotism was called nationalism in Germany: today, in Wagner's case, nationalism became evil, especially when carried to extremes about a century later.

It almost doesn't matter what the history books say.

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012
1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story
This is one of those books I would probably never have found if not for word-of-mouth.

In the mid-90s, a close friend of mine told me his dad had written a book – “God’s Horse,” a kind of memoir about growing up in Poland – but it was only available in Polish. It had even been a finalist for the NIKE Literary Award, Poland’s highest prize for writers. The English translation finally came out this year – a long wait! In the interim, two more volumes followed and this English edition contains the first two. The third is currently in preparation.

Of course I was going to read it – who wouldn’t want to read a book by their friend’s father?

Usually, I’m not one to write reviews, especially where friends are involved, since it’s difficult to be honest either for the reader or the friend. Would I like it? What would I say if I didn’t?

So, familiarities aside, yes – I liked it and I don’t have to worry about finding something to say just to be nice. Given my association with the author and knowing his family – I’d met them in the late-70s – my immediate reactions may be different than yours.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***

To begin with, consider these dates: Wilhelm Dichter was born in what was then southeastern Poland (once part of Austria) in 1935. The Soviet Union occupied the area in 1939, followed by the Germans in 1941 in advance of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Though “Dichter” is a German word – it means ‘poet’ – Wilhelm’s father’s name was Rabinowicz and his family was part of the Jewish community that transcended the political boundaries of the day.

I have never been comfortable with what is generally termed “holocaust literature,” turning this horrible period of history into some form of entertainment: I could not imagine sitting in my living room watching “Sophie’s Choice” on TV and it took everything I could muster to go see Roman Polanski’s film “The Pianist.” Living in New York City and feeling particularly 'down' one day, I was riding the subway and realized the elderly man sitting next to me had a series of numbers tattooed on his forearm – a daily reminder of life in the concentration camps – and here, I had been complaining about having a bad day…

Reading about this particular childhood – what should be an idyllic, innocent time most of us should recall with pleasure – was more powerful for its narrative style. Some reviews have described its clipped and uncomplicated sentences as “Hemingway-like,” though I think that’s inaccurate. Dichter’s style in “God’s Horse,” the story of this childhood, may be telescoped and simple but its viewpoint is that of a child, not an adult looking back on his childhood and certainly not that of an adult with an aversion for subordinate clauses. It is this child-like simplicity – and I am reminded, when listening to Mozart, of the difference between child-like and childish – that gives this part of his story its impact. If a child could not comprehend the horror he was experiencing, simple direct prose can seem vague, almost indifferent – this, then, was ‘normal’ – but the adults who are reading it can infer what he only implies.

When I got to this part of the story early in the book, I often found myself sitting there staring at the page, stunned. That this inhumanity could have been experienced by anyone filled me with hopeless anger, yet it was experienced by someone I knew, someone I had sat across from at the dinner table and joked with, someone who had not only survived this but went on to absorb it, somehow, into his daily life.

A child who should describe the joy of, say, going to visit his grandparents on a sunny day is instead remembering leaving the attic where they’d been hiding, his mother taking him along to visit her sister’s family who were hiding in a well outside the town and how a bomb had hit the house while they were gone, exposing the attic where his father, ill with tuberculosis and always afraid his coughing would give them away, had hung himself by his tie.

It was difficult to read – I cannot imagine how difficult it was to remember it and write it down much less to have lived it – but the story moves on from there, during the transition to Communism, his mother marrying a man who had also lost his family, and adopting his name – Dichter – now facing another form of discrimination, not only being Jewish but having a German last name in Russian-dominated Polish society that equates Germanness with atrocity. As a Jew, Wilhelm finds himself in a school with mostly Catholic children run by the atheist state. His awareness of the world, growing up with the political propaganda, not just the bullying that seems to be the universal norm for this age, shifts again in the formative years of his early teens.

The writing style changes subtly with his maturing viewpoint. He observes squabbles within his family and their friends, tinged by the best-forgotten past and the delicate balance of the party line. He deals with issues any young teenager would face – he liked to draw, would he become an artist? or an engineer like his step-father? The drudgery of school, the grayness of living in a Warsaw still being reclaimed from the war’s rubble, are all part of this growing up.

History, from what I learned in school, was a collection of wars and battles, kings and presidents, which rarely seemed to notice there were people who lived under them or died on their battlefields. We read biographies of famous people or novels about them. But very rarely do we get a glimpse of the daily life, the average people who usually count for nothing in the greater historic scheme, dealing with the realities these so-called great men have created.

There is a recurring line that whenever Wilhelm is offered tea, he always says “but make it strong.”

It may not be just the tea that has made the author strong, helped him survive and adapt. But it is a riveting story that – knowing him and his son – is more than just a story. When I finished reading it, I thought someone should make a movie of this – it doesn’t need the usual Transformers or comic-book Super Heroes that populate movies so popular these days. Instead of animated figures, they’re real people, here. And in a way, wouldn’t we – on the outside – learn more from real people than from computer-generated graphics?

A few days later, I had stopped by to visit a friend who offered me tea, and I found myself saying, “Yes, please, but make it strong.”

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Wilhelm Dichter’s “God’s Horse and The Atheist School” has been translated into English by Madeline Levine, professor emeritus from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is published by Northwestern University Press and is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The third volume, Learning English, appeared in 2010 and the translation is in preparation.


1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

Only 200 more shopping days left till the End of the World as We Know It! (of course, you have to go to Central America to redeem your coupon points.)
In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Sebastian and the Trespassers return to the library and take off to foil Klangfarben's next plot - this one, to eliminate Richard Wagner and his music just as the newly-arrived conductor Rogers Kent-Clarke is working his way across Harmonia-IV when he discovers a particularly interesting shop is still open.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 34 
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

Stumbling along in the dark, he eventually found a street that led further into the city, away from the empty field where he’d suddenly found himself. What was that he'd fallen through, he wondered. He had an idea what that was he'd slipped in just before he fell, but there was no need to go there.

Rogers Kent-Clarke had no clue where he was and no idea how he might get back. It took a while before it occurred to him how he'd get back, much less if.

"Take it one step at a time."

And let's hope, he prayed, for a better step than the one that sent him spiraling down that giant... well, "rabbit-hole" was the closest thing he could come to describing it. It took only seconds to find himself standing in that field, but it was a very different field from the one he'd been standing in a moment before.

Where did those cars go, the ones that were parked there before he arrived? What happened to the moon? It was full, a minute ago. Or the stars, for that matter? He looked up and could see nothing that remotely resembled the sky he'd been looking at so recently. It's like they'd all regrouped themselves into very different patterns.

What time was it? His checked his phone but nothing was working – he couldn't even text anyone to let them know. And if this was a city, where was everybody? He felt lonely – and terribly, terribly screwed.

The further he went, the bigger the buildings got. Not taller – nothing looked to be more than four stories high – but grouped into larger units, massive somehow, with bulkier entranceways, flights of steps instead of stoops, little patches of garden in front, bigger trees along the street. It was very quiet yet windows were lit so he figured the city wasn't empty – or abandoned. Surely, he wondered, this wouldn't have been New Coalton as it existed before it was deserted and torn down? This didn't look like any American city he knew, nor did it even resemble any typical European city he had ever visited. He figured if he saw a sign somewhere, would he be able to read it? What language could it be in? He was fluent in four languages – five, if you counted American Teen-ager – but what were the odds he was in France or Germany? Certainly not Italy or Russia.

Walking along like a tourist both enthralled with what he was seeing for the first time and alarmed that he was hopelessly lost, he admired the old-fashioned street lights, for instance, which gave off a pinkish radiance covering a surprisingly wide area. How they did that, he had no idea: they didn't look like they had light bulbs of any kind, just carved stone with flecks that glowed.

He wished he had a tour-guide he could reference or pen and paper to jot down his own observations that would help him remember things. He forgot his phone wasn't working – none of the pictures he tried taking "took" – some “dead zone,” he figured, no place you’d really consider "normal."

"Normal," he thought. Now there was an interesting concept. For those who lived here, this was normal, their everyday experience. For him, it was a strange if not exactly exotic place. He was the stranger, here.

Opposite a large park, he saw a shop, a light in its front window.

"Kind of late to be open," he said to himself. "Who'd be shopping at this time of night?" Cautiously, he went over to check, thinking "if I were back home, this could be a break-in!"

But instead of burglars, there was a well-dressed man leaning against the counter, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette while paging through a newspaper. Kent-Clarke could recognize this man anywhere. The name ornately painted on the glass was unnecessary. It read "Puccini's Haberdasheria."

He was aware, finally, there were other people on the street, walking in the park – he was not alone, after all. Looking around like Scrooge on Christmas morning, it occurred to him, "if it's July 24th, why isn't it as hot here as it was in Collierville?" Feeling definitely under-dressed, what better place to be than a clothing store?

But the man at the counter saw him standing there and motioned for him to go away. "We're closed," he mouthed and went back to reading his paper. Kent-Clarke continued waving until the man eventually relented.

Puccini figured the man must be having a fashion emergency. Given his condition, checking him up and down with a practiced eye, while any store-clerk in a discount retailer could probably help, the man would certainly benefit from an expert's advice. Besides, Puccini figured, he wasn't doing anything else, so he opened the door to let the man in.

"Welcome to Puccini's," he said graciously with a slight bow.

Kent-Clarke wondered if he'd be able to afford the prices, here, but maybe he could find a light jacket or sports coat fitting his budget. That way, he might engage him in more personal conversation. A blazer would be a wonderful souvenir, but that wasn't why he was here.

He started to explain how he'd just arrived but his luggage hadn't.

"Ah, a tourist," Puccini said, mentally measuring his arms and legs for a new suit. The man was dressed for warm weather, inappropriate for Harmonia-IV. "What part of Parallelia are you from?"

"Parallelia? I've just dropped in from Pennsylvania."

"Pennsylvania? Never heard of it – sounds very quaint, no? And what would the signor be interested in, today?"

"Do you take Visa?" Kent-Clarke checked his wallet.

"Your passport is immaterial to me, signor." But Puccini saw there were many bills in the wallet, American dollars, worth far more on the Harmonian black market than any other currency.

Puccini started humming "Musetta's Waltz" as they began with a blazer, something light bluish-gray, accenting the man's eyes. Meanwhile, Kent-Clarke kept up the small-talk.

Recognizing the tune, he began humming along.

"Ah, you know this music?" Puccini beamed at the recognition.

"Yes, actually – I've conducted La Boheme many times. It's always been one of my favorites." He didn't feel he was lying – maybe gushing too much, but not lying.

Puccini debated whether he should lower the price of the blazer or double it.

The customer said he'd come back for a suit in a day or two – at this point, it was obvious he was lying – but all the same, Puccini offered him some coffee and a biscotti. So they sat, watching the handful of people walking past the shop windows, occasionally glancing in.

And they talked. The visitor was very curious.

Puccini, carefully hiding his wariness, assumed this must be one of those Trespassers he'd heard about. It was flattering to be considered one of the Great Composers worth "killing off," but should he call the police?

He explained he gave up composing – the rat-race was an eternity, now that he was dead – but for any unpublished stuff lying around somewhere, Kent-Clarke should check with his publisher, Ricordi. There were many things they had found and a few things he wished they hadn't. No, there was no full-scale opera, finished or otherwise, waiting to be unearthed.

There was a long silence while both sipped their coffee. Puccini debated telling him about this before deciding it could be fun: what could the man do about it, anyway?

"There was one opera I wrote since I arrived here in Harmonia-IV, after I finished writing Turandot."

"You finished Turandot?" Kent-Clarke's jaw nearly hit the floor with a thud.

"Well, of course: just because I died didn't mean the opera had to be dead-on-arrival. Besides, all good intentions not withstanding, Alfano rather botched it as far as I was concerned." He left the topic dangling tantalizingly.

The new one, La Vendetta di Sposa, was based on a story from his own life. There was this young girl, Doria, working as a maid at his villa. Elvira – his wife – became jealous of her, even tried forcing her into admitting having an affair with the composer.

"Elvira even dressed in my clothes, hoping to trap her in the garden. She spread nasty rumors in the village until Doria's family shunned her and her boyfriend denounced her. Eventually the poor maid committed suicide. At the autopsy, it was discovered she was still a virgin."

Now that he was dead, Puccini figured he could tell that story, how the girl's family sued his wife and won. Elvira eventually opted to live in a different parallel universe and never bother him again, but he'd recently heard the Makropolous Opera Company was taking La Vendetta di Sposa on tour, there.

He chuckled into his coffee cup.

Kent-Clarke began salivating at the idea of taking La Vendetta back to the States. He hoped the part of Doria was suitable for Rosa Budd – with Ron Steele's backing, people might just take notice of him, now.

His stock would surely soar, even if Rosa fell flat on her face. He could take it to other companies, have real sopranos take it on. Yes, his success would be assured.

For a moment, he'd forgotten he still needed to get his hands on the score. How likely was it Puccini would just hand him a copy?

Unfortunately, Puccini continued, wondering about his customer's silence, posthumous scores were not allowed to be taken back to the Other Side. After they're registered with the library, they're kept locked in a vault.

"There is a place where many composers also keep copies of their scores – it’s like a black market music shop but very difficult to get to."

Needless to say, Kent-Clarke was all ears.

Puccini explained it was in an old abandoned mine north of the city, beyond the Bois de Bologna, a fashionable park where many people liked to hang out on a summer day. At the extreme northern edge of the woods, where the paths all came to a stop and respectable people no longer continued, there was an old rusty gate leading to another path.

"About a mile beyond that, you'll find the entrance to the mine – can't miss it. Tell them 'Schicchi' sent you – that's my code-name, there."

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012
1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, the orchestra rehearsal for the premiere of Beethoven's new symphony was about to get underway. Meanwhile, Sebastian leads his guests back to find the Time-Devices, hopefully in time to thwart Klangfarben's next attack.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 33 
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

"But even if there were another library branch with Time-Devices in it," Sebastian argued, "we'd still need to find out where Klangfarben is going. We can't just jump into the ether and expect to land there automatically!"

"Alright, alright, I was just sayin'..." The argument made sense to me: I just wasn't particularly interested in running into Smighley and his policemen again.

Fortunately, when the elevator doors opened, no one stood there waiting for us, no one was lurking down the hall and, more importantly, the door to the Device Room was not far away.

No one said anything about the police waiting for us inside the Device Room – or for that matter, Klangfarben and her mysterious friend. Speed was their priority, "getting the job done," not waiting around for us.

We tiptoed down the hall, no one making a noise (except for the "Mission: Impossible" theme weaving its worm-like way through my brain).

Klangfarben and Friend probably assumed we were still locked up in jail: wasn't that what the police were for, keeping the unwanted element off the streets? On the other hand, considering there was no reason for Smighley to suspect our involvement with the time-traveling units, perhaps it wasn't such an obvious assumption we'd make that bee-line for the library.

Sebastian motioned for us to wait as we approached the door. I was making a conscious effort to turn down the volume on my inner iPod when I heard the muffled voices coming from inside the room.

It was difficult to hear clearly. It didn't surprise me the room wasn't better sound-proofed, having run into miscalculations like that before (despite what architects liked to tell you) but if we couldn't hear what they were saying, it was enough to notice the presence of voices. One was a woman's voice – that meant it probably wasn't the police.

The voices stopped and we could see through the door a faint flash of light.

"Wow, what was that?" Xaq whispered.

Sebastian thought that meant they'd left: it was the same kind of flash they'd seen inside the room when I'd left the first time, only not as bright.

"But through the door?"

"Light and matter work differently here – as, you've no doubt noticed, Time itself." Sebastian opened the door.

"Wait," I said, putting my hand on his arm. "You said we were only gone like a split second. Shouldn't they be back by now?"

"Oh, right." Sebastian stopped, frowning as he scanned around the room. "The energy of the light was probably stronger because, for us perceiving it – as you would not – it was both the flash of your leaving as well as the flash of your returning."

"They're not here," Zoe said. "Did they come back or not?"

"Perhaps there was some disturbance in the Time-Fabric, landing them somewhere else?" Sebastian led the way in.

"Somewhere else as in another part of the building or in another century altogether?" There were times I wish I had a gun.

They should've come back and they should be here – but they're not. This was both good news and bad news. If they didn't come back here, what did this hold in store for our own return?

"So, what do you think, Grandpa – any ideas?" Zoe was clearly worried, holding Xaq closer. "What was that you said about the Time-Fabric?"

"If Time is like a sheet stretched taut and something causes a ripple in it, it could have bounced them in another direction."

"As in down the hall or another part of town or maybe a different century," I repeated, rethinking that bit about the gun: would they even work on Harmonia-IV, or cause a ripple in the Time-Fabric...?

Cameron, checking the other rooms, didn't find that very reassuring.

"I think, though," Sebastian noted dolefully, "it's a rather moot point. Both time-devices are missing. It looks like they've taken them both."

The consoles were empty.

Screwed. That was the first word that came to mind: screwed.

Even though they had figured we were in police custody, they wanted to make sure we – or the police – would be unable to follow them.

"Wouldn't there be a back-up around here somewhere," Cameron wondered, "you know, just in case?"

"Justin Case – you're right. When I first heard about the time-traveling devices, here, I remember the librarian saying the units were dubbed Ralph and Betty – for Alpha and Beta," Sebastian explained. "But he also mentioned Justin Case, a back-up unit they held in reserve."

Cameron started pressing different parts of the main console without luck.

"Wouldn't it be more logical, for security reasons, to keep it somewhere else completely?"

"These people don't know the meaning of the word 'security,'" Xaq sighed.

I pointed to the cubbyhole behind the sign-out book. "If a librarian sits behind that counter – it might be back there somewhere."

We piled into the little space and began to search, not knowing what we were looking for.

"Not under the desk."

"Not on the shelf."

"Maybe it's in the chief librarian's office?"

"Found it," I said, pointing matter-of-factly. "Bottom drawer, file cabinet."

Sebastian examined it quickly and was pleased to announce it was indeed charged and ready to go.

Zoe, checking the sign-out log, announced, "looks like they’re going back to May 9th, but there's no year or place. Cameron, check the console for another clue?"

"Yep," he said, handing me the note-pad. "Here's another limerick."

To leave chinatown in due season,
Afraid he’d be soon charged with treason,
     He found himself drawn
     To take the next swan
When told that his assets, they’re freezin’.

“Not terribly clever,” I explained, pointing out Lohengrin travels by swan-boat; Wagner completed the opera in Dresden (home of fine china) before becoming distracted by the revolution in May, 1849.

Sebastian suggested Cameron should stay behind, leading Smighley on a wild goose chase. When Xaq volunteered to go on this mission, Zoe emphatically said no, reluctantly offering to go instead. Sulking, the boy was clearly disappointed.

But not half as much as his mother and I were. The idea of rescuing Wagner from a battlefield was more than I cared to deal with: who knew what Klangfarben might add to the mix?

Reaching out for Zoe's hand, I hit 'go.' ”See you guys in a sec--"

With a powerful blinding flash, we were off.

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012


1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Sebastian leads his friends back across town to the Central Library again, hoping to get there before Klangfarben does but there are concerns the police would know that's exactly where the escaped suspects would most likely go. What if Smighley confiscates the other Time-Device? It will be the end of classical music as we know it... In this chapter, the orchestra is getting ready for the first rehearsal of Beethoven's new symphony where we'll meet Rondo Sharrif (they call him "Horn Solo") and the orchestra's personnel manager, Marsha Funebre.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 32 
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

The up-coming tour was very exciting news. Small wonder the players in the orchestra were eagerly anticipating the chance to play for new audiences, not to mention getting out to see more of the universe. This was the first interparallelial tour in over two dozen seasons and several new players have never been away from Harmonia-IV since they arrived. In the buzz of anticipation, many musicians were showing up early, warming up, going over their parts one last time so they’ll be ready to go as soon as the maestro stepped up onto the podium.

Since Harmonia-IV was one of the more established music universes, it had some of the finest orchestras conceivable. What else did you do with the finest musicians who ever lived after they've died? True, many so-called Golden Age singers recreated their magical world in the opera houses of Melodia-V, but for orchestral playing, Harmonia-IV was home to the best.

The Intragalactic Philharmonic was admittedly not the absolute finest of these, but its players had all been leading members of the finest orchestras on Earth during their life-times. Many people were convinced they played with better spirit and more precision than the Harmonian Symphonica where many of the great soloists played, but at this level "excellence" was a given.

And this week, they were playing in Einstein Hall, the grandest concert hall in the city with the finest acoustics and the most spacious stage to play on, not to mention the largest seating capacity in town.

It was a good thing Harmonia-IV, unlike Earth but like all the other parallel universes, was not finite. Ever-expanding like the Universe itself, if more people arrived in Harmonia-IV and needed places to live in or ensembles to play or sing in or concert halls to perform in, it was an easy enough matter to build or create them.

And the audience expanded right along with them. No one worried about it dying off like they did on Earth: no one really aged here, no one ever "died" here, and new audience was always arriving.

While space-challenged buildings like the library found it easier to add levels beneath the surface than above, digging further and further down, new performing spaces could be added as the community expanded – like the new George Jetson Hall that just opened in Avant Gardens where many of the most recent arrivals were now living – requiring more enhanced electrotelesponder-transport systems.

The question that continued brewing among Parallelia's scientific community was whether this system of parallel universes, a series of pod-like habitations – some considered them space-ghettos – was like a continuous sheet of time-fabric stretching out through space or more-or-less concise units of time-space like planets but not confined to solid dimensionality, more like an expanding sphere with a flexible surface.

It amused musicians – those who were interested in science – to think while Earth had long settled the flat/round controversy, it was still a heated topic among modern Parallelians. What mattered when all you needed was music?

Arguments abounded. Flat-Timers opposed the downward expansion of the library because they feared falling off the city's underside while the Round-Timers calculated, when the sphere's gaseous core was pierced, the release of these gases would deflate the sphere like an old beach-ball. Tube-Timers, meanwhile, considered it an unending flowing of Time with no limits to either depth or width.

The Time-Gates, naturally, made travel between these universes easy enough – no cumbersome buses or expensive air-fare: everybody just lined up at the Gate and walked through, leaving the settings to the chief attendant. In this way, crates of new books from Prosion-III arrived regularly to stock Harmonia-IV's libraries and book-stores, just as traveling theatrical companies could arrive from Proscenia-VI. Home to most office-workers, Cubicula-IX was grateful for almost any touring group. In fact, travel was blocked only to the Nefaria System, parallel prisons keeping the rest of Myrios Kronos free of criminals and most politicians.

The stage at Einstein Hall was nearly set – the stage crew was hurriedly moving in the last of the chairs and music stands – and the hubbub of colorfully if inconsistently-dressed musicians spreading out from the wings back-stage to the front rows of seats, some talking, others warming up, all at the same time, filled the auditorium with sensory chaos.

Anyone sitting in the hall listening to the proceedings would be amazed this cacophony could all be harnessed by one man holding nothing more ornate than a small wooden stick to create the most amazing sounds.

The musicians were obviously more excited than usual. It may have been only the second concert of the season but it could easily be the major event of the decade for them since it wasn't that often the IGP – as the Intergalactic Phil was casually known – got to premiere a new Beethoven symphony and even take it on tour.

From inside this swirling mass of noise, amidst the scales and long-tones, you could catch a glint of a horn-theme soaring overhead or a flourish from a trumpet anticipating some inevitable conflict. A clarinet played an arpeggio that ended on a sustained high-note – was that in the third movement? – while three trombonists worked together on a passage that might be from the opening's imposing introduction. They knew their own individual parts cold and wondered, hearing their colleagues playing around them, what it would all sound like when brought together, once the conductor gave that first downbeat.

Friends greeted each other as they took instruments out of cases, catching up on what they'd been doing the past two weeks since the last concert, talking about how well that went or how upset they were they'd played a note a little out-of-tune at the overture's big climax. But such were the perils of live music-making. Individual voices – especially the concertmaster's hearty laugh – glimmered through a kaleidoscope like fragments of music, warm, friendly, ready to turn this energy into the excitement of experiencing something new, bringing what no one has heard before to life.

There was a great sense of camaraderie here, the atmosphere not as competitive as in many orchestras. Though there were those who liked to show off, it was more a friendly sparring than the dog-fights that often erupted in the top-flight Harmonian Symphonica. Somehow, they always managed to subvert such bloody in-fighting into incredible performances, transforming ego into art.

A long-breathed melody in the French horn began climbing out of the dense texture of enveloping racket, struggling step by step ever higher before falling back to start the climb again, only now a half-step higher. The tone was brilliant and clean, the intonation perfect, the soaring expansion of the phrasing so well-controlled, it sounded effortless and utterly indisputable. It was only a matter of fifteen seconds or so before everybody gradually stopped what they were doing to listen, even the stage-crew. It was as if they held their breath along with him, supporting him.

And after he reached the top-most note, blissfully sustaining it before letting it arch its way back down, less gradually, before resolving the tension in perfect balance, you could sense the orchestra breathe along with him. When the phrase came to its inevitable end, the rest of the musicians broke into cheers, applause and stamping feet, acknowledging their approval.

The horn player looked out and beamed his satisfaction, enjoying his colleague's approval. Yes, he knew he had nailed it and they knew it, too. You can play a big theme like that over and over again in your room but you will never know what it's going to sound like ultimately until you play it in the hall.

Everybody loved Rondo Sharrif. He was frequently considered "Most Valuable Player" after a tough concert not just because he played well: his personality often brought others together, diffusing the kind of tensions that came with any performance.

Rumor had it that was why the IGP got to play this premiere, because Beethoven wanted to write a horn solo like that and he considered Sharrif the finest horn player in Harmonia-IV at the time. If Beethoven had been sitting out in the hall at that moment, you could imagine him pumping his fist, thinking, "Take that, Brahms!"

With his sultry good looks and boyish charm, not to mention his penchant for wearing white shirts open down the chest, Sharrif quickly got the nickname, "Horn Solo" as if his real name wasn't musical enough.

A Palestinian from Gaza, Rondo Sharrif had been a member of the first Arab-Israeli orchestra in the Middle East, founded and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, an artist's response to the region's never-ending violence. But one afternoon, Sharrif was getting on a crowded bus in Tel Aviv, running late for a rehearsal, when he was killed by a suicide bomber.

A story like that, when you thought about it, explained a lot. Rondo was considered a peace-maker among the players and was well respected by his older colleagues for his help in mentoring the younger musicians as they came along. Few appreciated that more than his colleagues in the horn section, especially Stu Barker, the assistant principal horn player. A tall, hirsute young man originally from Boston, Stu had serious trouble speaking but could play so effortlessly, you forgave him his social challenges. Stu never played more assuredly than when he sat next to Rondo.

The noise of chatter and warming-up resumed and quickly overwhelmed the hall. Musicians wandered out on stage, spread their music on their stands, adjusted the position of their seats, said hello to their stand-partners or to their friends sitting near by and then prepared one last time to get down to business. There was a lot of nervous anticipation.

But it wasn't necessarily Beethoven's new symphony or the impending tour that had violist Roger Babbitt excited and sweating nervously. When he sat down, he knocked his music off the stand. Whatever was bothering him, beside the usual brunt of being a violist and a short person, he’d be unable to explain it to anyone who'd bother to ask.

Marsha Funebre, the personnel manager, strode to the stage's apron, clapping her hands and shouting to get the stragglers' attention – "Everybody get in place, now" – adding the three-minute warning, "the Maestro has left the dressing room!"

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012
1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Sebastian tries to explain some of the problems of what seems to be 'life' here in Harmonia-IV before they are interrogated by Milo Smighley and Xaq discovers he still has an old stink-bomb in his pocket.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 31
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

For street lights, Harmonia-IV used old fashioned lamps that would have been at home in foggy London during the time of Queen Victoria, except instead of gas flames or electric lights, they had small globes of white quartz flecked with peach-colored photonmium, giving the streets a soft glow that, wonderful to note, used no fossil fuels in the process.

It made it easier for us to see where we were going even if I had no idea where we were going – or, more precisely, how we were going to get where I thought we're going.

The immediate plan was to get back to the library, grab the Time-Device and hopefully figure out where Klangfarben was headed next, then follow her and somehow un-do whatever it was she was trying to do. It was almost like we're playing "The Amazing Race" but the stakes could not have been higher for those who love classical music.

"But isn't the library the first place they'd go looking for us?"

"Of course, Cameron, but it's the only place we can go – there's no other Time-Device Room in the city," I said, "is there, Sebastian?"

"That would make it a lot easier if there were," he said, "but unfortunately, no, the technology is limited and not generally available because it can be very dangerous."

"Especially in the wrong hands." It occurred to me, even in the right hands, it could be very dangerous. One small glitch and you could easily alter the course of history.

We'd each given Xaq a big High-Five after his deft performance in the underhanded stink bomb toss, in lieu of what surely would've been a well-deserved gold medal. The look on the officer's face, seeing us in the hallway, was priceless enough: I only wish we could've seen him when he saw us disappear behind the cloud of smoke.

"But we really need to hurry – there won't be much time to solve any clues or figure out what else needs to be done. It's basically get in and get out," Sebastian said, urging us on.

"With any luck, they won't be there, waiting for us."

"Well, they do have air-transports and we're on foot," he reminded us.

"What?" I stopped dead in my tracks.

Air-transports were apparently low-flying car-like contraptions that could get them there in just three minutes. Considering we'd been jogging for around six minutes, Sebastian estimated we were maybe halfway there.

It was a miracle, by the time the library's dome loomed into sight, we weren't immediately engulfed by a tide of Harmonian policemen. Perhaps, Sebastian thought, I was overestimating either their abilities or our own importance. Really, he couldn't see any particular reason they'd go to such lengths to capture a small band of Trespassers who're suspected of nothing worse than supposedly killing another Trespasser.

"Yes, but," I tried to respond, catching my breath, "they did catch us in the Time-Device Room: wouldn't that tend to make them think we're up to something more sinister?"

"They probably just thought we'd found a really cool out-of-the-way place to hide." Xaq wasn't impressed by their abilities: their security certainly lacked anything commendable. “They're the kind of people that give Zipples a bad name."

"Zachary, that could come back to bite your butt, later," Zoe said, trying to stifle a laugh. "You'd better watch what you say."

"How did they know to find us there, anyway? The only person who could've known that was Klangfarben," Cameron said, "and she's a Trespasser, herself, right?"

"Her partner – I bet he's a resident," Sebastian answered.

"Maybe an insider, too – like, a bad cop," Xaq figured. "Probably not a Zipple, though."

"No, Xaq, he definitely didn't look like a Zipple..."

"And what do you think Zipples look like? They don't have visible physical characteristics – more an attitude thing," Sebastian explained.

With that, we'd arrived at the door we'd used earlier but this time, it was locked.

Near the loading dock in the back, I noticed a small open window, barely big enough for Sebastian or me to crawl through. Unfortunately, it looked more like a trap than a good idea. True, there were no air-transports parked nearby, but only a Zipple, Xaq said, would park them out in the open.

(He apparently liked this new word, something he could apply regardless to any unsuspecting maladroit who crossed his path.)

Sebastian tried another door but it was also locked. Given the time, we opted for the window, so Cameron led the way.

"I hope this time we're going to take the elevator down to the Time-Device Room, Sebastian?" It had been one of those "D'oh!" Moments when I thought Smighley and the police would be marching us up miles of corridors and, lo and behold, instead they placed us in an elevator not far from the bottom of the spiraling rampway.

"Oh, that... yes, well, I forgot, sorry – one of those things, when you're out of the habit of hurrying, you tend to forget when you need to hurry." We've been walking miles across the city or running through back streets to avoid the police, and I wondered if there might have been some get-away-transport we could have been using.

"But if there's been a security breach and an elevator's moving, isn't it logical they'd stop the elevator?" Cameron asked. "Maybe it's better to take the ramp..."

The rest of us thought a moment and said, "Elevator."

"Another of the many things I don't understand, Sebastian," I offered as we descended deeper into the basement levels, "is, why are we the ones running from the police and Klangfarben is collaborating with them?"

"That would be a tricky one. I don't think the police are doing it knowingly," he said, "but they'd be unable to help us."

Xaq snorted. "You think they could catch her? And if they did, do you think they could actually keep her?"

"Will the police," I wondered, "be waiting for us when the elevator doors open."

"Oh, hey..."

"You can only use a Time-Device four times before it needs to be refurbished," Sebastian explained. "Klangfarben can't sign them both out because the system doesn't allow it, though her partner could easily have done that. On the other hand, if Smighley confiscates it, it's all over: it will be the end of classical music as we know it!"

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012
1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, we find out more about Harmonia-IV's chief detective, Milo Smighley who, after arresting Dr. Kerr and his fellow trespassers, continues his investigation by interviewing witnesses - like Hector Berlioz who didn't see anything but has some fantastic ideas. 

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 30
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

"But why couldn't you have just made us invisible, again? It would've been so much easier!"

It hadn't made much sense to me in the first place but it sure would've come in handy in the second place. I was positive Sebastian had a logical explanation, not that it mattered, now that we were all waiting in the interrogation room of Harmonia-IV's Central Jail.

"I wish it were that easy," Sebastian sighed, "but I have a confession to make. You see, I couldn't actually do that, myself. Telling you was like a joke – I'm sorry..."

"But..." Zoe stammered, looking at him in open-mouthed disbelief.

"But we couldn't see anyone else," Cameron pointed out, "so, as far as we were concerned, they were invisible, too."

"Oh, you were invisible alright, and later you weren't, but I had nothing to do with it." Sebastian fidgeted in his chair as my learning curve got steeper and steeper.

"Okay, so, like, now I don't understand any of this." Xaq leaned heavily against the mirrored wall with a great sigh of disappointment.

I was pretty sure someone was standing on the other side of that mirror, watching and listening to us, probably that detective who arrested us at the library. We had to be careful what we said.

"Xaq, there's a lot we're not understanding," Zoe said, "not just what's going on here or how we even got here, but how we're going to get out of here."

The only logical response was thoughtful silence.

The room was not very large, just a low-ceilinged rectangular box, that large mirror at one end and a door at the other with a small window. There was a long table and a few basic chairs in the center and nothing else. The walls were a dull brownish-gray, the lights glaring, reflecting back at us in the glass.

"When you first arrive here, it's like walking into – oh, a cooler room, I guess. Eventually your body begins to adapt to it and you don't feel it's so chilly any more."

That did make sense…

"Basically, your senses became more receptive as your bodies warm up to the atmosphere, here – it is subtly different from what you're used to back home."

"On the 'Other Side,' as you call it," I said.

"Correct, and as you warm up, so to speak, you become visible and then you can also begin perceiving other people around you."

Cameron asked if this had anything to do with what he'd mentioned earlier, something he referred to as "plasma-source."

He described it as blood-like but it wasn't, technically, blood. Scientifically, it was called "plasma-source" because it had the same function as blood but it was made up of different components, things needed to keep a dead body... well, alive. They still ate and drank and did all those things they'd done before when they were living, but it's only possible because of this amazing fluid which keeps everything functioning so they can continue to exist.

"It does cause a bit of comic relief once in a while. For instance, when Shylock asks 'If you prick us, do we not bleed,' it tickles us and the audience finds itself chuckling a bit. You see, when we bleed, it's our plasma-source which, rather than being red, is a rather unfortunate dull green."

Xaq found this gross.

"But there was no blood of any color on Dad when we found him," Zoe said, "and yet here we are, sitting in jail, arrested for Dad's murder. Murder! He must have died of natural causes – a heart attack, maybe?"

Regardless, her father was dead. But then, so was her grandfather, and he's been talking to her all evening.

And of course, Sebastian cautiously mentioned, now Klangfarben and her companion had a green light to carry out the rest of their plan. As long as we were stuck here, it was clear sailing for Klangfarben.

It felt like an hour since Detective Milo Smighley deposited us in this room and then abandoned us. What was going on, I wondered; more importantly, how were we going to get out of this? Sitting here after being arrested for murder, we had no idea where Klangfarben was going next or who her target was going to be.

A moment later, the door opened and Smighley came in carrying a tray with several cups of coffee and two cans of soda. Silently, he put these on the table, motioning to us to help ourselves.

Zoe and I reached for the coffee while Xaq eyed the soda cautiously. He was pretty picky about things that didn't look reassuringly familiar. Fortunately, it didn't taste bad and he was, after all, very thirsty.

The coffee was pretty weak but then perhaps dead people didn't need that caffeine jolt any more. (Why'd they even bother making it?)

Smighley motioned for us to be seated, so we carefully distributed ourselves around the sides of the table. Sebastian, like a patriarch, sat down at one end and then the detective sat down at the other.

He dropped a folder on the table, clearing his throat. When he spoke, he sounded distant but focused, detached but clearly in control.

"So we might as well start with why you killed this man in Stravinsky's Tavern. I believe his name is Victor Creeve-crow and he is," nodding toward Sebastian, "your son and," then nodding toward Zoe, "your father."

Zoe spoke first. "We didn't kill him. We arrived at the tavern and found him there, slumped over in the one booth. He was already dead – judging from the lack of physical evidence, presumably of natural causes."

"How did he end up on the floor? When the police arrived," he said, glancing at Zoe, "he was on the floor."

"I started to move him there, thinking it would be better, trying to revive him, if possible, but we were too late."

Smighley slid the photographs out and placed them in the middle of the table.

The top photograph was a long shot taken from the front door. Curiously, the only one visible beside Victor's body was Sebastian. The rest of us weren't there even though I remembered being there, kneeling beside him, when the police arrived.

"On what basis," I asked, "are you charging us with murder? As you can see, we weren't there."

Smighley pulled the photos back toward him before the rest of us had a chance to look at them carefully. Shuffling them around, he quickly placed them back in the folder without ever changing his expression. Again, he cleared his throat and took a sip of coffee which didn't seem as distasteful to him as it did to me.

"We also have reason to believe that you are here with quite another purpose in mind." Smighley looked around us, focusing more on me, this time, than Zoe. His insinuating tone of voice was creepy enough.

"Look," Xaq blurted out, "all I did was go over to take a piss and – ZAP! – we got sucked through this weird portal or something and that's how we ended up here."

Smighley turned toward him.

"That may be how you got here but that doesn't explain what you're doing here, young man, but thank you all the same."

With that, the detective picked up the folder and excused himself without explanation. Was that it or was he coming back? Would we be released if we weren't being charged or was he going to detain us just because we're Trespassers? It wasn't like he was going to apologize and give us the keys to the city or anything.

Sebastian held a finger up to his lips, nodding slightly toward the mirror.

Right, I thought, they were now going to watch everything we said or did, hoping to see if we'd give anything away.

Like, what…?

I thought I'd mention how much I’d been enjoying the Piano Quintet, what we heard of it, but Sebastian shook his head and looked down. This also was not an acceptable topic of conversation. Then I remembered, posthumous works like that weren't allowed on the Other Side. In fact, his having "crossed over" probably put him in legal jeopardy.

Since we weren't on American soil, wherever we were, and the residents of Harmonia-IV were a polyglot of different cultures and even centuries, what kind of legal system did they have here, if they had any?

Then Zoe remembered her grandfather had started to explain what he meant by "as long as he's here, your father is dead," just as the police arrived at the Tavern.

It meant we'd need to get his body – him, in other words – back to the Time-Gate somehow and cross the barrier to New Coalton.

"Then, quite possibly, he'd revive."

Xaq fidgeted through the stuff in his pockets as he wandered over toward the door which, it turns out, Smighley had left unlatched. They weren't locked in. How lax was their security, here? They hadn't gone through his pockets and found his cool stink bomb and... Wait! That gave him an idea.

He peeked out into the hallway.

Empty.

Zoe wondered how much time they'd have, if there were any limits how long Victor might survive in this suspended state.

"Maybe 24 hours, not much longer."

"The Time-Device would have recharged by now," I added.

Xaq saw there was an officer at the far end of the hall, off to the left, but down toward the right, it was clear, and a doorway was lit faintly with an exit sign.

"Cool."

"So we could still foil Klangfarben, get Dad to New Coalton in time...?"

"Assuming we could escape from here to do 'all-of-the-above,' yeah."

"Hey, Mom," Xaq said, "I need to go to the Little Boy's Room." nodding out into the hall.

"Wait. Let me see if there's an officer out there who can take you..."

"No – I have a better idea," and he held up the stink bomb he'd had hidden in his pocket.

"I'd told you to get rid of that!"

"I will, in just a minute."

We followed him out as he pulled the tab, then threw it toward the officer's desk.

And in a puff of rather obnoxious smoke, we disappeared in the opposite direction.

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012
1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

In the previous installment, the beginning of Part Two of The Doomsday Symphony, Dr. Kerr and Cameron have returned from 1705 and convincing Bach not to sign Buxtehude's contract, thus leaving him free to marry his sweetheart and eventually move to Leipzig rather than being stuck in Lübeck for the rest of his life. But now they have to face Klavdia Klangfarben's next plan. Instead, they are arrested by Detective Milo Smighley of the Harmonia-IV police and charged with murder. 

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 29
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

The armed officers fanned out and quickly corralled everybody hiding in the 20th Century Room. It was easy to handcuff them, just as their boss had ordered. They moved with an efficiency not often seen in real life, the one thought, but then he considered they'd probably been doing this for a couple hundred years. On the other hand, given their precinct, how often would there have been the need for this much ruthless efficiency in a place where everybody's dead and the crime rate – at least the number of murders – would be fairly low?

Detective Smighley smiled cautiously beneath his gruff, typically frowning exterior. Really, this was pretty easy. A fearsome if short and rumpled presence on the force for the past 146 years, he'd been much respected in London for his keen insights into the criminal mind. Even Charles Dickens had befriended him, presumably using some of Smighley's observations in his novels.

Identifying the victim had so far proven elusive if unnecessary: he knew there would be little sympathy for the fate of another Trespasser. How convenient four more Trespassers appeared on the spot, discovered around the body. Too bad they'd gotten away so quickly: that, he promised, wouldn't happen again, once his men led them off to the downtown jail.

Lurking just beyond the corner were a shapely figure in a black leotard with a big floppy hat and billowing platinum blond hair and a tall figure in a black suit and cravat who couldn't stop giggling.

Granted, there wasn't much to do around here if you were a detective, the crime rate was so low, some years even non-existent. Most of what you had to deal with were people scalping concert tickets or cheating at Scrabble. Except for the Trespassers and those residents who crossed-over illegally, it was easy to get bored, sitting around, waiting. Once in a while, someone got drunk and started making lots of noise but you threw them in a cell and by morning, things were back to normal. It was "all very Mayberry" here on Harmonia-IV.

About forty years ago, it was pretty exciting getting an invitation from his old friend Dickens to visit Prosion-III. Things were always more lively when a bunch of authors started acting out what they were writing. Hanging out with those mystery writers had been a blast, but he liked it where he was. He'd gotten used to the quiet.

On the surface, this case smacked of a heinous family crime: three of the five suspects in custody claimed to be related to him. The one who said that was his son was himself a recent arrival to Harmonia-IV named Sebastian Crevecoeur. The woman said the victim was her father and her son's grandfather, which at least made sense. Here we had four generations of a family involved in what could easily be Harmonia-IV’s worst crime of the year, so far, even if it was only a Trespasser they murdered. Still, it was a crime.

Each suspect confirmed the victim's name was Victor Crevecoeur, not one showing up on any of their databases of likely future residents. The father explained he'd started out wanting to become a musician but "plans changed." It was sad he had exhibited minimal talent as a boy, the father sighed, and so in college he chose to switch majors.

"Yeah," Smighley thought to himself, "I can relate to that, really I can." He'd had fond hopes of becoming a violinist in his youth but figured he'd rather solve crimes than, after a fashion, commit them. Still, it had been enough he could be accepted here on Harmonia-IV. Unfortunately, Victor wasn’t going to be much more than a Zipple.

There was one problem: since Harmonia-IV had no need of coroners, they couldn't determine a Cause-of-Death. Without an autopsy, how could they determine if a crime had been committed? He really needed to talk to witnesses.

Berlioz saw no reason to be intimidated by this detective even if the rumpled overcoat was very cool, reminding him of his days hanging out in Italy, lugging his guitar around the hills outside of Rome. If anything, Detective Smighley looked a little like Napoleon Bonaparte, given his size and build, and that was enough to ignite his antagonism. He knew he'd need to control that: it wasn't his fault if this English detective closely resembled the Emperor of the French, but it brought back bad memories of growing up in those nasty, imperial days.

It had been an inordinately long wait, sitting alone in the conference room while the detective went about his duties, processing a handful of papers and getting cups of whatever this was he suggested was coffee. There wasn't much to say since he saw very little. It riled his spirit to think he was being treated like a suspect.

Smighley didn't bother to think about Berlioz' demeanor, so typically French like that smirk he’d made, sniffing at the coffee cup. It was easy to feel intimidated by a master like this, after all, one that had been all the rage, if you liked that kind of stuff, when he had been alive in London. But "c'est la vie."

Even Dickens was surprised a policeman with Smighley's experience didn't care for the blood-and-guts intensity of Berlioz' music. What he was writing now was a little more palatable, leaner and not nearly as messy. "C'est le mort."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, Detective, I didn't really see anything. I noticed the man – this man," Berlioz added, pointing at the photograph of the corpse lying on the tavern floor, "sitting at the back booth at Stravinsky's talking very excitedly, waving his hands around a lot, though he didn't strike me as being Italian."

"And who was he talking to, do you remember?"

"Mostly Mozart, but others came up and joined in. He seemed rather popular – I suspected he was an important visitor but never counted him for a Trespasser."

Like many Harmonians, he sneered whenever he said the word "Trespasser," but he admitted he also enjoyed talking with them, finding them breaths of fresh air from before the grave. He felt they kept him "up-to-date."

"But none of these did I see there," he said, pointing to the other photograph, four people he was told were also Trespassers.

He raised his brows and looked intently at them, as if he were trying to hypnotize the photos.

"Very odd," Smighley thought, "but at least he's not the raving lunatic he'd been when he wrote the Symphonie fantastique. That poor Irish actress... what was her name? Red-head, too – quite a beauty. They married, eventually, and lived miserably ever after."

"You know, I wonder, Detective, if you have something else entirely, here. Rather than four people out to kill this one person, are they not perhaps part of a conspiracy – a gang, if you will, hmm?"

Smighley hated it when people he interviewed, suspects or not, started theorizing about the case themselves. Mostly they were so far off-the-wall, it was all he could do to keep from screaming at them, "Stay focused!"

"And what sort of conspiracy would you have in mind, M. Berlioz?" He might as well play along with him, considering his alternatives.

"No," the composer said, shuffling the photos around like a game of penny-ante, "I think we can forget about these two," as if brushing the two young men aside. "These two, on the other hand, would be the leaders, sent to infiltrate Harmonia-IV from the Other Side. I think they bring bad news with them – like terrorists of sorts."

"Terrorists... really?" As easy at it was to dismiss the idea, it never paid to ignore something as serious as terrorism.

"Yes. Are you familiar with predictions about 2012?" Berlioz sat back, looking intently into his eyes.

"2012? Isn't that two years away, according to the Earth Calendar?" He rarely bothered keeping track of current events on the Other Side except when he had to intercept smugglers coming through the Time-Gates.

"According to many, December 21st, 2012, will mark the End of the World, since the Mayans' calendar abruptly comes to an end on that date."

"Doesn't the Earth Calendar abruptly come to an end every December? So what's the difference?"

"Ah, but this is a cosmic cycle of thousands of years which then suddenly – poof! – it stops. Dead. No more time!"

Berlioz explained the sun will rise on that Winter Solstice morning, aligning with a Black Hole whose energy will pour around the Earth, destroying it in a flash. He made an explosive gesture with his hands.

"Okay, that's just weird," Smighley thought.

"Yes," Berlioz said, "I read about it on the internets," proud to be keeping up with technology.

The closest thing Smighley had ever come to a "Black Hole" was going down into his apartment building's basement whenever the landlady complained about the rodents. What this man was talking about was beyond all scientific reason (the same could be said, he had to admit, for his landlady's basement).

"What," he wondered, "has this guy been smoking, lately?"

"Perhaps your concern should be less about the murder of an insignificant Trespasser – pfft! – and more about these four people who might be tying Harmonia-IV or the whole chain of parallel universes into Earth's imminent destruction."

"And how could that possibly happen?" Smighley couldn't disguise the sneer in his voice.

"Why, through all our interconnected Time-Gates, the way we can travel from one to the other to the next and the next. The energy that will destroy the earth will follow the same path the Trespassers take to reach us. We will all explode together!"

One thing Detective Smighley had to admit, however unwillingly, his case about this man's murder was looking pretty weak, especially if there was no clear cause of death he could blame on the other four Trespassers. Suppose they were actually espousing such unsettling theories or even setting up the inevitable calamity: the threat of terrorism was far more serious.

It was worth thinking about but that was all he'd do for now. He decided to conclude the interview without any further discussion.

"You have to admit, it'd make a great story for a new symphony."

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012


1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Bach decides he doesn't really want to accept Buxtehude's offer as his successor in Lübeck which also meant marrying his shrew of a daughter, thereby foiling Klangfarben's plan. Fortunately, she had been forced to leave before he changed his mind but Dr. Kerr and Cameron had to leave themselves before the battery on their time-device might run out and leave them stranded in 1705. Then, Rogers Kent-Clarke arrives at the empty field where New Coalton once stood, wondering how he would find how to cross over to whatever it was he was looking for. Satisfying a certain necessary physical need, he finds it...

SECOND MOVEMENT

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 28
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

There was a sharp burst of bluish light and there we were, back in the 18th Century Room of Harmonia-IV's Central Library with Sebastian (Crevecoeur, not Bach), Zoe and Xaq standing right where we'd left them.

Xaq jumped back. "Whoa! Where'd you guys go for a second? You just disappeared and bang, you're back in a flash!"

"A flash – really?" I looked as surprised as they were. "But we must have spent at least a few hours in Lübeck."

"Yes, we talked to Bach and met Buxtehude and... wow, that daughter of his... Damn, my phone – I should've tried taking some pics: never occurred to me!"

"Oh, I don't think that would work, son. Things like that get erased in the time-shift. Besides, didn't you find your phone wasn't working here?"

"Right... Wait, what's this?" Cameron pulled a lace-trimmed napkin from his pocket. "I remember this – I must have taken it from Buxtehude's dinner!"

"Speaking of which," I said, changing the subject, "did you see a woman with platinum blond hair in a black leotard and a man with a goatee wearing a stiff-collared shirt and black cravat and vest go through here recently?"

Zoe looked surprised. "No, there was no one else here."

"Your return time-coordinates," Sebastian explained, "automatically set to the second just after your departure, so it's not like you're gone for the equivalent amount of real-time, you see. So since Klangfarben and her companion left before we got here, they no doubt returned before that, too."

"Which means we'll always be playing tag?" I said. "They left Lübeck several minutes before we did, but if they've come back, couldn't they be off to their next destination before we returned?"

Sebastian shook his head. "They need to recharge the unit, first, and that takes at least an hour."

"So that means,' Cameron whispered, "she could be out in the main Device Room right now?"

"Except, if we haven't arrived yet when she returned, wouldn't our time-unit still be out there?"

Cameron took the device out of his pocket, which flashed “Successful Return.”

"It's good she didn't take the other device with her," Xaq pointed out.

"But we had it."

"Not before you got here, you didn't: if she got back, knowing you'd been there, she could have taken the second unit which means you would be left in limbo without a way to return home. Maybe she hadn’t thought about that.

"More importantly, did you accomplish what you set out to do?" Sebastian wanted a full report.

Cameron and I stumbled over each other, filling in the details, how Bach just walked up to us on the street to how I'd told him about Kuhnau, the new organist in Leipzig, not sure how long he'd stay there – that seemed to give him hope for the future.

"I hope he's not mad when he finds out it'll take seventeen years for that position to become vacant..."

"At least he won't be spending it married to Ms. Buxtehude..."

Giving us the thumbs-up sign, Sebastian stood listening at the door. Was there any sound coming from the main device room? Were Klangfarben and her companion waiting out there? Did they suspect we were here? Did she have any idea how we ended up in Lübeck or that we succeeded in scuttling her plans to derail Bach's historical career?

There were many other questions I had which Sebastian tried to explain. Because we're essentially transported back in time as holographic images of ourselves, the people there would not perceive us as we saw ourselves, explaining the easy acceptance of our dress-code. We'd think everybody's speaking English but with the common-language auto-translation filter activated, they heard us speaking German.

"But why didn't you come with us? It was a total surprise when Cameron and I ended up there by ourselves."

"Too many people could make it more difficult for the transport beam to function accurately."

Sebastian proceeded to tell us that, though the technology is extremely advanced compared to what we're used to back home, these devices have a slight bug in them that they haven't bothered to work out.

"You mean like a manufacturer's re-call?"

If we're delayed leaving the past, a weakened battery could mean the automatic return-locater could get a little wonky and we wouldn't end up exactly at the same place.

"The timing should be okay," Sebastian warned, "but you might find yourselves in another part of the building or even a different part of town."

"But we don't know our way around town. How would we find our way back here in time?"

"That's one reason it's good to have someone remain here. If you're not back in a few seconds, as it would seem to us, then we know you've landed somewhere else."

"Then you can come get us?"

"Not exactly," he sighed.

Sebastian showed me two small discs the size of half-dollars.

"Keep this one in your pocket – don’t lose it," he emphasized. "It could be just as important as the time-traveling device."

"Okay, what does this one do?"

"It's a geographic positioning device: just press it and you'll find your way back to me." He pocketed the other one himself.

There was one problem we had to keep in mind. If the time-device’s battery ran out completely before we'd leave, it could mean we'd get stuck forever in the past.

"Sweet..."

Then he carefully opened the door.

The room was silent but also dark. Someone had been here and turned off the light.

"Maybe it's on a timer."

"No, no, I'm sure Klangfarben turned it off. She's been here," Sebastian whispered, "or at least somebody was."

"Maybe the cleaning crew came in..."

The question, of course, was not so much who but where were they now?

The door-frame was outlined in a faint glow – a small amount of photonmium mixed into the paint – and the light switch, a small panel, glowed visibly beside it. Getting there was going to be another issue.

Would we knock over the counter housing the devices or stumble into the waiting arms of Klavdia Klangfarben and her princely companion? Where they hiding behind the sign-out counter ready to pounce?

Sebastian gave the all-clear.

"We can't wait any longer. You need to start re-charging the unit. I'll go for the light switch."

With that, he was off.

Sebastian hit the switch and the lights slowly glowed into a presence, even slower than those compact fluorescent bulbs did back home. In a few minutes, they reached full brightness.

Fortunately, there was no one else in the room. Cameron checked behind the desk and Zoe, holding Xaq by the shoulders close to her, positioned herself close to the door.

"Look," Xaq said, "that one case is closed."

“And locked.” She'd returned her unit and it was currently recharging. Sebastian took the one Cameron gave him, carefully placing it safely back in the unit's holder.

The question now was, do we wait for her to come back and wrestle her into submission in true spy-thriller fashion, thereby foiling her plan, or do we wait to see where she goes next, chasing her through the past to foil that segment of her plan?

Neither way was how I'd originally planned on spending my Saturday night.

I casually checked the sign-out book after peering behind the desk, but Sebastian figured she wouldn't have bothered signing it out yet. The act of signing the book was what unlocked the case and then the other pad to be signed – the location-destination – released the unit and activated the dimensional-transport processor. Therefore, it was impossible to simply steal it.

"No," he assumed, "she probably went somewhere, maybe to get some coffee and a donut, then come back here in an hour to start the process all over again. I wonder where she's planning on going, next?"

"So we're not going to wrestle her into submission and capture her?" Cameron sounded disappointed, but I wasn't even interested in arm-wrestling anybody into submission, convinced she, a verified femme fatale, would win hands down, regardless.

"I'm thinking it's best to let her go on her escapades, think she's succeeding and then," Sebastian gloated, "find out later she's failed."

“Wouldn’t it,” I argued, “just be easier to take her and her accomplice out, keep them from doing anything like, possibly, succeeding?”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “We wait till Klangfarben does something – then, it’s our turn.”

But that name… "Klangfarben" referred to an early-20th Century orchestrational technique where pitch-units were scored pointillistically rather than linearly, a melody played not by a single instrumental tone-color, but by a kaleidescope of them: hence, "sound-colors."

But something kept gnawing faintly in a remote corner of my brain: it wasn't a name or sound-color, though – it was a face.

"Another thing I don't really understand," Cameron mentioned to Sebastian after the device's case had locked and started making gentle whirring and buzzing sounds. "What's to keep this Klangfarben person from going back to re-do what we've undone? Couldn't this just keep going 'round and 'round, if not at this point in time, to some other time and place?"

He admitted there was always that chance: short of destroying her or the time-traveling device, it was possible (and not reassuring) we could be caught in this great cosmic loop, repeating it every day for eternity.

But these were not heavy-duty dimensional transporters which is probably why the security system was so lax. People here rarely bothered using them – there was no great need for them – since the devices were fairly limiting. Unlike the gateways to the Other Side, these devices weren’t really that serious a problem even though they’re still too easy to mis-use.

"So, now what?" Xaq was impatient with the idea of just standing there, waiting for the device to recharge. And clearly, he wanted to go on this next one, a plan immediately quashed by his mother.

"If we wait here," she said, "they'll be back before we're ready to leave." She was not keen on the idea of confrontation.

"But if we're waiting for them," Cameron wondered, "would they be afraid to come in knowing we're here, ready to confront them?"

"Dear God," I blurted out, "now I remember: she was a student of mine!"

It was difficult for me to recognize Klavdia Klangfarben in all this. She had been a graduate student during my last couple of years at Klaxon College, not someone I'd worked with beyond one of my graduate courses. She distinguished herself, as I recall, more for her acerbic curiosity than for any academic accomplishments. One protracted argument in particular involved the possibility of "Quantum Music Theory," applying the rules of quantum mechanics to the laws of musical harmony and what possible outcome this might have on our perception of the great masterworks of the past.

After all these years, my memory of her would naturally be a little hazy, considering the number and variety of students I'd had. Wasn't she working on a degree in Forensic Musicology? That was one of those fringe areas, as far as many colleagues were concerned, pseudo-music with a catchy title hoping to bag some fancier, better-paying teaching position.

I recalled she worked primarily with the great Danish scholar, Frøkken Bohr, part-legend, part-eccentric in his own right. Beyond that, I have no recollection of her thesis or even how she'd fared with it since I had not been, mercifully, invited to serve on her committee. It would surprise me if she even remembered me, much less recognized me.

"Yeah, well, I think I'd remember a student like that in one of my classes," Cameron joked, poking my ribs as he shook his hand in front of him, a time-honored gesture with any number of connotations.

"Geez, it's not like she dressed that way when she took my graduate theory course or anything," I protested. "In those days, she had been a very prim and totally proper student, looking more like the stereotypical librarian." Seeing her in this fantastical get-up, whether it was a disguise or not, no wonder my memory was thrown off track.

"Well, you were already an Absent-Minded Professor when you were in your 20s, T.R.," Sebastian said, patting me on the shoulder.

It was good we were able to laugh but soon it was back to business.

"It's a small world, but here I am in the After-Life and I run into someone I knew years ago – two, actually," I said, correcting myself.

"Yes," Sebastian smiled, "but one of them is still alive."

And, as Cameron pointed out, apparently the live one's going to be an adversary.

"Anything you remember about her might come in handy."

That was the problem – there was nothing else I could remember. We didn't have personal contact outside the classroom where I'd know what her favorite color was or if there were childhood traumas fueling her fly-in-the-ointment persona.

"But do you remember what she wore, what kind of styles she liked, what color her wardrobe was?"

"And this is important, how?"

Sebastian interrupted, asking about this otherwise unmentioned companion of hers. I had no idea who he was and, I would bet large amounts of money on it, the name he introduced himself by was totally fictitious.

Describing him, I guessed he was late-19th Century from his looks, if that was his normal mode of dress, but who knew what either of them were really wearing versus what our brains had processed.

"What I can't get out of my mind was that voice, like something I'd heard in an old horror movie from years ago."

"You mean evil-sounding while being suave with an exotic accent," Zoe suggested, "yet capable of inducing fear? Like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff?"

"Or like Frankenstein or Godzilla?" Xaq imitated a stiff-legged monster-walk, growling and roaring.

"I was thinking more like Peter Lorre, a comic foil insinuating innocence and evil, but it didn't fit the guy's appearance."

Everybody laughed.

"However, we can't stay here, waiting for them, as much fun as we're having. Let's go someplace else to hang out, first, then we'll come back after they've left so we don't have to confront them."

Zoe, suddenly aware of something, started waving her hands frantically to get our attention. Xaq covered his mouth in fear.

I heard it, too, the sound of several people moving stealthily toward us, like hunters closing in on their prey. We were, I was pretty certain, going to find ourselves being the prey.

Was there no place to hide?

Cameron asked Sebastian if any of these rooms led anywhere else, someplace we could escape to, but the one we'd been in had no other doors, so I assumed the Device Room was its own cul-de-sac.

I pointed at the time-devices – what a perfect solution! – but unfortunately they hadn't recharged enough to facilitate our disappearance: could we all go back just ten minutes and then run down the hall into the vaults?

There wasn't enough time to sign them out and activate them, either.

This, apparently, was what fish in a barrel must feel like.

The noise stopped in mid-air. They were waiting, but why, who could say?

Our breathing suspended, we took each others hands and followed Cameron into the closest side-room just as Zoe flipped off the light switch.

What were they going to do, shoot us? Or drag us off and lock us up while they continued on their nefarious plot?

But there were too many people in the hallway: this was probably not Klangfarben and her travel companion unless they'd gone for reinforcements.

Whoever it would be, it wasn't going to be long until we'd find out.

No sooner had Zoe closed the side-room's door behind us than we heard a yell, somebody kicking down the outside door, then the rush of several heavy-booted men pouring into the room. Someone tripped and fell.

Even in the dimness, Sebastian looked as white as a ghost. I didn't think this was the sort of thing he'd experienced before. We'd somehow gotten caught up in one of those reality TV police dramas: you could tell this wasn't going to be pretty. I had no doubt they'd be coming through that door in (three... two... one...)...

Nothing.

There was some faintly distant cursing but was that coming from them or from me in some far-away state-of-mind.

The door was kicked open – BANG! – and the room filled with gun-toting policemen glaring like storm-troopers.

Ordering his officers to handcuff us, Detective Milo Smighley announced he was placing us under arrest for the murder of John Doe, Trespasser.

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012
1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, conductor Rogers Kent-Clarke decides to check out this New Coalton place and runs into the site of that accident on White Crow Road with Officers Tennant and Schickhaus, driving into a ditch. After his car is pulled out, he is, at long last, on his way. In this chapter, we return to Lübeck in 1705 where Bach has just discovered he has not one but two pairs of unexpected visitors.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 27
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

Did Klavdia Klangfarben really think 18th Century German countesses wore black leotards, big floppy hats, dyed their hair platinum blond and wore stiletto heels like that? Whether the good citizens of Lübeck could see her as we saw her – far more scandalously dressed than Cameron's shorts and sandals, I'd imagine – or her attire was, like our language barrier, assimilated into their everyday reality, I had no idea.

I also had no idea who her companion was, a tall, handsome man in his forties with a full head of dark hair, an opulent mustache and trim goatee. Clicking his heels, he said in a surprisingly nasal voice with a slight lisp, "I am Prince Leopold August von Anhieb-Waklsänger-Luxusjachtmann, the countess' fiancé. I'm just along for the ride."

His annoyingly artificial smile made me immediately suspect he was probably a lawyer.

Klangfarben's smoldering glower could have lit the candles on the far side of the room.

Bach apologized for his tardiness as he had not been expecting any visitors at all, being a visitor himself in Lübeck. He was also momentarily expected for dinner at Buxtehude's house, so, having already invited Cameron and me, he extended the invitation to the countess and her fiancé, as well. There was little she could do but graciously accept.

We must have made an impressive show, parading back to St. Mary's, Klangfarben and her 'prince' on Bach's left, Cameron and I on his right. He mentioned Buxtehude's tempting offer to succeed him as the organist, here.

When Klangfarben began impressing on him how important this position could be, starting so early in his career – think what fame he might acquire in even a decade's time – I saw immediately what she was up to: by convincing him to stay in Lübeck, she would alter the course of history so there would be no Bach at Leipzig instead, meaning no marriage to Maria Barbara, no sons like Carl Philip Emanuel, quite possibly no need to write the violin sonatas and partitas or the Brandenburg Concertos. Nasty business, this was going to turn into.

I told him, by the way, his cousin Maria Barbara sent her regards.

"That's one of the problems, you see," Bach sighed as he knocked at Buxtehude's door.

The woman who opened it was the same woman, now richly dressed without the apron, we’d met earlier at the church.

"Idiot! How typical of you to bring four uninvited guests."

The dinner proceeded smoothly, Bach discussing the big oratorio that was the major work at tonight’s concert, "The All-Terrifying, All-Joyful End of Time and the Beginning of Eternity," which Buxtehude told us hadn't been performed in over a decade. (Cameron whispered this hardly sounded like Christmas music but I told him Advent, then, was different than it is today.)

Klangfarben mentioned how wonderful it would be to live in Lübeck, much more cosmopolitan than a back-water like Arnstadt. Bach agreed, but maybe not as nice, perhaps, as living in Leipzig, turning and smiling toward me.

Then she started in on how Arnstadt was all abuzz over his recent run-in with that bassoonist. The "prince" smiled, nodding enthusiastically.

"Ach! I cannot tolerate going back there again!" Bach angrily chewed on a roll.

"Instead," she said, as Buxtehude beamed at her, "you could become the most important musician in Northern Germany as the Master's successor, here."

"Yes, of course, you're absolutely right. Master," Bach said, standing up, "I accept your offer. Let's sign the contract tonight!"

"So be it, my son. Great day, great news!" The old man went to shake Bach's hand, clinching the deal.

But before he could, the "prince" motioned frantically to Klangfarben: the watch-like device he held up was flashing red.

Klangfarben rose, congratulating him on his decision but apologized for needing to leave so hurriedly. She and the "prince" left the room and quickly disappeared from sight, starting a great round of confusion among the guests.

Meanwhile, another guest, a young organist from Hamburg named Schieferdecker, found the contract Buxtehude had offered numerous musicians in the past, including George Frederick Handel who declined it and left town rather suddenly the next day.

Buxtehude beckoned for his daughter to rise so he could present his future successor to his future bride. Anna Margarethe rolled her eyes.

Suddenly – this being my last, most desperate chance to undermine Klangfarben's plan, knowing she would be unable to return to change it back – I ‘accidentally’ spilled wine on Anna Margarethe’s gown and all hell broke loose.

Buxtehude's daughter, throwing plates of food at me, let fly with such vituperation – how I should be chained to the bed-post, my ass whipped with leather thongs until I bled – Bach, aghast, stood back in horror.

With deep regret, he handed the Master his contract – unsigned. As we left, Anna Margarethe yelled at her maid to get the mop.

Walking down the street, Bach promised he would never consider Buxtehude's offer again, thanking me for saving him from a marriage to the unfortunate Anna Margarethe. Though he would delay his return – there was still much great music to hear over the next few weeks – he asked us to please give his cousin his best wishes for the holiday.

He promised to start looking for another position, leaving Arnstadt behind, but asked me to kindly express his regards also to the good churchmen in Leipzig.

Cameron, meanwhile, pointed at the Time-Device: it had started flashing red.

-*-

Rogers Kent-Clarke found the fork on the Old Coalton Road easily enough and, after a steep climb, found the turn-off for what Detective Ste.-Croix said would be New Coalton, or where it had once stood.

Curiously, two cars were parked there, already. One, he was pretty sure, was Dr. Kerr's.

"Looks like I'm not the first one to arrive at the party."

Since his kidneys had finished processing the beer, he needed to find some convenient bush and quickly – like that tree stump in the center of the field where he sighed the sigh of relief.

Next, he wondered how he was going to discover where all the others were. There was nobody around: where had they gone?

Looking down, he noticed the air in front of him turned into rippling bluish white lights. Reaching forward, he felt himself sucked in.

From the distance, the only thing one could hear was a loud "Ewwww!"


= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012
1 year ago | |
Tag
| Read Full Story
71 - 80  | prev 456789101112 next
InstantEncore