A Life Conducted
For many tears and years, life rushes by, a colorful dizzying torrent. An orchestra blowing, bowing, plucking, and twisting tuning pegs in a clamor. In thumbs and fingers and spit-valve dumps, the noise grows louder. And louder. AND LOUDER.
He walks on stage as the house lights soften. The audience erupts then fades to silence.
As he turns, he raises his baton and nods politely to his players.
One-and, Two-and, Three-and, Four-and.
It starts in the strings, as a rising tide, from the very first of his days in high school. A deep breath of promise—a whisper, a sunrise—like a memory waking from slumber. The melody beckons, and he grows restless, as a chill runs through his neck and his shoulders.
A pizzicato: the cellos awaken. A heart beating, powerful, vibrant. Not all was rosy, not everyone caring, not everything like he imagined. His hands pick in time, at invisible lines, he closes his eyes and remembers the feeling.
A borrowed pen from Bobby Brewster, the simple start of a lifelong friendship. A woodwind grin from Nyla Green, the flip-flopped brunette in his homeroom class. Anxious moments; each second important. The orchestra roars—and then the French horns!—he waves his hands in silent approval.
Flickr / Vancouver 125
The chorus retreats, the flutes sweetly sing. You’re sweet but not for me, said Nyla. The quiet advances, where Nyla once was, a vacuum of silence and heartbreaking truth. How sudden, how real, how painful the moment. The push and pull of tidal time, eroding who we thought we were.
The melody dances beyond Nyla Green and transforms into a choreographed dance. A rat-a-tat of snares and a piccolo trill and he’s back in the marching band. His tuba is heavy, his feet feel leaden, as he marches to spots on the football field. Sheet music sight reads, suspended pant legs, careful steps up a podium staircase. His elbows wide, as he counts time, in his first white gloves and coattails.
The clarinets sing a wistful serenade with the cellos keeping rhythm. A nighttime ride in a yellow bus, its tires whine on asphalt seams. Sweat-stained whispers with Leah Newstead, touching legs and lips and her bra straps. Awkward fumbles in vinyl seats in the din of streetlights and diesel churnings. Leah laughed and went on dates with him, as he wondered if she was his girlfriend.
Four years gone by and a new beginning, a tasseled hat thrown in the air. The woodwinds long for days since past. As the trumpets signal the change of guard! He says goodbye before he leaves, for a music school away from home.
Wooden bench, sustaining pedal, and practice on a baby grand. The fluorescent whitewash of rehearsal space. Dog-eared sheet music and pen-scribble notebooks while he lived and breathed composition. A bachelor in music, before a PhD at the Royal Academy.
Airplane tickets and performances with musicians well beyond his talents. But he understood how the pieces fit, how to coax the players through direction. He turns the page of his conductor’s score, and there is Gemma Bauer. A cello beckons through a timpani storm: his eternal Gem. Her footsteps through the double basses, and echo in the violins. Gemma the sculptor, the artist, the friend, who loved so surely, strongly, deeply.
Flickr / Miguel O. Strauss
A brick-front house with basement studio space, a place to build and dream. He thinks about the way Gem smiles when she doesn't know he’s watching her. The way she squeezes his hand sometimes, to remind him that she’s beside him. The way he sleeps when she is there, the notes stuck to the mirror.
He learned from Gem to use his hands to uncover shapes and forms. Music, marble, clay, or metal all have textures, facets, meaning. As the orchestra plays, his hands caress the peaks and valleys of this polka.
It ends in the strings, as an ebbing tide, the wondrous birth of their daughter Sonia. A deep breath of promise—a whisper, a sunrise—old lives renewed and another beginning. The melody beckons, as Sonia coaxes him onward, and the orchestra reaches the coda.
Note: I don’t normally do this, but I want to share some of the background for this piece. On New Year’s Eve, my girlfriend and I went to the Kimmel Center to see the Philadelphia Orchestra perform with guest conductor, Bramwell Tovey, who's pictured above conducting the Vancouver Orchestra. Tovey told a few stories, got a few laughs, and made the evening a pleasant surprise.
One of the night’s highlights was the performance of Pizzicato Polka by Strauss. (The entire set was composed of pieces from the family Strauss.) The next day, I got it into my head that I wanted to tell a conductor’s history, in time with the music he was conducting. It seemed fun, and challenging, and different. This piece is the result. It’s a polka, which is traditionally counted, “ONE-and, TWO-and, THREE-and, FOUR-and. (Or you can also try, “POL-ka, POL-ka, POL-ka, POL-ka.”) Tap your toe on the downbeats, and pick it up on the upbeats. Enjoy it.
Or not...
Actually, do whatever you want to do. I'm not your boss.
This one took longer than I expected—hence my short hiatus—but that's the nature of writing. Sometimes you have to chase an idea to its conclusion.
Thanks for reading, and there’s plenty more to follow. -gj
