Tremolo in the House of Music

To the bus commuters of the industrial port city of Newtown, Laurel Foster was a familiar figure in her olive-green suit and green straw hat, bag slung over one shoulder and violin case clasped in her right hand as she made her rounds of the schools and colleges around the city. A single lady in her mid-sixties, living alone in a semi-detached house at the top of the hill overlooking the bay, she had converted the front room into a studio, in which she gave extra tuition after hours to some of her most promising students.

On this Sunday morning, sixteen-year-old Tim Wheeler stood before her, fiddle tucked under chin, bow at the ready. On the music stand a copy of Tartini’s violin sonata number 1 lay open. Laurel, seated in her chair, using her bow as a pointer, tapped the page on the stand.

Tim sailed into action, finger throbbing in an endeavour to make the violin sing like those of the great performers he had seen on TV. He had covered not more than a half-dozen bars before his teacher called a halt.

“Stop, stop! Why do you persist with that wretched vibrato? It sounds dreadful. Let’s do it again. Start at the beginning, without the vibrato!”

This time he got as far as the end of the introduction before she took him to task again. Turning away from her errant pupil, she addressed an invisible third party in a corner of the room, shaking her head slowly in disapproval.

“I don’t know why he plays F sharp there when he knows perfectly well it’s wrong.”

There followed a muttered comment about a former student who also played F sharp at precisely that spot, a student who eventually came to a bad end. Having given vent to her disapproval, she turned abruptly to tap the page again with her bow.

“Once again, and no mistakes this time!”

It was then that Tim let fall a casual remark that made her prick up her ears.

“I’ve been dumped in the second violins.” His tone was one of sulky resentment.

Puzzled, she asked him to explain.

“In the school orchestra. We’re practising for the concert.”

A frown appeared on Laurel’s brow. She’d been told nothing about rehearsals or a concert. Having gained her attention, Tim expanded on his grievance.

“Why couldn’t I be with the first violins?”

She brushed aside his complaint with a curt wave of her hand. The boy’s whining irritated her. “Son, the first violins aren’t better than the second. They just have different parts to play. When’s this concert to be, anyway?”

“At the end of second term.”

That was no more than eight weeks away. That wasn’t leaving her much time to rally the troops!

“And what are you performing?”

“We’re doing music from the movie Elvira Madigan.”

Laurel gazed at him, uncomprehending.

Tim hastened to explain. “It’s Mozart. The piano concerto number 21. The movie director used the second movement as the theme tune.”

Laurel shook her head slowly. She could only imagine what the violins would be like after such a short rehearsal time. What on earth had possessed the college music director George Harding-Smith to make such a rash decision? That young man was getting too big for his boots!

“Son, if you lot go on stage in your present state it’ll be the end of me. You’re nowhere near up to standard for such a work. This is sheer madness. I’ll lose tens of thousands of dollars in future tuition fees! I’ll never be able to hold my head up in public again. It’s not just my reputation that’s at stake. It’s Mozart’s that I’m worried about!”

Tim took his punishment in silence. He sensed that in present circumstances the less said the better.

“Who’s the pianist, anyway?”

“Katie Ludlow.”

 She gazed at him with narrowed eyes. “I see!”

Twenty-three-year-old Katie Ludlow was a talented pianist who had made her mark amongst the local fraternity. She was also Harding-Smith’s wife. Harding-Smith was a man of lofty ambitions, seeing himself as a future famous impresario. Already he had acquired a public persona through his success in creating the Newtown Association of Music and Art, and he had won the co-operation of the heads of Girls’ Grammar and Newtown Boys’ College in producing a combined public performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe at a local theatre, an event that had won him widespread acclaim. Now his focus was on Mozart, using his wife as a showpiece. Like a young bull, he was not going to be easy to restrain.

All the rest of that day a sense of foreboding troubled Laurel. The shock of what she had been told put her out of kilter. In her mind she could hear the cacophony of an orchestra off-pitch, out of time, mis-reading the score, and making her the laughing-stock of the city. After retiring to bed she lay awake in the darkness, brooding over her powerlessness to avert disaster. For hours she lay tossing and turning. There had to be some way of bringing this cocksure young rooster to heel. There just had to be!

It was well past midnight when the idea began to germinate in her mind. Memories of her childhood and family, images of her dead father, a mill-worker in the long-gone days when the woollen mills still existed by the riverside, stirred some primeval intuition suggesting the path to be followed. She now had a plan.

George Harding-Smith glanced at his watch impatiently as he stood before the lectern in the House of Music. Nearly half-past ten. So many latecomers. Glancing about him, irritated by the lack of discipline, his sharp ears detected, amidst the buzz of noisy chatter, the unwelcome rattle of an under-current of hip-hop rhythm coming from the percussion section. Exasperated, he strode across the room to confront the offender.

“Don’t ever play that rubbish in the House of Music again, do you hear!”

With that, clutching a rolled-up copy of Mozart’s score in his fist, he delivered a clip over the ear to the snare-drum player, an action that aroused an insouciant grin from the recipient, with muttered words to his neighbour. “Illegal music!”

An inner voice cautioned the music master. Don’t push your luck, George. Otherwise you’ll soon have a riot on your hands!

The minutes ticked by. Still no sign of the strings. Around him, he observed the presence of the woodwinds, the brass, the percussion. It was only the strings who had dragged their feet and made everyone else wait. After another half-hour he became concerned. Something was wrong. No first violins, no second violins, no violas, no cellos. Not even the double-bass player had turned up! Without the strings, he was stymied. He began to suspect some malevolent influence, some power greater than his own. This situation could not have arisen by chance. Now it dawned on him that he was dealing with an industrial stoppage! A strike of the strings! As he began to mull over this conundrum, his suspicions darkened. There was only one person who could possibly have been responsible!

When Tim Wheeler reported to her at his de-briefing on the Sunday, Laurel felt a warm inner glow. Her students had been faithful to her. Not one of them had let her down. She was particularly proud of Tim, who had not hesitated to brave the ire of the music master. Perhaps it would teach young George a lesson.

It was at this moment, in her state of euphoria, that she heard the creaking of her front gate being opened. Surprised at having a visitor at such a time on a Sunday, she became alarmed when she caught sight of the approaching caller through the front window.

“Good heavens! It’s Mr Smith! I wonder what he wants?”

Laurel’s heartbeat accelerated rapidly. She sent Tim to open the door, allowing herself a brief moment to try to quell her mounting agitation.

When he appeared, she was on her guard, offering him a chair with stiff formality, preparing to defend herself in what was certain to be an unpleasant confrontation. Instead, to her bewilderment, the music master appeared in benign mood, smiling pleasantly as he settled comfortably in the proffered armchair while complimenting her on her beautifully furnished home. Confounded by this unexpected visit, she felt bound to offer him a cup of tea.

He seemed in no hurry to explain the purpose of his call, choosing instead to acquaint her with his thoughts on music education in the school, and his desire to develop a tradition of love of music in the hearts of the students. He followed this with a carefully worded expression of appreciation for her efforts in giving extra lessons without fee to those who showed promise.

Flattery will get you nowhere, she told herself, yet somehow, despite her resolution, she felt herself wavering. He reminded her so much of one she had known in the distant past, a man who had been lost to her through unhappy circumstances, yet one who still abided long in her thoughts.

Having won her attention, George then expounded on his aim of capturing the imagination of the local community by producing a work replicating the theme of a Swedish movie that had attracted the attention of the musical cognoscenti.

“Elvira Madigan was the stage name adopted by a seventeen-year-old circus tightrope walker who became the lover of an upper-class Swedish army officer. This officer was ostracised by family and society, not only for deserting the army and abandoning his wife and two children as well, but also because he had taken up with someone from a lower social order. The two became fugitives, spending all they had in high living without a single thought for the future, until, finally, as outcasts from society, desperate, hungry, and without hope, they submitted to their fate. In the final scene we see them living it up on a picnic in the forest with largesse from borrowed money they can never repay, ending their lives in mutual suicide. It sounds corny, doesn’t it? Except that it happens to be true. The movie was made in 1967 by a Swedish producer on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the circus artist, using the andante movement of Mozart’s piano concerto as its central theme.”

He turned then to the youth at his side. “You know what andante means, don’t you, Tim?”

Tim stood in silent trepidation, fearing repercussions following his absence from orchestra practice. But, instead, the music master cast him a benevolent smile.

“Just imagine, Tim, that you’re taking a leisurely stroll through the Botanical Gardens with your girlfriend on a sunny spring afternoon. That’s what andante means. Being happy and carefree!”

Tim pretended to understand, nodding his head in acknowledgment.

The master continued. “It’s not the story that attracts the audiences. It’s the great vocal and instrumental sound experience that raises it above the common level. And this is where the producer introduces Mozart, with stunning effect. When you see Elvira rigging up the tightrope in the forest for her final dance before her lover, and you hear the beautiful cadences of the closing moments of the andante, you’re experiencing a sublime moment in one of the most celebrated movies of the twentieth century. Are you with me, Tim?”

Tim nodded enthusiastically, carried away by his master’s eloquence. Laurel looked on in dismay. Her misgivings were by no means allayed. Indeed, her fears were heightened. Harding-Smith was luring her students away, isolating her and neutralising her influence. She had to stop him, somehow. Yet she felt disarmed by his blandishments. How could she refuse a man who displayed such courtesy?

Harding-Smith, for his part, was well aware of her apprehensions. He knew he had to win her over. Without the violin teacher, his cause was lost. He offered to postpone the concert until the end of October. “What do you think, Laurel?”

Taken by surprise, unprepared for such an overture, she became confused. Her reply was non-committal, grudging. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The first rehearsal of the full orchestra was excruciating, serving only to confirm her worst fears. They were going to need a lot of knocking into shape.

She had chosen to attend their Saturday morning sessions to find out for herself just how bad things were. On hearing them play, she decided that every one of them needed personal coaching. She could not charge for these extra sessions, as none of the students, or their parents, had asked for them. It had to be pro bono. She did this not through altruism, but from a desire to save her own neck. And Mozart’s! And so it happened that, over the next few months, she could be seen abroad in the winter darkness, braving the rain, the cold winds and the mud, to call on her students in their homes.

The weeks flashed by. October descended on her like a threatening tsunami. As the final day approached, she resigned herself to whatever was to come. There was only so much you could do.

She put on her best attire for the occasion, and circulated amongst her students, encouraging each of them with a smile, meeting the host of parents. Then, with all preliminaries done, she disappeared. A primitive instinct prompted her to take up a position in the box room underneath the concert hall, where she could hear the performance clearly without having to look at the players. Watching them would only have added to the strain. Settling herself comfortably in the one available armchair, with the opened music score on her lap, she waited.

The background thrum of conversation subsided. Silence descended on the concert hall. And then, at last, the opening theme, introduced by the second violins. Laurel’s attention sharpened, head nodding in time with the rhythm, listening keenly for errors in pitch as the first violins took over, then the woodwinds, the brass and percussion echoing the original motif, to die away quickly at the entrance of the piano. Laurel was captivated at once by the delicacy and serene agility of the performer. It took only moments for her to realise that she was listening to a rendition by a great artist. The pianist then elaborated on the theme in all its multiple variations, ending with the long Mozart trill that was the cue for the return of the orchestra. They came in, spot on, without missing a beat, filling Laurel’s heart with joy at the efforts of her brood.

A long pause. The pause of anticipation. And then the uplifting, crystal tones of the piano introducing the andante movement, against the subdued background hush of the second violins in triplet mode, muted low as to be almost inaudible. The simple elegance of the treble C chord played alone, slowly, five times in succession, the core motif of the movement, to return time and again in varying context, was so elemental, yet so beautiful in its power. Each time, Laurel whispered the count to herself, her finger travelling across the lines of the score, lost in contemplation of its compelling mystique.

She closed her eyes, serenely contented as Katie Ludlow’s nimble fingers caressed the keys lovingly for the last repetition, and the andante faded to its haunting conclusion.

She was not to hear the opening of the fast, lively rondo that followed, nor the thunder of applause that erupted on its completion. She was unaware of the bows of acknowledgment by pianist, conductor, leader of the orchestra, and the final rising of the whole orchestra to receive their accolades. She would never know of the crowning success of her labours.

They found her, lying back in her armchair in the box room, eyes closed, still with the opened music score on her lap, a hand resting on the final phrase of the andante movement.

Tim Wheeler stood in silent awe at the sight of his teacher at rest, a faint smile of satisfaction on her lips. He realised immediately that the last sounds she ever heard would have been the final rendering of that immortal theme.

Those last five notes of the andante would remain with him until the end of his days.