This Farewell Symphony by Edmund Bealby-Wright

Author:Edmund Bealby-Wright [Edmund Bealby-Wright]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781955605062
Publisher: Impress Books
Published: 2011-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

III

MANNERS

Menuetto

‘The minuet and trio portrays only too well the tedious intricacies of courtly life,’ said Professor Kirchel. The oboist chuckled, and the others sighed in agreement. They were lounging around in their dressing room, where the distinguished professor had paid the musicians a visit while awaiting the call to perform.

‘But the minuet and trio is the most inoffensive thing in music.’

‘And yet it is the most hated!’

Like all orchestral players, they measured their work by the line and had been tricked by repeat marks.

‘As far as I can see, the minuet and trio has only two virtues – it passes the time and saves paper,’ said the oboist. ‘More than half of the material is repeats and the original two-fifths is calculated to be as unchallenging as possible.’

‘Wish we could skip it.’

‘The minuet is rather leaden, I admit,’ concluded the professor, ‘but it was an expected part of the symphonic form. It would not be good manners to disrupt the stately progress of the symphony.’

The musicians yawned.

Teresa Martz popped her head round the door; the domesticity of the act was inconsistent with the grandeur of the door and the fact that she had her Pompadour-style wig back on.

‘Sorry to interrupt … ah, there you are professor.’

‘Miss Teresa. How’s the fallen maestro?’

‘No change – he grumbles a lot. He says he doesn’t know where he is.’

‘He is milking the scene,’ said one musician.

‘He is a terrible old ham,’ added another.

Rather than waste time choosing between metaphorical offerings of dairy and pork, Teresa began issuing instructions: ‘Professor Kirchel, I have a favour to ask of you. Have you met Kevin?’

‘G’day,’ said Kevin, reaching an arm round the doorjamb.

Kirchel sycophantically held out a hand.

‘He’s the technical director,’ explained Teresa, and the hand withdrew.

Teresa was certain that Kevin was about to make one of his overfamiliar remarks, so she forestalled him with excessively bright instructions to ‘take the professor with you to the grotto and bring the audience back, if you don’t mind, Kevin.’ Sexual relations with subordinate male colleagues turned them into uncooperative teenagers. Or maybe that was just Kevin.

While Kevin led the professor down the west wing, the musicians perked up from their previous lugubrious talk of minuets and discussed football instead.

Teresa went back into the Sala, bustling with urgency. ‘Keep everyone sweet!’ she trilled. Her command swept across the busy catering staff. ‘Do whatever you have to do – smile, flirt, supply them with plenty of drinks.’ She had decided that it was essential that the audience were either too happy or too drunk to complain.

‘What did she say?’ asked one Hungarian waitress.

‘Let them eat cake.’

Teresa continued: ‘I have sent Kevin and the professor over to the puppet theatre and they will be returning shortly.’

‘How shortly?’

‘I told them to take the long way round.’

Teresa twitched her hands, unaware yet whether the audience would arrive in the form of stroppy customers, sycophantic courtiers or an angry mob. Unusually for her, she was achieving nothing. At some point these twenty-first-century tourists would wake

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