A Composer Makes Himself Perfectly Gliere

If you thought some of the names I've been coming up with for characters in my novel, “The Lost Chord,” were groaners - like Yoda Leahy-Hu and Wanda Menveaux - this post may explain a lot.

It was sometime in the mid-70s when I was teaching at the University of Connecticut that I first saw this and it was “old” then. It had been re-printed in something like the Musical Quarterly's “letters” section but since then I've stumbled on it a few times on-line, occasionally updated with newer composers' names.

So I've added a few more myself (including myself) to bring it up to 118 puns...

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

A Composer Makes Himself Perfectly Gliere

You can Telemann by where he likes to live. I just Toch a trip Orff into one of the Wilder areas Fauré Wieck, and to be Verdi Franck, it nearly drove Menotti.

I know opinion Varese, but even Vivaldi urban noises, the Bizet traffic, de Falla engines, as well as knowing there are Weill Mennin the streets Callas enough to knock your Bloch off, I couldn't resist the urge to Galuppi home early Satie, and I Haieff to say I Still prefer the Mitropoulos.

The Boyce were Sor that I had Gibbons up and succumbed to the Riegger of the Field so easily, but frankly, my dear, I don't give two Schütz.

I was practically Krein from my Severacs and all the Paine brought on by that brief time in the countryside! All the Tree Spohrs made me sneeze until my Brain Herz. When you're a Walker in the Wood, it can be a real Balbastre and get your Crotch all in a twist. For me, it was a Röntgen experience. My Buns were dragging Long before I was Abel to get home.

Even the sounds got my Dandrieu up. Let me Liszt some of them: the Rorem of the wind, the constant Birtwistle, the Lipatti-Patti-Tippett-Glinka-Poulenc of the rain on the roof, the Gluck-Gluck of the Hahn, and every morning a woodpecker or some other Byrd Chopin holes in a Thuille. It's all Grieg to me.

My only company was a Thorne Busch, a Partch of poison Ives, a Little Braun Babbitt, the occasional Biber and sometimes a Wolf, but not much Moore. It was scary when you Hurd the Ruehr of a distant mountain Lyon. Maybe for a Forrest Grainger it was Fine, Haydn up in a Tower somewhere - it may even be the Katz Milhaud, but I could have died of Borodin.

A friend suggested my making this Tureck. "Abegg your pardon," I said to him, "but what did I ever Dutilleux?" I will not go Offenbach to those Götterdämmerung Hills again. I would leave them Ligeti split! They Suk! I've had it with this Scheidt. What the Fux do I Care?

Another friend suggested next year I go to the Beach instead. So I gave him the Finger.

No, I don't like the Ruggles life, with nothing to Cooke on but a Coleman stove. It Puts the Carter before the horse. It's nice to stop by the Barber shop around the Koerner or visit the Baker down the Street. Plus I like a good Mehul - a little Suppè, some Szigeti, maybe Munch on some Salome while I raise a Glass at my local Taverner, then maybe have a little lime Schubert afterward (even if they don't always brush the Crumbs off the table). Plus I like to Locatelli while I'm Eaton Maderna at night. Is that Eskin for Egk in Meyerbeer?

Let me make myself Clare: for me, living the Pastoral life would be the Straw,ser, that Bruch the Kamal's Bach.

Apres-15th Tax Day

As usual, I managed to finish my taxes with plenty of time to spare, dropping them off at the local post office by 6pm yesterday (this is actually earlier than most years).

I did have one problem, however, trying to figure out this form...

PA SCHEDULE FU - PART C

1. ______.00 Total Income Eligibility from Line 14 of PA Schedule IDK
2. _____ Number of Dependents claimed on Line 27c of PA Schedule BFF (include number of Icelandic refugees fleeing the bad economy there who were living with you between 12:01am and 5:59pm, December 31, 2009)
3. _____ Number of fruit-bearing mango trees growing in your back yard (see instructions for PA Schedule LMFAO)
4. _____ Number of dancing chickens you own (you will also need PA Schedule SNA-FU if number is greater than 2 but less than 15; if entering 16 or more, you will need PA Schedule NIMBY)
4a._____ Number of dancing chickens you own who also play the oboe (refer to Pa Schedule PWN, Part C3-PO) Do not enter number of dancing chickens you own who also play the viola as that is totally incongruent.
5. _____ Average number of hours spent daily on Facebook (multiply the number of hours you just sit there waiting for someone to comment on your status by the percentage found in Internet Overulitization Tables/Social Networking from p.41 of PA Schedule ST-FU)
6. _____ Number of times you have gone to Borders Books and Music only for coffee (use Worksheet found on p.134 of PA Schedule *$)
7. _____ Number of times you had to listen to some Right Wing Blowhard on a Radio Talk Show during your car-pooling commute (if you do not car-pool, please use PA Schedule FU-BAR)
8. _____ Adding only those positive numbers in lines 2-7, determine the percentage of your Empirical Continuability Allowance and enter it here (use tables on p.74b of instructions for PA Schedule WTF)
8b. ____ Multiply Line 1 by Line 8.
9. _____ If line 8b is greater than line 1, send it to us.
10. ____ If line 1 is greater than line 8b, send it to us.
11. ____ If line 8b is half the square root of the next prime number after the figure you entered on line 1, send it to us anyway.
12. ____ If you want the State Department of Revenue to determine your tax liability, send us everything you've earned and we will figure it out for you.

Yes We Kant

Stravinsky's Tavern: A Collection of Short Stories

Years ago when I was still an undergraduate in college, a friend had been driving through one of the mining towns in Eastern Pennsylvania - I don't remember which one, but St. Clair sticks in my mind - when he drove past this bar on one of the side streets. Seeing its sign, Stravinsky's Tavern, he had to stop and take a picture of it. This was long before the days of cell phones and digital cameras. I still have the original photo on my desk.

We wondered what it would be like walking through these rather unassuming doors to see a small, bald-headed man with a big grin ready to take our drink orders.

And so that is how the first story came about, how Igor Stravinsky gave up his cosmopolitan life-style to live in a small Pennsylvania coal town, run a bar and write music on an old upright in the back room. Curiously enough, other composers and cultural figures appear to have done the same and before long, the bar was inhabited by such regulars as Darius Milhaud, Sir Edward Elgar, Sibelius, Mussorgsky, Schubert and Mozart, even the author Thomas Mann, all engaging in so much Bar Talk.

Remembering those childhood days when you'd go to the grocery store and run into your 2nd grade teacher, surprised to find that people like this actually existed outside the classroom (and eat food!), I started wondering what it would be like to have composers like Beethoven or Bach show up in our every day lives. Like having a classical music radio station run by the composers themselves or, given the turmoil in today's stock market, following Beethoven to his appointment with his financial and spiritual adviser, Brother Ken Yasperidyme. As the CEOs of America's Big 3 Automakers beg for bail-outs on Capitol Hill, they might learn something from Johann Sebastian Bach's tinkering with technology, trying to develop a more fugue-efficient car.

And so I put all of these into a collection called, simply, Stravinsky's Tavern.

Here are links to the individual stories:

* Stravinsky's Tavern
* Beethoven's Christmas Carol (a parody in four installments of Charles Dicken's holiday classic)
* Schumann and Brahms at Stravinsky's Tavern (stand-up comedy team with their take on Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?")
* The Election Heats Things up at Stravinsky's Tavern
* Hallowe'en Comes to Stravinsky's Tavern

* WLVB Looks for an Evening Announcer
* Beethoven Writes a Gut-Wrenching Chord
* Toward a More Fugue-Efficient Car (with Johann Sebastian Bach)
* Beethoven Listens to His Financial Adviser

Stravinsky's Tavern also plays a significant role in the music appreciation thriller, The Doomsday Symphony.

Cheers!
Dr. Dick

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

Hallowe'en Comes to Stravinsky's Tavern

It was a dark and stormy night when the Classical Music Radio Station WLVB’s cub reporter Franz “Bud” Schubert went down to Stravinsky’s Tavern for his latest interview. This wasn’t one he was particularly grateful to be assigned since, as a news journalist, you’re not supposed to have any viewpoints of your own, but this one he did. He had tried to talk his boss out of it, but News Director Sir Arthur Sullivan didn’t have anybody else available for the gig: the rest were all covering the impending election. Besides, it’s just a personal interest story, nothing earth-shattering, Sullivan told him, just a little something for the Hallowe’en broadcast, you know? He was busy getting his own Hallowe’en costume on, but Schubert wasn’t sure if he was trying to be a pirate or a Japanese war-lord.

Shrugging his diminutive shoulders, Schubert put on his best poker-face, grabbed his overcoat and headed down to the tavern.

Nicolo Paganini was only in town for a single concert but he agreed to do the interview if it could be done over dinner, hence meeting at the tavern. Schubert hadn’t actually met him before, but their paths had crossed back during his Vienna days. Everywhere you went, it was Paganini This and Paganini That. Nobody was interested in a poor home-grown composer writing art songs and operas. He even tried writing music that might cash in on the Italian Craze that had gripped the Imperial capital that season. Funny, too: he wrote two “Overtures in the Italian Style” just to prove he could, and the one got performed when no one was interested in the rest of his symphonies. And wouldn’t you know it, a few years later when he was giving his first all-Schubert concert, it ended up being scheduled the same day as one of five recitals Paganini was giving in town that week! He was still pretty steamed about that one: he thought he was doing pretty well, considering his usual financial problems, bringing in 320 florins at the box-office, but then he read that Paganini brought in about 5600 florins per concert. There weren’t even any critics around to review his own concert because they were all – every last one of them – at Paganini’s concert. So no one ever read anything about his new piano trio or the songs he’d composed just for this big occasion. Yeah, he was not looking forward to having to interview this guy.

The tavern was busy as usual, warm and inviting once you closed the door behind you and cut out the winds that howled down the street of this little mining town. Stravinsky himself was behind the bar, motioning him over with a big smile. The place had a kind of quiet glow about it and everybody was chattering back and forth.

“Hey, Bud,” he radiated, “good to see you again – the usual?”

“Sure, why not? I know I’m working tonight, but hey...” Schubert looked around. He heard comments about the up-coming election and knew he couldn’t get involved in any of the discussions, whether he’d be voting for Brahms or Wagner. His mind was made up long ago but since he was supposed to be an unbiased reporter, he couldn’t talk about his own ideas much less wear campaign buttons.

Most of the others seemed to be dressed for Hallowe’en. Stravinsky was even wearing a pair of those fake antennae you strap over your head, little googly eyes bouncing up and down as he hustled from one end of the bar to the other. Schubert hadn’t even noticed he was wearing Groucho Glasses with the fake mustache, too.

Over there was Richard Strauss all decked out like a harem girl – “oh right,” he thought, “Salome with her seven veils.” And John the Baptist standing next to him, the tall guy with a platter stuck around his bloody neck, must’ve been Gustav Mahler. Nice touch with the lipstick smear on his cheek...

Behind them in the next booth sat somebody he thought he knew. “OMG,” he spluttered into his beer, “it’s Mussorgsky - sober! No wonder I didn’t recognize him!” He was sitting there smiling at everybody in great delight. “Ach,” he beamed, “they’re playing my song!” The sound system had just started with the gnat-like buzzing that opens “A Night on Bald Mountain.” (They really should up-grade the sound-system, he thought.)

Sibelius sat across from him, sour as ever, ready to go out trick-or-treating as Uncle Fester.

Mozart, sitting next to him at the bar, was quick to kid Schubert about not being in costume, but when he explained he was actually working tonight, Mozart waved his hand across the front of his face and frowned. “Ugh, work, please – it’s a party night!” He took a deep swill of his beer – Igor’s special Blood-Red Hallowe’en Beer made, so he said, from a virgin ballerina who’d danced herself to death (“not just your usual hops,” he explained with a sly smile) – and smacked his lips in satisfaction.

Stravinsky slid a plain dark beer down the bar toward him and it stopped right in front of his seat. Schubert took a quick swig, wondering where they ever learn to do things like that, a course for bartenders comparable to orchestration or counterpoint, he figured.

“So what are you dressed as,” Schubert asked.

“Well, you’ve probably heard about them trying to identify that skull they think is mine?” He looked around and laughed, tapping the side of his head. “Like I’d ever leave home without it! So I was thinking, you know, maybe I should go as the Headless Horseman or something.” With that, he pulled the collar up over his ears, draping the neckerchief across his face and suddenly Schubert realized he was talking to a tall man with no head! Then Mozart picked up something on the floor beside him which looked like a pumpkin carved with the likeness of his own face but actually was one of those “Mozartkugeln” made out of papier maché. With a quick thud, he planted it on top of his head and twisted it into place on the collar. “Ingenious,” Schubert thought, “he is going as himself!”

“Look, there’s Haydn!” With a laugh, Mozart waved good-bye and wandered off into the crowd.

Schubert craned his neck to see but couldn’t recognize him. Mozart went up to a guy dressed as the Grim Reaper with a powdered wig dangling from a bloody scythe. “Ah, Papa Haydn and his little jokes.” Last year, he’d gone as Al Revescio but since he had to walk backwards everywhere, it turned out to be a real disaster, always bumping into people. They were not amused. So far, Mahler didn’t appear too keen on getting hit in the side of his platter by the swinging wig. Schubert hoped he wasn’t going to behead anyone as he walked around with that scythe.

Just then, there was a blast of wind and swirling leaves from the front door. The crowd froze on the spot and stared at the cadaverous specter backlit by the eerie glow of the street light. Even the music came to a sudden unexpected silence. It was a tall gaunt figure dressed head to toe in deepest black with long black stringy hair, his skin, as tight as if stretched over bone, pale and powdery. His thickly hooded, bloodshot eyes seemed to bulge with the effort of looking into the light. In his long bony fingers, there was a violin case that did not need a price tag on it to inform everyone the instrument inside it was priceless.

Nicolo Paganini had arrived. And he had forgotten to wear a costume.

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

Without a word, Paganini went to a shadowy booth near the back of the bar. Bobsky, Stravinsky’s assistant manager, brought out a steaming plate of pasta smothered in a deep rich marinara sauce – “extra red, just as you like it,” he whispered – and placed it before the granitic visage of their obviously special guest. He had placed the violin case carefully beside him on the bench.

Schubert, trying not to be flustered, shuffled up to the booth.

“Hello, sir, your maestroship, er... I’m uh... Franz Sch-Schubert from WLVB and, uh...”

Paganini gestured simply with the palm of his hand, fin-like, for the short man to sit down across from him. He slowly raised his fork and twirled a few strands of pasta, holding them to his lips and then slowly letting them slide into his mouth, savoring the texture, the aroma and above all the flavor. Gently, he patted his lips with the napkin, nodded discreetly at Bobsky who, with great relief, retreated smiling to the kitchen.

“Did you ever leave your violin in a bar before?”

Paganini’s eyes bugged out twice their already abnormal size which, given how gaunt his face was, was actually very creepy. VERY creepy...

“No, of course not,” Schubert thought, “what a stupid question. Allrightee then...” He took a deep breath and started in. “So, how’re things with you and Satan, these days?”

Gradually, the tavern returned to almost normal, the chatter a little more quiet and reverential than earlier.

After another bite, Paganini put his fork down and dropped his hands into his lap. “Quite good, actually. Yes,” after another pause, “quite good.” He took another bite.

Suddenly, Schubert thought he caught a whiff of brimstone. Either that or someone nearby must have farted. The garlic they use in the marinara here is pretty strong for this part of the country.

“So what are you going to play tonight?” His programs were never announced in advance. Like you’d need an excuse like knowing what he’s going to play to go see the Great Paganini!

“Whatever the spirits move me to play. You know, maybe La streghe – everybody likes witches on Hallowe’en – some caprices... maybe I’ll do an improvisation on the Chorus of Damned Nuns from Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable...” He looked off into the distance, as if going through his mental file-drawer –“and I haven’t played the Moses Variations here for eons.”

“Are you going to grind down the strings so they snap one by one and you have to play it all on one last string? People really think that kind of crap is cool.” Ooops, he thought, keep your mouth shut and your mind blank.

Paganini rolled his eyes and continued eating in silence.

The violinist looked at him from under an arched eye-brow. “You will be voting for Brahms, I take it.”

“Yes. I mean, no, no – really, no, I’m... I’m a reporter, we have no opinions. Of our own, I mean.” He fumbled with the recorder and set it on the table.

Just then a man dressed as a priest appeared beside them. It was Franz Liszt.

“Oh, Franz, hiya,” Schubert said, “nice costume!”

The Abbé Liszt looked at him from under his own arched eyebrow and frowned condescendingly.

“You are alone?” Paganini seemed mildly surprised.

“Oh, Georges Sand came with me but she dressed up as Lot’s Wife and now I have to drag her everywhere in that little red wagon. I told her to wait in the back of the pick-up truck until the recital starts.” He checked his watch. “Which is in about an hour. I will leave you to your dinner – and to your rather short guest.”

Schubert smirked back at him.

Stravinsky brought over a dusty bottle of red wine and two glasses, pouring carefully. Paganini twirled the glass, sniffed and sipped, then smiled. Schubert, meanwhile, took a careful but disappointed sip, wondering how he could set to music the line “Having a wonderful wine, wish you were beer”...

Once they were alone, Schubert asked him, “Did letting people think you actually had sold your soul to the devil to be able to play as well as you do” – again, the eyebrow arched markedly as if “only ‘as well as you do’?” – “I mean, as brilliantly as you do - did that ever, like, you know, backfire?”

Paganini continued eating for a while, as if considering his response.

“When I was on my deathbed, they sent me a priest for the Last Rites, but I thought I still had time to live, you know? So I sent him away. They thought that I refused the Last Rites, period. But as bad luck would have it, I got much worse that night and died before my son was able to call the priest again. It got very strange after that.”

There was a long pause while he ate some more pasta and sipped more wine.

“The Bishop of the lovely city of Nice refused to let me be buried in – how you say, hollowed ground? In a church cemetery – consecrated ground, you call it, yes. For five years, my body was kept in the cellar of the house after the landlord rented out my old rooms, like some piece of baggage left behind by an evicted tenant. Then they took me down to the hospital and kept me in the basement, there. My son managed to escort my body back to my hometown of Genoa but we were not permitted to enter the city, so I was stored in a tower of a country estate. Small wonder people complained of hearing moans and cries late at night coming from the tower.”

He finished his pasta, sopping up the last of the sauce with the garlic bread, then pushed the plate back.

“The gardener charged tourists money to view my corpse.” He calmly poured himself another glass of wine, offering some to Schubert who politely refused. “They caught me a couple times, playing the violin. Eerie, they said, hearing me play – or assuming that must have been me. But you can’t stay in shape if you don’t practice.”

He carefully folded his napkin and placed it on the table.

“It was like being on the road again - moving from Bordighera to San Remo to Port Maurice to Savone to... I forget where else. Ah, Polevra, the first place they allowed me to be buried in the ground - some garden, whatever. It gets old very quickly when you’re dead. Well, anyway, the Pope allowed me to be buried at the Duchess of Parma’s villa – another garden, by the way, nothing consecrated. But then finally, thirty-six years after I died” – pausing as if calculating the years in his head – “yes, thirty-six years later, they buried me in a church cemetery – finally, I could be at peace. Isn’t that what they say – “rest in peace”? I felt like some plant, constantly being dug up and transplanted. They even wanted to put me on display - charge admission...”

Paganini picked up the violin case and held it close to his chest.

“That wasn’t the end of it. Seventeen years later, they dug me up and took a look, I guess to make sure I was still in there. Three years after that, they moved me again, a fancier church, this time. I guess now that I’d been dead for fifty-six years – I was only 57 when I died, you know... throat cancer, too, awful stuff – ah well, fame does not come cheaply, I’m afraid.” He sighed wistfully.

Schubert thought “Not that I’d know anything about fame. At least not while I was alive.”

Paganini quietly rose from the booth and nodded to Stravinsky. He turned ceremoniously to Schubert and said “I do hope you can make my recital this time? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must prepare myself for the performance.”

And with that, he seemed to glide toward the door. Another blast of wind and leaves and with a slam, he was gone, leaving behind a whiff of brimstone. Or whatever.

The crowd began to break up: most of them were going to the recital down the street, anyway. Haydn had already knocked Mozart’s Mozartkugeln off his head twice. Mahler found he couldn’t fit into the men’s room stall with the platter around his neck and so he was now very uncomfortable. But Schubert had to get back to his desk to prepare the interview for the late-night news – he couldn’t afford to leave this report unfinished or Sullivan would be threatening to assign him to the New Age News Program which made the idea of going back to being dead definitely a consideration.

He pulled his overcoat more tightly around him and headed out into the wind with everybody else. There was Mozart helping Liszt and Chopin who’d just showed up, trying to get Lot’s Wife out of the pick-up truck. Somehow the night just couldn’t get any weirder, he thought.

- - - - - - -
Dr. Dick
© 2008

The Election Heats Things Up at Stravinsky's Tavern

Another in the series of somewhat surreal stories from the collection, Stravinsky's Tavern.

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

“Everybody’s talking about change but after they’re both done with us, that’s all we’ll have left in our pockets,” Beethoven muttered as Sarah the Serving-Wench brought them each another beer.

It was a windy night in late October: fall was definitely in the air. Lots of people had gathered in Stravinsky’s Tavern, including Beethoven who was sitting in one of the corner booths with his old friend, Johann Sebastian Bach, munching on peanuts and muttering about the election campaign that was heating up in the final weeks.

“Ja, it’s an odd thing, don’t you think?” Bach looked around at the crowded bar, though very few were paying attention to the TV monitor. “One wants to go back to the Good Old Days and reinvent the past while the other one wants to annihilate the world to rebuild it fresh.”

It was a slow night for sports – not much to show at the moment but the World Series was only a day or two away, now. With the election two weeks off, it was as if they were interrupting the political ads to bring you up-dates on some of the games.

They looked up and saw Mozart come in with a gaggle of young women, heading straight for the billiard room which was already fuller than usual. He waved blithely at The B’s and saw they were watching the TV. There was an ad urging people to go and vote on Election Day, extolling the patriotic pleasure one would receive after doing your civic duty, your aesthetic responsibility after pulling the lever for the composer of your choice.

He shrugged his shoulders playfully. “The Progressive Party? The Conservative Party? Who cares, as long as it’s a party, right, guys?” And with his loud obnoxious giggle, he disappeared into the crowd.

Everywhere you turned it was Brahms this, Wagner that. Even the political signs around town were becoming annoying.

It was an especially difficult decision for Bach and Beethoven, watching this campaign. They were constantly being bombarded by both candidates looking for last-minute endorsements that would signal yet another ad-blitz, more talk-show appearances and press releases.

They both agreed, though, that Wagner’s “Chief Spin-Doctor,” Karl Loewe, was behind a lot of this. He was the Erl-King personified. After he’d gotten Berlioz elected, he was intent on making sure Wagner and his futurist cronies would continue in power. Beethoven was convinced if it hadn’t been for that third-party ticket – Fine & D’Indy – no doubt Spohr would be President today. Not that Hector wasn’t a lot more entertaining.

When they had run for President and been elected the full number of terms they were allowed in each generation – just like Mozart – it wasn’t this big media extravaganza it is now.

“It’s more like a circus, today. We used to have fun with it, not so cut-throat,” Beethoven said after a long slow sip. The beer was not great but it was cold and wet. Beer was never as good as it was in the old days, either. Nothing was, especially the music.

Bach agreed. “And the money!” He adjusted his wig. “How many musicians and court house-composers could we support in our time with the kind of money they spend on these ads today! It’s disgraceful. I’m surprised Brahms” – he was well-known for being thrifty but secretly generous to his friends – “would even have anything to do with this.”

“And Wagner, spending it on something as silly as an attack ad, just because he’s behind in the polls.” Wagner was always raising money for lavish buildings and to support his luxurious life-style. He was the only composer ever to have had a whole hour on Robin Leach’s old show Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, taking the world on a private tour of his opera house and that fancy villa he built for himself in Bayreuth, all champagne wishes and caviar dreams. “How else could such a man run the country, except into the ground?”

Bach looked deep in thought, oblivious to all the noise. “Brahms has a very sound sense of structure, you know – and he can write a good fugue. I like that in a President.”

Beethoven winced. Did Old Bach think he, the Great Beethoven, couldn’t write a fugue, himself? He couldn’t write one like Bach, no, but why would you want to do that? He let it pass.

“And Wagner,” the Old Pig-tail sighed with a dismissive wave of his hand as he took another sip, “he’s just noodling around. Noodle-noodle-noodle,” his hand wafting around in the air like a bird looking for someplace to land. “My sons tried that and look where it got them...”

Again, Beethoven glared at him: “Me, that’s where it got them, you old fool...”

Brahms was especially looking for their endorsements. After all, he was the Third B and after eight years of Berlioz as President, we needed a Different B in the White House. The Past was important to him – just not the Immediate Past.

“And how’re you going to negotiate with these terrorists if you can’t show them you can write solid counterpoint?” Bach thought everybody needed to know that but in fact very few schools did more than offer today’s students an introduction to what was now considered old, out-dated and academic technology.

“There he goes again,” he thought. Beethoven was once a terrorist, as far as Bach was concerned. “We all were, when we got started, except maybe Mozart and Mendelssohn.” He wasn’t sure about Brahms: his early stuff wasn’t that well known any more so he never knew what it was that turned Schumann on so. Today, though, terrorists were everywhere, tearing down the very idea of going to concerts and writing well-composed symphonies.

Who was that French guy who had said they should burn down the opera houses? Imagine burning down an opera house! What an affront to civilization! And now he’s conducting in them. “Boulez, ja – Boulez, that was his name. And he had a long association with Wagner’s music,” he pointed out, but the Conservative’s complaint that he ‘palled around with terrorists’ was silly compared to the name no one would mention, that house-painter with the mustache who was so fond of Wagner...

“Brahms ripped off my ‘Ode to Joy’ platform in his 1st Symphony,” Beethoven complained sourly. “Hah, took him long enough to figure it out, too. But you know, I really envy Wagner’s ability to write operas...” The initial reception for his only opera was still a sore-point with him, but it’s not like that was the only opera he wanted to write.

“Ja, but don’t forget,” Bach chuckled, wagging a finger at him, “it took him almost 25 years to write the Ring, too.”

Beethoven hated it when he needled him like that – needle-needle-needle. Bach, humbug!

He shrugged his shoulders. “But that was four operas – that’s not like just one symphony! I wrote all nine of my symphonies in the time he was trying to figure out how to write his first one!” He took another swig. “Still, it IS a good one, ja...”

“Ach, there – he said it again.” And Bach took a swig himself. The ad on TV was another one where Wagner was describing himself as a maverick.

“I,” Beethoven said, pulling himself up in his chair, “am the Original Maverick! Such night-soil...”

“I’m sorry, Herr Ludwig, but I think the Original Maverick was probably the guy who introduced major and minor thirds into the musical vocabulary during the Middle Ages.”

Then there was that guy Brahms had wanted to choose as his Vice-President, the Progressive Party’s Whipping Boy, Arnold Schoenberg, but you couldn’t go across party lines like that, they said, and just pick somebody who had some affinity with you. They were afraid he would really alienate the Conservative Bass and most of the Tenors, too. Now Schoenberg was trying to paint Brahms as a closet progressive, no doubt trying to win over some liberal-minded independent voters who were dismayed by Wagner’s political writings – especially his anti-Semitism – but who liked his music.

Then Wagner started saying in a recent ad, “If you hate Modern Music, don’t blame it on me – it’s Brahms the Progressive.”

Bach was afraid it would just turn off voters all together. He knew if it were just a write-in campaign, the winner would probably be Andrew Lloyd-Webber. He looked into the beer stein and wondered if maybe there was enough left he could drown in.

The newest ads were desperately focused on Brahms’ early days, playing the piano in brothels and snidely pointing out he wasn’t married, was he? Of course, Wagner’s camp couldn’t really defend the “Sanctity of Marriage” issue, could they?

“Why is Brahms’ NOT being married more of an issue than Wagner being married to a woman he stole from her first husband when she’s the illegitimate daughter of Franz Liszt in the first place?” Thinking back to his own happy domestic life, Bach continued to have enormous difficulty with what he considered the degenerate 19th Century lifestyle.

Of course, the whole Clara Schumann thing was just beyond him.

Beethoven agreed. Brahms had originally thought it was time for a Woman Composer on the ticket and had suggested Clara Schumann as his running mate but then what did you do with a husband like Robert Schumann hanging around the White House?

Just then, Stravinsky came over to their table to see how they’re doing. He often liked to make small talk with his customers whether they were regulars or not.

“So, who are you guys going to vote for, as if I need to ask?” Like most people in town, Stravinsky assumed they’d both be voting for the Third B.

Bach was pretty sure he would be voting for Brahms, but Beethoven still wasn’t entirely sure. There were things he liked about both composers.

They turned their attention to the TV monitor which now had another noisy ad. Wagner had attacked Brahms because he couldn’t write an opera. So now Brahms was countering by saying “When was the last time you heard a piece of chamber music by Wagner you actually liked?”

At the end came the tag line in that high squeaky voice which always amused them: “I am Doktor Johannes Brahmsss, und I approve zis message, ja?” Brahms always pulled out his doctorate – even if it was honorary – as if that would give him any real “culture cred,” as they liked to say.

Immediately after that was a Wagner ad in which they said Brahms was out-of-touch with modern life because his music was so old-fashioned, all those academic forms like fugues and that bone-dry passacaglia in his 4th Symphony.

Bach shook his head: like that’s a bad thing?

Beethoven argued if Brahms’ going on a pub-crawl to listen to Gypsy bands with his rowdy friends wasn’t a populist touch, how did that compare to Wagner’s living in plush villas and always hanging out with the aristocracy trying to bleed them for money?

Brahms often was very generous to his friends – like Clara Schumann or Antonin Dvořák – though he didn’t talk about it much. Still, Wagner’s idea of “redistributing the wealth” only went as far as himself.

Stravinsky added with a sly wink, “and what does Wagner write about in his operas, anyway? Incest? Old dead gods and magic swords? Hah – singing dragons!? What does that have to do with modern life?”

But Bach, who had no use for opera, knew it would all come down to the stupid economy, as Berlioz had called it during his first term. When they were asked what they’d cut from their music – since obviously they’d have to cut something – Brahms and Wagner just kept playing more and more notes. Wagner talked about adding more tubas to his orchestra and Brahms wanted to write more variations, maybe another symphony.

At the last debate when moderator Leonard Bernstein asked them about their educational policies, Brahms played his “Academic Festival Overture,” but Wagner started to play the fugue from Brahms’ “Handel Variations” then say, before he’d fall asleep, “why would you teach them old out-moded stuff like that? We need to cut the crap, that’s what we need!”

When they talked about the economy, Brahms played a bit of Tristan und Isolde, then something from the first movement of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique and said, looking right into the camera, “why would you want to vote for the same failed harmonic schemes from the last eight years?” He was constantly harping about “the bridge passages to nowhere.”

Everybody knew Berlioz’ star had dimmed considerably after his sequel, Lelio, failed. Bach said he might as well have called it The Lame Duck Symphony. Beethoven thought more like The Dead Duck.

People were looking for change. But a change to what?

Beethoven had once suggested Stravinsky would make a good candidate. He wasn’t German, for one thing – and people were always going on about “The Teutonic Plague” in the White House all these years with Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and now this choice between Wagner and Brahms. They’d finally gotten a French composer in there, but then look what happened: chaos!

Unfortunately. Stravinsky turned out to be a bad candidate, always flip-flopping on the stylistic issues. People felt they’d go to a concert to hear Stravinsky but never knew what the Real Stravinsky was.

This time, Stravinsky said maybe they should’ve run someone like Erik Satie – “there’s an economical composer!” Or maybe one of the younger composers like Philip Glass or Jennifer Higdon. But people in the party rejected the idea of not nominating a Dead Composer.

When the Progressives talked about patriotism, they always played the Overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger in the background, then when the disembodied voice would ask “What does That One have to say about ‘Country First’?” switching over to Brahms’ “Tragic” Overture. Wagner’s new slogan was “Faster and Louder!”

When it came down to his choice, he told Stravinsky, Beethoven figured he might as well flip a coin. So he reached into his pocket and pulled out a penny, tossing it high in the air. With a ping, it hit the edge of the table and bounced off, rolling across the floor. Beethoven flew into a rage.

“Wait a minute,” Stravinsky said, “is anyone writing this down?”

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

I'm Dr. Dick and I approve this story.
© 2008

Schumann & Brahms at Stravinsky's Tavern: Who's on First?

Despite the threat of inclement weather, the crowd at Stravinsky’s Tavern was pretty much the same as usual. Not exactly packed, but then it never is when they had their comedy night stand-up specials. Not much went on in Coalton on week-nights. Igor wanted to have these on Saturday nights but his wife, Vera, kept telling him that everybody went down to the Walmart on Route 61 on Saturday nights, or they’re home watching TV.

Plus the comics were usually better down at the Moose, if you felt like laughing. And then there was that last guy they had here, she reminded him, some Russian named Tchaikovsky.

“I don’t care if you do think he’s a genius, he might as well call himself ‘The Crying Comedian’ since he turned into this big bundle of insecurities after a few catcalls.” Stravinsky remembered: it was awful. He had to lead him off the stage with a few gentle nudges.

“You’re pathetic,” one guy shouted.

“Yeah, don’t drink the water on the way out,” another heckler shouted after him, which just reduced Tchaikovsky to tears.

Igor was a little nervous about tonight’s opening act, two guys who were just starting out. Most of the people who came through this neck of the woods – a town that sometimes felt like it was so far beyond the cusp of civilization, culture was like a four-letter word – were either just starting out and inexperienced or already washed up and could care less how it went. He would have to see how these two would handle it.

Milhaud and Elgar took their usual places over by the cash register. Sibelius was sitting alone at the first booth, nursing some wings (he was always asking why they never have swan wings, only chicken wings), and Mussorgsky sat next to Thomas Mann discussing the importance of dreams as a form of inspiration. The members of Les Six squeezed into the booth at the bay window, celebrating their victory over the Mighty Handful in a twilight soccer match held out at the high school. Poulenc was complaining the wine was so bad, it tasted like steak sauce. And then Honegger pointed out it was steak sauce.

In other words, Bar Talk as usual.

Vera started clinking the glasses to get everybody’s attention while Bobsky stood at the back trying to get the applause started. Finally, Igor was able to be heard over the various mutterings.

As soon as it got quiet, Richard Wagner, a trouble-maker as usual, hollered out, “It’s not time for another fire-drill, is it?” Everybody laughed. He said this every time, like Comedy Night was always the end of the world or something.

Sometimes, Igor wished he could pick and choose his clientele but then it’s a small town. If he wanted to continue bringing in the kind of money he needed to go on writing his ballets, he needed every customer he could get.

He started to speak but the mike hadn’t been opened yet. He glanced over at Bobsky who shrugged his shoulders. He flipped the switch again and now it hummed into life with a sudden loud thud and a squeal of feedback.

“That’s the last time I ever call on that John Cage guy to fix the sound system,” Igor thought.

Igor made his usual short welcome speech – they’d all heard it before, anyway. He looked back at Bobsky, arching his eyebrows questioningly. Young Craft, his right-hand assistant, peeked behind the door to the kitchen and then gave Igor the thumbs-up.

“I can say that tonight’s opening act needs no introduction. I say that because I have no idea who the hell these guys are.” Which is only partly true - he certainly didn’t know them as comics. You never know who’s going to come through town, these days, on the Entertainment Circuit, he thought. “So, without further ados, eh! I give them to you! Schumann... and Brahms!” He started to applaud and a few others joined him as Bobsky held the kitchen door open for the night’s first comics.

The applause died down quickly as they took their place by the side of the bar. Vera and Bobsky had rolled out the old upright piano but it was clear they hadn’t bothered to waste any expense tuning it. Brahms, the one with the beard, sat down on the stool, spun himself around while his partner did the introductions.

“Hi. I’m Bob... and this is my friend Joe,” he said, turning to face the piano. Brahms immediately stopped spinning the stool when he heard his name and looked up, but he found himself with his back to the keyboard and quickly shuffled himself around into position to play a few fanfare-like chords. Judging from the expression on Schumann’s face, it was hard to tell if it was planned that way or if the timing had gone wrong. If that wasn’t bad enough, most everyone winced at the jangling discord that came pounding out of the old hulking instrument.

“What the hell...?” Brahms muttered loudly under his breath. He shifted position and tried again. Still, a nasty discord. It reminded Stravinsky of a tooth-ache he’d once had.

Then Brahms stood up, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and stretched it out full-length between his hands. He held the one end down at the bass end of the keyboard and stretched the rest of it toward the treble. Then he did the same thing from the other end. Then he adjusted the stool, moving it down a couple of inches, before playing the right chords. “We're Bob and Joe!” He looked over at Schumann and beamed.

Nobody laughed.

Brahms began playing the bass for “Heart & Soul” but Schumann waved his hand, declining the offer.

“You know, Joe,” Schumann began, “I’ve just written another symphony but I don’t know what to call it.”

“Well, Bob, you may as well just call it ‘Shit’ because that’s what the critics are going to call it, anyway!” With that, Brahms played his two chords again - “ta daah!”

A rumpled man with unruly hair sitting in the corner went “Ha ha ha haaaah!” and stopped cold.

Brahms began playing some waltz tune quietly underneath their dialogue.

“Joe, you used to play the piano in brothels when you were still a boy. How did you land a job like that?”

“I was a child prodigy!” He played a rim-shot with his fingers on the music rack. "Ouch!"

“Apparently you still have your old charms about you,” Schumann said, glancing around the room and realizing there were no women among tonight’s customers, so he wasn’t sure how he was going to work in their next joke. It’s not good to make fun of the owner’s wife, he thought. “The other night, we played this bar in Jersey. Who was that lady I saw you talking to over by the window?”

“That was no lady, on that you can bet your life!” Brahms switched suddenly to a polka.

Schumann pulled himself up to his more or less full height. “Speaking of ladies, take my wife – please!”

Brahms just stared at him speechlessly, then switched into a high-gear Hungarian dance.

And so it went for ten minutes. Ten long minutes. The crowd, such as it was, rarely responded, or when they did, managed it with a twist of fairly obvious hostility.

“Hey, Igor,” Wagner called out at one point, “can we have a fire-drill now?”

“Tough crowd, “ Brahms thought as he ended his piano piece and pushed the stool aside. “And now, for our last number...”

Once the polite smattering of applause faded away – “it was never like this for Clara,” Schumann thought – they glanced at each other. It was time, now, for their big routine. They each took deep breaths. Schumann held the mike close to him while Brahms pretended to be looking around, kind of lost.

Schumann began, quickly checking a little note-card. “Here we are at the Music Center, getting all the stands set up for the concert tonight for the Greater Coalton Chamber Music Society. Let’s see, David Hu's playing first violin, Jonathan Watt's playing second violin, Michel Eidonneau is playing viola...”

Brahms looked up as if suddenly something caught his attention. “Wait, that's what I want to find out.”

And they were off.

Schumann: Well, I said - Hu's on first, Watt's on second, Eidonneau's on viola.
Brahms: Are you the manager?
Schumann: Yes.
Brahms: And you don't know the musicians' names?
Schumann: Well I should.
Brahms: Well then, who's on first?
Schumann: Yes.
Brahms: I mean the musician's name.
Schumann: Hu.
Brahms: The guy on first.
Schumann: Hu.
Brahms: The first violinist.
Schumann: Hu.
Brahms: The guy playing...
Schumann: Hu is on first!
Brahms: I'm asking YOU who's on first.
Schumann: That's the man's name.
Brahms: That's whose name?
Schumann: Yes.
Brahms: Well, go ahead and tell me.
Schumann: That's it.
Brahms: That's who?
Schumann: Yes.
PAUSE
Brahms: Look, you gotta first violinist?
Schumann: Certainly.
Brahms: Who's playing first?
Schumann: That's right.
Brahms: When you pay the first violinist after the gig, who gets the money?
Schumann: Every dollar of it.
Brahms: All I'm trying to find out is the musician's name on first violin.
Schumann: Hu.
Brahms: The guy that gets...
Schumann: That's it.
Brahms: Who gets the money...
Schumann: He does, every dollar. Sometimes his wife comes down and picks it up.
Brahms: Whose wife?
Schumann: Yes.
PAUSE
Brahms: Look, when you contract the first violinist, how does he sign his name?
Schumann: Hu.
Brahms: The guy.
Schumann: Hu.
Brahms: How does he sign...
Schumann: That's how he signs it.
Brahms: Who?
Schumann: Yes.
PAUSE
Brahms: All I'm trying to find out is what's the guy's name on first violin.
Schumann: No. Watt plays second violin.
Brahms: I'm not asking you who's on second.
Schumann: Hu's on first.
Brahms: One stand at a time!
Schumann: Well, don't change the players around.
Brahms: I'm not changing nobody!
Schumann: Take it easy, buddy...
Brahms: I'm only asking you, who's the guy on first violin?
Schumann: That's right.
Brahms: Ok.
Schumann: All right.
PAUSE
Brahms: So... what's the guy's name on first violin?
Schumann: No. Watt is on second.
Brahms: I'm not asking you who's on second.
Schumann: Hu's on first.
Brahms: I don't know.
Schumann: He's the violist, we're not talking about him.
Brahms: Now, how did I end up with the violist?
Schumann: Well, you mentioned his name.
Brahms: If I mentioned the violist's name, who did I say is playing viola?
Schumann: No. Hu's playing first.
Brahms: What's on first!?
Schumann: Watt's on second.
Brahms: I don't know.
Schumann: He's the violist.
Brahms: There I go, back with the violist, again!
PAUSE
Brahms: Would you just stay at the viola stand and don’t move.
Schumann: All right, what do you want to know?
Brahms: Now who's playing viola?
Schumann: Why do you insist on putting Hu in the viola section?
Brahms: What am I putting in the viola section?
Schumann: No. Watt is the second violinist.
Brahms: You don't want who on second?
Schumann: Hu is on first.
Brahms: I don't know.
Schumann & Brahms Together: VIOLA!
PAUSE
Brahms: Look, you gotta clarinetist?
Schumann: Sure.
Brahms: The clarinetist’s name...?
Schumann: Why.
Brahms: I just thought I'd ask you.
Schumann: Well, I just thought I'd tell you.
Brahms: Then tell me who's playing clarinet.
Schumann: Hu's playing first.
Brahms: I'm not... look, stay out of the string section! I want to know what's the guy playing clarinet?
Schumann: No, Watt is on second.
Brahms: I'm not asking you who's on second.
Schumann: Hu's on first!
Brahms: I don't know.
Schumann & Brahms Together: VIOLA!
PAUSE
Brahms: The clarinetist's name...?
Schumann: Why.
Brahms: Because!
Schumann: Oh, he's the cellist.
PAUSE
Brahms: Look, you got an oboist in this band?
Schumann: Sure.
Brahms: The oboist's name?
Schumann: Tomorrow.
Brahms: You don't wanna tell me today?
Schumann: I'm telling you now.
Brahms: Then go ahead.
Schumann: Tomorrow!
Brahms: What time?
Schumann: What time what?
Brahms: What time tomorrow are you gonna tell me who's tuning the band?
Schumann: Now, listen. Hu takes his pitch from Tomorrow.
Brahms: Look, I'm gonna break your arm if you say “who's on first”! I want to know what's the oboist's name?
Schumann: Watt's on second.
Brahms: I don't know.
Schumann & Brahms Together: VIOLA...!
PAUSE
Brahms: Gotta a bass player?
Schumann: Certainly.
Brahms: The bass-player's name...?
Schumann: Today.
Brahms: Today, and tomorrow's tuning up back-stage.
Schumann: Now you've got it.
Brahms: All we got is a couple of days on the team!
PAUSE
Brahms: You know I'm a bass-player, myself.
Schumann: So they tell me.
Brahms: I’ve been known to save a few rough passages with some fancy footwork, ya know. Picture it: the cellist misses his entrance when this fugue starts up. When he drops the theme, me, being a good continuo player, I'm gonna throw the theme back to the first violinist, right? So I take the theme and toss it... to... who?
Schumann: Now that's the first thing you've said right all day.
Brahms: I don't even know what I'm talking about!
Schumann: That's all you have to do.
Brahms: ...is toss the theme to the first violinist.
Schumann: Yes! That’s what good chamber music playing is all about.
Brahms: So now who's got it?
Schumann: Naturally.
PAUSE
Brahms: Look, if I toss the theme over to the first violinist, somebody's gonna play it. Now who has the theme?
Schumann: Naturally.
Brahms: Who?
Schumann: Naturally.
Brahms: Naturally?
Schumann: Naturally.
Brahms: So I toss the theme over to Naturally?
Schumann: No you don't, you toss the theme over to Hu.
Brahms: Naturally.
Schumann: That's different.
Brahms: That's what I said.
Schumann: You're not saying it...
Brahms: I toss the theme to Naturally.
Schumann: You toss it to Hu.
Brahms: Naturally.
Schumann: That's it.
Brahms: That's what I said!
Schumann: Okay, go ahead, now: you ask me.
Brahms: I toss the theme to who?
Schumann: Naturally.
Brahms: Now, you ask me.
Schumann: You throw the theme to Hu?
Brahms: Naturally.
Schumann: That's it.
Brahms: I said it the same as you! Same as YOU! I toss the theme to Who – whoever it is drops a beat and the guy playing second misses his cue. Who takes up the theme and tosses it over to What. What hands it off to I Don't Know. I Don't Know passes it on to Tomorrow, it’s a triple fugue!. Now today, somebody starts playing a cadenza, just because. Why? I don't know! He's the violist and, frankly, I don't give a damn!
Schumann: What did you say!?
Brahms: I said, “I don't give a damn!”
Schumann: Oh, that's our conductor.

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

The applause was polite but not that polite. Stravinsky walked up to them and held their hands up as they bowed. “Let’s hear it for Schumann... and Brahms!” He ushered them back toward the kitchen, Bobsky quick to close the door behind them. Igor returned to what passed for a spot-light to announce that the evening’s main act was about to begin.

Meanwhile, Brahms quickly drank the beer one of the kitchen workers handed him, wiping his brow while Schumann splashed water on his face.

“My first piano concerto got better applause in Leipzig,” Brahms said. “Tell me again why we’re doing this?”

“We gotta brush up on the timing a little on the opening,” Schumann said as he rubbed his hands vigorously with the towel, “we’re playing Frackville, tomorrow night.”

“I beg your pardon?” Brahms clapped his friend on the back and laughed as they walked through the back door out into the parking lot and the quiet stillness of the night. It wasn’t always like this, they knew. Some nights, the laughs were good.

- - - - - - -
Dr. Dick
© 2008

Stravinsky's Tavern

It was a dark and stormy night but then almost every night was dark and stormy in this godforsaken little mining town, stuck in the coal region of Eastern Pennsylvania like a wart on the back of an old sow. It was always the economy, stupid - meaning no disrespect, of course. Once the mines had closed and the factories shut down, there was no place to go, nothing to do. The sidewalks, even on weekends, rolled up not long after sundown. The young people moved away as soon as they could, whether or not they finished school, promising to send money back to their families once they struck it rich in the big cities. Either they forgot or they just never struck it rich because once they left, no one ever heard from them again. It was a pity, what was happening to the young people of Coalton - they were just disappearing.

Oh, not that way, not through any violence or anything supernatural – that anyone knew of at any rate. It was the town itself that drove them away, the bleak houses and mangey streets of a town where many thought their problems were the result of some ancient curse. You could feel it in the air. You could taste it in the water. You could also scrape it off the bottom of your shoes, but that was a more modern curse. Still, it stuck to your sole.

Years ago, they had changed the name of the town, thinking it might help. Not even the most nostalgic old-timers really remembered the original name any more, something Indian, probably from the Delaware tribe (or were they from New Jersey), that meant “Land Where Beavers Come From Miles Around to Pee” or was it something about a trailer park? No one was quite sure.

Everything in town was gray. Yes, this was an improvement over earlier decades when everything was basically black from all the coal dust in the air. As the mines gave way, the factories in the region closed and as coal itself became a thing of the past, slowly but surely the grime started to wear off. But the annual spring rains and the occasional flood when Skunk Run overflowed its banks didn’t really help. It took time, and time was what the citizens of Coalton had plenty of.

The Winter Doldrums which usually began in mid-October eventually gave way, with the advent of milder weather, to the Spring Doldrums. By the time summer rolled around, everybody was so numb, nobody cared what season it was until it started getting cooler and darker earlier and earlier, then everybody wondered where the summer went. Half the time, kids were so bored they sat around counting the days until school began. And before long, the snow would start again. It was gray, too.

With names on the map like Coal Street, Slag Avenue and Collier Park connecting neighborhoods called Canary Row, Methane Manor and the relatively posh suburb of Anthracite Circle, the whole town literally lived and breathed coal. Coal dust, they joked, flowed in their veins. The kids might leave, their elders said, but they carried the legacy of the Coalton mines with them, regardless.

One person who did not seem to mind any of this was, by some standards, a relative new-comer, arriving in the midst of World War II, having given up on the fame and fortune in cosmopolitan Europe and on a brilliant musical career, as well. Coalton may be drab compared to Paris with its light or his native St. Petersburg with its pastel colors, but Igor Stravinsky liked the town though he could never really explain why.

In order to make ends meet, he and his wife opened a bar on Coal Street near the center of town. They called it – what else? – “Stravinsky’s Tavern.”

You’d pry open the dilapidated aluminum storm-door with its soot-smeared window, cracked in the one corner from having been slammed too many times, then walk cautiously into its dark and smoky interior. The government’s well-intentioned regulations, only recently enacted after years of discussion and disagreement, sucked the “atmosphere” out of such places but the people who came here for a beer thought tobacco gave the ever-present coal dust a certain flavor they preferred. Signs had been posted but nobody took them seriously. In a short time, they were streaked with soot and almost illegible. Nobody really cared. They had complied with the law: they posted the signs. Who knew they had to be enforced?

Behind the bar stood a short bald-headed guy with round glasses and big ears. “All the better to hear you with, my dear,” he’d say with his big toothy grin, wiping the bar down with a damp rag and humming the old Russian folk song he’d used long ago in the final moments of his first big success, a ballet called "The Firebird.“

He always chatted with the bar’s regulars, people like Darius Milhaud who also had decided to settle in Coalton and had become an accountant. Funny, the others thought: he never seemed to have much business.

“You couldn’t come up with a better name than ‘Stravinsky’s Tavern’?” he chided the proprietor over his beer. He had suggested using “Le bouef sur le toit” but since it was next to the Moose and a block over from the Elks, Stravinsky felt it would only confuse the townspeople. His wife thought translating it as “The Do-Nothing Bar” would be good, but Milhaud had a friend who’d opened his own tavern across the street from the State Capitol building in Harrisburg where, appropriately enough, it became the favorite hang-out of many politicians.

“You bloody French guys are all the bleedin’ same,” complained the mailman with the heavy mustache. It was as much an enigma to him as anybody else how he, Edward Elgar, once Master of the King’s Music, could end up on the other side of the pond delivering mail in an anthracite coal town he’d never even heard of before. He glanced around at some of the other customers and thought they’d make a sorry lot of variations for his next great masterpiece.

For instance, over there, glancing over toward the front of the bar as if to prove his point: Sibelius and Mussorgsky sat at the booth in what passed for a bay window with its rusted aluminum frame and an eerie light barely visible through the cobwebs and tattered blinds. The neon “open” sign flickered like a bug light and another sign flashed its advertisement for some brand of beer that hadn’t been available for over a decade.

The granite-faced Finn was going on about how a symphony had always had a profound logic to it with an innate connection between all its musical motives, blah blah blah. Mussorgsky’s eyes had glazed over long ago. Slapping his fist down on the table and rattling the plate of peanut-shells, Sibelius complained that this guy Mahler told him just the other night that, noooo, the symphony must embrace the world, the whole universe, even! He took a long swig of his beer as if that dismissed the argument.

What did Mussorgsky care about symphonies anyway, he thought as he rolled his eyes again. Vera the waitress came by with her tray.

“Yeah?” she says, “so what’s a symphony, anyway? It can be whatever you want it to be, right? Hey, you want another beer, hon?”

“No, sorry,” Sibelius said as he brushed the peanut shells onto the floor. “Seven’s my limit - oh wait, maybe I will have another... or... no, that's okay, nevermind...”

The new assistant bartender, a kid named Robert Craft, arrived late for his shift. He hurried into the back room, sloughing off his coat and grabbing his apron off the hook as he rushed by.

Everybody called him Bobsky and treated him like he was the tavern’s errand boy. “Nice kid,” Igor often said, “except he’s been hanging out with the wrong crowd, know what I mean?” He nodded his head toward that place down the street, Pierrot’s Old-World Diner, which Schoenberg had been running for over twelve years, now. Everybody knew about it but still it was not very popular, a place that served nothing but breakfast 24-hours a day. “I mean, how much cereal can they eat around here?”

Stravinsky decided it was time to take a break – he had an idea for a new ballet and he wanted to retire to the back room where he kept a rickety old upright piano he’d brought with him from the good old days, back when he was writing “The Rite of Spring.” Very soon, out-of-tune notes plunked out bit by bit unfolded into chords and motives as a piece of music gradually began to take shape.

Vera, his wife, stood at the door, listening for a while. Shaking her head, she went back to waiting on tables. “He works so hard trying to find the right notes,” she muttered.

“Right notes?!” Elgar fumed, “Right notes! They always sound like the wrong notes to me!”

Raising his hand energetically, Bobsky said, “Ooh ooh! I could help Mr. Stravinsky find the right notes. Mr. Schoenberg was telling me all about how he composes with this system he invented using all twelve notes and how...”

But he was interrupted by the entrance of another regular, a tall, lean, serious-looking man who wrote long, serious novels like Doktor Faustus which had a character in it very much like Arnold Schoenberg. Since it was published, the two haven’t spoken to each other, even though they only lived a few blocks apart (though, of course, everyone in Coalton only lived a few blocks apart). But since writing novels didn’t make much money here, Thomas Mann became the town’s best-known psychiatrist. By the end of the day, he usually needed a few beers to help him unwind before heading home. “Yes,” he often muttered, “the well of history is deep,” before taking a long slow swig on his beer. Then he’d say, “I should write that down,” but he never did.

As Mann hung his overcoat over the “No Smoking” sign, Vera started telling him about the telegram Igor had just received from a big Broadway producer who had asked him to write a new ballet for him. “A great success – stop,” she quoted from memory, her hands tracing the line of words across the air, “could be sensational success if you would authorize Robert Russell Bennett to touch up orchestration - stop.” She leaned against the bar and confided to Mann, “so Igor wires him back: ‘Satisfied... with great success’...”

Milhaud shook his head, peering into his empty beer mug, and sighed, “yah, what would a bartender know about orchestration, anyway...”

Minutes later. the door creaked open again, a swirl of leaves blowing in past the patron, a lonely old man they only knew as Peter Grimes who was humming an old folk song, “Old Joe Has Gone Mining.”

Vera called over to Bobsky, “Those trees across the street... their leaves are always piling up in front of our place, and you’ve been very bad with the rake’s progress again this year!” Bobsky just shrugged his shoulders.

Stravinsky appeared from the back room with a big grin on his face. “I’ve just come up with an idea for a new symphony. It will be in three movements and I will call it "Symphony in Three Movements!”

Everybody cheered except Milhaud who thought it was just another bad name – “too abstract,” he complained. Mussorgsky kept rolling his eyes at all this talk of symphonies.

“Tomorrow,” the proprietor announced in his official proprietary voice, “we will have another comedy-night stand-up special here at Stravinsky’s.” Mussorgsky groaned.

“But for now, a special song for you,” he said, looking at the barely visible clock hanging over the back of the bar. He lifted a glass and toasted his friends.

“I call it... Last Call!” And Igor sang out, “Na zd’rovye!”

And everybody cheered. They knew it would still be hours before anyone would leave.

Toward a More Fugue-Efficient Car

Johann Sebastian Bach, in addition to the time he spent composing every day, always enjoyed tinkering in his workshop, whether he was trying to figure out ways of improving the clavichord, a kind of lap-top harpsichord, or working on a new book, “The Idiot’s Guide to Writing Cantatas for Every Sunday in the Church Year.” It was usually late at night, after the city of Leipzig had gone to sleep and the various Bach children had all been put to bed, that he loved most to sneak down to the basement.

His latest project was designing a more fugue-efficient car which he figured would be a major contribution to society, given the cost of supporting the arts these days. But he knew it was becoming hopeless because the younger generation had lost the knack for fugues: a simple melody with simple harmony was all they needed to make it run smoothly if not very far.

Those huge vans took whole symphonies, though, and proved to be time-consuming for the average motorist but yet everybody had to have one until they realized how difficult it was to write a symphony every couple of days. Even Haydn had given his van up for a smaller car that ran on variations.

And then Bach heard that Philip Glass was working on a new kind of engine system that could get several more miles out of just a single chord progression and didn’t even need a melody!

What did it matter to people like that, having something designed to run on the finest intellectual principles?

He had just recently perfected the fugue-injector engine with its dashboard application allowing you to insert the written-out fugue which is then transferred to the fugue tank where it is converted into fuel. This he found to be a big improvement over the original harpsicarburator engine which had a keyboard attached to the steering column but he found it distracting to be improvising fugues while driving (especially when Anna Magdalena would call him on his cell phone).

After he had started on the design, he quickly discovered that simple two-voice fugues, nothing terribly adventurous but suitable for beginning drivers, didn’t get you very far and were basically only good for quick trips to the store and back. For the daily commute, he needed at least a three-voice fugue with two good modulations in it. If the middle entries employed a good statement by inversion, then he added a little stretto before the final statement, he might be able to run a few errands on the way home, too.

Originally, he wanted to call it the Well-Tempered Car. Unfortunately, the engine frequently needed to be tuned which caused most of the fugues to burn slower than usual. Several times he found himself on the side of the road with his pitch-pipe trying to crank the engine back to A-440. Frustrated, he wondered “why bother,” watching everybody whizzing by in their Scarlatti Sonatas and Mendelssohn Cars Without Words.

But then he came up with another idea and that night he was back in the workshop.

Just the other week, he’d developed the compact version which he allowed the boys to drive around the neighborhood: this was the Clavicar which was capable of running on basic canons and two-part inventions, good for beginners.

Once when he was in a hurry, he let little C.P.E. write a fugue for him but the boy, who was usually as bored by fugal exercise as he was by aerobic exercise, had made too many mistakes – a botched tonal answer and a deceptive modulation that contained hidden parallel fifths – which just spun the engine off to the curb and poor Bach had to sit there and write out a whole new fugue just to make it to his rehearsal on time.

He found that you can’t just quickly dash off the same old/same old, either. Even though a fugue is a fugue, it has to be well-constructed with good material to really get some mileage out of it: too much “free counterpoint,” as they call it - he always thought it was just “filler,” watering your craft down with empty additives - and the car starts stalling at intersections or making rude gastrointestinal noises when it reached quarter-note = 120.

So each night, before going to bed, he would write a couple of fugues to get him through the next day. With any luck, he might go a whole day on a good double fugue - that would be great but it didn’t always happen, especially if he was behind on the weekly cantata. Invertible counterpoint was always effective but sometimes when you’re rushed you can make some miscalculations which could gum up the works and Bach, even though it would never happen to him, knew that his sons, for instance, would never have the discipline to manage one of those every day: maybe for a holiday trip, but not your daily commute.

There had been a fine five-voice fugue with two counter-subjects that he was able to drive around on for almost a week. And there was that whole series of fugues he’d written on a theme submitted by Frederick the Great’s Energy Secretary which got him all the way to Berlin and back, even though they laughed at his ideas...

Maybe one day, ja, like their father, C.P.E. and Wilhelm Friedemann and all of their generation will be able to master the fugue in all its many possibilities. His dream was to finish a collection he called “The Art of Fuel,” containing only the finest of those fugues with which he’d gotten the best mileage. It’s a dream that keeps him going.

- Dr. Dick

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© 2007