The Lost Chord: Installment 10

...continued from the previous installment of "The Lost Chord," a music appreciation thriller and parody of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" - as the villain was getting ready to implement the next of his dastardly deeds, the most recently discovered clue on the severed ear was apparently going to lead our hero deep into the bowels of Lincoln Center...

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The lobby at the Met had gradually filtered itself down to a handful of people, mostly ushers and a few disgruntled late-comers who were now going to miss the opening act of The Barber of Seville. It didn't look like we were going to get to see it, either, now. The hunt was on.

The hunt for what was the issue.

Down the steps into the Concourse, traffic was also very light and no one took notice of a gray-haired professor and a young 20-something student seemingly being led away by two security agents and a short person in a light brown but otherwise nondescript uniform.

Things were changing rapidly with all the new construction and while they tried to minimize the inconvenience to the different performing groups and their patrons, confusion was not unexpected. There were signs everywhere pointing people toward the different parking lots and entryways. But I noticed none of them were pointing in the direction we were heading. Back – waaaay back – into the dim distance that seemed to go on for ever, we faced an infinity of perspective, a black void that seemed to advance ahead of us as long as we continued to walk.

“Heigh ho, heigh ho” slowly morphed into something accompanied by the clanging anvil rhythms of Wagner's Nibelungs slaving away in their underground factory. The result was not pretty.

“Shouldn't we be walking backwards?” Buzz asked, explaining if the rubric was Cancer eat plenis and crab canons went in reverse, we might be missing something, possibly another clue that we could only see behind us.

“Can you get him to shut up, professor?”

“Buzz,” I said to him, half-seriously, “why don't you walk backwards – or at least keep your eyes peeled for any clues behind us.” Night-vision goggles would have helped, I was going to add, but then I figure no one from LiCPASH or the ICA would have thought to bring them.

We had no sooner closed the first door into the near-darkness of the pod's hallway when Buzz gasped, “OMG, there's one now!”

“One what?” I said, stopping to look back at him.

“I dunno, it's a sign.” Printed in the same style as all the other signs scattered throughout the Lincoln Center Concourse, this one, however, wasn't pointing the way to anything obvious.

“Hmmm,” I said pensively.

Ubi Chrodegang, ibi Expeditus.

“Holy crap, Professor, now what!?” Leahy-Hu had stopped dead in her tracks. Turning to Harmon, she asked indignantly, “is this really an official Lincoln Center sign, Chief?”

“It looks like them, but it doesn't have any arrows on it.” He looked around but could see nothing else in the dimness.

“So what does this mean? Anything even remotely helpful?”

“Where there's Chrodegang... there is Expeditus. Let's see – Chrodegang was an 8th Century saint who brought the new musical system known as Gregorian Chant to the Franks when he was the Bishop of Metz.”

“Ah yes,” said Buzz with a sagacity beyond his years. “Now, there's a team that should be playing in the World Series tonight...”

Chief Harmon ground his foot into the concrete floor. I knew it... Trouble...

“No, we're not talking baseball, here, but he is also famous for the 'Rule of Chrodegang,' which was a series of canons about the life of the clergy...”

“Again with the canons,” huffed Leahy-Hu.

“In addition to musical canons – glorified imitation beyond the level of a mere 'round' like 'Row, Row, Row your boat' – canon can also refer to a body of work, like the Western Canon of great literary masterpieces. In this case, canons refer to rules in the early Church – or for that matter, in Greek philosophy: Aristotle had 'Five Canons of Rhetoric' for his students to learn the art of effective persuasion, for instance.”

“So we're under the Met and he was the Bishop of Metz, but otherwise I fail to see any further connection.” She was not going to be easily persuaded.

“More important, I think, is the sense of his canons as the accepted principles or rules of his order. Perhaps not specifically: if these signs were posted by our suspect, he might be referring to the musical rules that govern the writing or realizing of canons – I mean, as in the musical procedure. Then, too, Bishop Chrodegang was canonized and became a saint, so... he could mean it in any number of possibilities.

“Then, too, “ I continued, “Metz is the place usually considered where the first musical notation was... well, for lack of a better term, invented around 800 – a series of neumes without reference to even a one-line staff.”

“Whatever... Then who or what is 'ibi Expeditus'? Something that must be expedited? Like this investigation, if you wouldn't mind?” She stood there in a way I could only express as “arms akimbo.”

“It says here,” Buzz pointed to his cell-phone, “that Expeditus was also a saint, an Armenian-born martyr who is the patron saint of procrastinators – ah, that would be me! – and also...”

“...Of emergencies and solutions, if I remember correctly.” I glanced down at his phone: he had been googling, again. Amazing, the stuff you could do with a phone. Amazing, also, that a phone would receive signal this deep inside the Lincoln Center concourse.

“I love the story about a Paris convent receiving a box with a statue of him and his relics marked SPEDITIO, the Latin equivalent of 'Speedy Delivery,' but since there was no name to identify who the saint was, they called him Expeditus. Charming story and yet people pray to him all the time to find solutions to intricate problems...”

“Perhaps we should offer him such a prayer as we speak – or rather continue to procrastinate? What the hell does any of this have to do with the ancient wisdom our alleged suspect is hoping you, professor, will procure for him?”

Chief Harmon knew better than to speak up but he hesitantly suggested we continue in our original direction and talk along the way.

“What makes you so sure it's 'ancient wisdom' this character seeks, Director Hu?” I was curious for her take on this. “Lincoln Center is not exactly an ancient building likely to hide a treasure trove of ancient artifacts that will open up mysteries of the past.” True, much of what was presented here was old - often really old - because that was the nature of concert halls and opera houses. The building itself didn't have to be old to house old artifacts.

“What have our clues referenced so far? Bach and Dufay and now an 8th Century saint. We've been talking about canons, for God's sake! All in Latin! What does that tell you?”

“We're going back in time?” Buzz tried to sound helpful.

Perhaps I should've left him to fend for himself on the plaza which may well be the first time this evening Leahy-Hu would have agreed with me.

“Canons as riddles. Canons as rules.” I almost stopped in my tracks, such as they were.

“Our alleged suspect is either a stickler for the rules or is upset about people who don't follow them.” Not the world's most insightful epiphany but I thought it was worth throwing out there.

“Possibly both, I'd think,” Buzz said after he bumped into me, still walking mostly backward and unaware I had stopped. “Rules about music but also rules about how to live – I mean, considering that Bishop from Metz guy. Did Robertson's lifestyle have anything that might make him some enemies among his more rigorously minded colleagues? I mean other than being fabulously rich, extremely successful and highly respected?”

“Well, he was something of a maximal constructionist frequently reviled by the minimal neo-tonalists, I guess, given the musical politics of today's style police...”

“Hmm, yeah, kind of a long shot, there...” Buzz resumed walking, looking over his shoulder to keep an eye out for any additional clues.

Harmon called back to the Security Hub and asked Officer Martineau to check on the status of a room in the Met Pod Level marked 440 – who used it, what might be stored there.

“Thanks, Ond. Oh, and you'd better alert D'Arcy that we're going down there: he might want to know,” Harmon added as he closed his phone. “One of the chief architects in the renovations,” he explained to us.

We trudged on in the semi-darkness, lit only by small feeble lights evenly spaced along the floor like night-lights in a child's bedroom, little pools of light that we walked through, heading toward the next pool for lack of anything else to guide us.

“Music is full of rules – most of them made to be broken, of course. How would music change, otherwise, from era to era or composer to composer? But our clues are all very old rules, starting with Bach and working our way back through the Renaissance to Dufay and then even further with the reference to the beginning of notated music around 1200 years ago.”

“And crabs that walk backwards going backwards in time,” Buzz reminded me. “I half suspect the next clue will be in Greek!”

With that, we came to another door. Chief Harmon used his security badge to gain entrance. With a loud click, the door drifted open into near total blackness.

“Be careful: the steps start almost immediately. It looks like one of the lights is out.” Officer Mobile looked back down the hallway.

“Great,” Harmon said, “an OSHA report just waiting to happen...” He took out a small flashlight and led the way.

The air was cooler, damper and less inviting: clearly the air circulation system didn't reach beyond the door we'd just passed through.

“It smells like air from a different planet,” Buzz whispered.

“Exactly,” I added, “speaking of breaking rules: where would the past century have gone if Schoenberg – in writing his 2nd String Quartet inspired by those very words, Buzz – had been afraid of breaking a few old rules?”

“It probably would've sounded a hell of a lot better,” Harmon huffed under his breath.

Hmmm. Not a fan of 20th Century music, I see. Maybe that's why I felt a certain antipathy for this guy.

“A-ha!” Buzz gasped and reached over to grab my arm before I got too far down the steps. “Look at this, Dr. Dick – another clue?”

There, on the back of the door, was another sign.

MUSICA RESERVATA
MORO LASSO
CARMINA CHROMATICO
προσέξτε πού πατάτε

Leahy-Hu crowded her way back up the steps as Harmon focused his flashlight on this new sign.

“I knew it – Greek!” Buzz said

“Okay, Professor,” Leahy-Hu began petulantly, “have at it...”

“Well, let's see,” as I read it through a few times. “No punctuation and not very effective as poetry...” I missed the haiku-like fibonacci poems we had to deal with in 'The Schoenberg Code.'

“Musica reservata was a style of musical composition in the late 16th Century – still old but no longer on a steady time line receding into the dawn of musical history.”

And it was something that Robertson's assistant – or whoever he was – had mentioned to me when he went all evil on me.

(“Surely you are familiar with the mysteries of Musica reservata? There is not much time for you to rescue your friend who is not exactly at the 9th Circle, at least not just yet. Let's say he is currently in the state of limbo.”)

The voice echoed ominously in my ear.

Ear. Damn – it made me think of my friend who was now minus one ear.

Looking at the sign again, I was beginning to think we were in some kind of musical time machine and would find ourselves dealing with a group of defrocked monks mad at the moral decline of the world or something.

“Musica reservata was considered too intellectual for most people, designed to be enjoyed by an elite group of cognoscenti – no doubt somewhat like Elliott Carter fans today. One aspect of the style was a direct imitation in the music of the text.”

“You mean like, on the word 'ascend,' the music would go up? And on 'descended,' the musical line would go down...” Leahy-Hu seemed to recall from some distant class-room memory.

“Basically: in more literal forms of tone-painting, you could also do that when talking about sunrise or sunset – or using a galloping rhythm when you're talking about riding a horse or having a trombone snarl if you mention a lion, for instance.” There were dozens of examples but that seemed to get the point across.

Buzz agreed. “Well, it seems our musical line is about to head downwards,” pushing his voice lower and lower as he spoke.

“However,” I continued, “originally, it could also be a very chromatic style that wasn't always written out in the music. Do you remember musica ficta, Buzz?”

“Oh yeah, something about changing a pitch by automatically adding accidentals so you could avoid intervals of the tritone, since they had no real key signatures and no accidentals to change a note other than B-flat, right?”

“Right – by the judicious use of this 'rule' you could actually create some very chromatic-sounding music that no longer sounded as simple as it looked on the written page.”

Pointing at the next line, I mentioned Moro lasso was the title of a famous madrigal by Don Carlo Gesualdo –

I die, alas, in my pain
And she who could give me life,
Alas, kills me and will not help me.
O sorrowful fate,
She who could give me life,
Alas, gives me death.

“Makes you long for the days of the old fa-la-la-la-la...” Buzz tried to get a picture of the sign, but it was too dark to be discernible.

“And should I point out, who is the one who could give whom life but instead gives him death?” Leahy-Hu had a point: is our suspect ready to kill his victim if he doesn't get what he wants, whatever that is, and by not helping him, he will kill Robertson if he hasn't already died? “Is this a woman we're dealing with, our suspect?”

“No, I think it refers to a woman who could help him but either can't or won't.” I didn't want to say it might be her, because I figured Leahy-Hu was already in a bad enough mood.

Leahy-Hu reminded us, “perhaps we should descend,” careful to keep her voice from dropping as if she wanted to avoid giving in to the musical moment. “Dr. Dick, if you're concerned about your tote bag,” she said, noticing I was once again nervously holding it close to my chest, “perhaps we could let Officer Mobile carry it for you?”

“No, no, that won't be necessary, really: I just don't want my... uhm...” – my what?! – “my notes to get all damp and musty.”

Not to mention whatever it was that Robertson had given me years ago and which I had unwittingly brought with me to return to the man – or maniac – who apparently seemed more intent on killing him. And possibly me, as well, once I'd served his purpose.

I tried to change the subject. “As for the line of Greek – 'proséxte poo patáteh' – I'm not sure...”

“You can read it but not translate it?” Leahy-Hu asked, as if this were a sign of weakness, not just a failure of simple logic.

“Wait, I've heard that before,” Harmon said, holding up his hand. “Leo at my favorite diner up on Broadway at 79th always says that to me as I leave his restaurant. I always thought he was wishing me good luck or something, so one day I asked him, I said 'Leo,' I said, 'what's that thing mean about the “potato”?' And you know what he said?”

The ensuing silence apparently signified not one of us had an inkling what Leo might have told him.

“It means 'Watch Your Step'!” Harmon laughed and seemed very proud of himself.

“So,” Buzz thought out loud, “perhaps an admonition to anyone singing 'Moro lasso' to mind their intonation on the descending chromaticism?”

Step-wise motion in a chromatic style like this can be murder on a choir's intonation, true, but that was all part of the challenge of performing and listening to Musica Reservata...”

“Well, no – I think here it probably just means 'Watch Your Step' as an admonition to watch where you're going.”

Even in the dim light, I could see Director Leahy-Hu roll her eyes as she turned and walked further down the steps.

But was he talking about the darkness on the steps or wherever these clues were leading us? Hmmm...

Soon, we reached the bottom of the dark, winding staircase and now found ourselves heading back toward the front of the Met.

“Eww, speaking of which... what's all over the floor?” Buzz scraped his shoe against the bottom step.

“It smells pretty damp down here,” Mobile said. “It's probably just a puddle of condensation.” Harmon swept his flashlight over the landing but all we could see were some large dark spots like stains on the concrete. No one wanted to make a guess.

Chief Harmon spoke to Officer Mobile. “How long have these been down here? The signs, I mean...”

She didn't know: the other day she remember checking through all the security cameras after something indicated some kind of possible breach. But they couldn't find any indication anything had actually happened. She just assumed it was related to the construction and one of the guys had tried the wrong door or something.

“These signs weren't here the last time I was down here, I mean actually physically down here. But that was probably two or three – okay, maybe four weeks ago. But then if I went straight through – just going from one end to the other,” she said, pointing further down the corridor, “no one would have seen anything posted on the wall behind them.”

Noticing Harmon's frown, she added defensively, “It's not like anyone ever comes back here. It's pretty much uncharted territory.”

Meanwhile, I was wracking my brain trying to remember something. “Now carmina chromatica means 'Chromatic Songs' – and Moro lasso certainly is a chromatic song, but I'm also wondering if he doesn't mean the opening of a series of motets by Orlando di Lasso called 'Prophetiae sibyllarum' or the Prophecies of the Sibyls. The opening is a set of block chords but wildly chromatic for the time they were written – around 1600 – I think C Major to G Major then to B Major and C-sharp Minor, E major and F-sharp Minor. That's a pretty wild chord progression for any era before the early 20th Century.”

“A rather extreme way of modulating a tritone away!” Buzz was proud of his epiphany.

“Buzz, can you google that and see what the line of text is? It's about some ancient mysteries and it may shed some much needed light on this.”

“Sibyl,” Harmon sounded as if he was thinking out loud. “Wasn't that the name of a woman who had, like, 27 different personalities or something?”

“Sixteen, I think.” Who was I to tell him he had landed on a famous red-herring which sounded to him just as rational as me talking about a woman who could give someone life but can't, based on two words that just happen to be the title of a 400-year-old madrigal.

“Drat,” Buzz cussed under his breath. “Not enough signal, sorry.” He handed me the phone to show me but when I tried holding it at different angles, my luck wasn't any better.

“Ah well. Musically,” I said, as I absentmindedly pocketed the phone, “it's an example of chords moving to no known harmonic rules of the day. In fact, Edward Lowinsky, back in the 1960s, referred to it as 'triadic atonality,' not that Lassus would have thought of it that way when he wrote these around 1560 or so. Still, it's a handy way for us to describe it.”

Officer Mobile cautiously piped up. “Doesn't the opening line go something like, 'A chromatic song, which you hear to be gracefully performed'?”

“That's it,” I added, as we all turned to her as if to ask how she knew anything about it.

“I heard it a year or so ago – I had a boyfriend then who sang in this early music group and it was on one of their programs. Wild stuff, you're right, for something over four centuries old. It reminded me more of Schoenberg's 'Friede auf Erden' from 1907 than anything written in between.” She looked up at her boss and said defensively, “What... – ?”

It took a while for Chief Harmon's eyebrows to return to normal.

“But there's a pun, there, too,” I added, “because the line can also be translated as 'a chromatic song which has a modulating tenor,' in other words, a line that fluctuates harmonically from one key to another.” I often wondered if there was something hidden in what that 'tenor' might actually be – a quote from something? I wish I'd paid more attention in my Renaissance class, now...

Pointing up ahead where a few more small, dim pools of light indicated another stretch of night-lights had resumed working, I said, “At this point, I suspect we will find our goal half of the distance we'd walked since we'd entered that first door upstairs.”

“Oh, red meat medium well, right.” Buzz was getting the hang of it.

It wasn't exactly the scent of steaks on the grill I was reminded of, though. The smells here were getting more varied but also stronger as we progressed further into what I wished I hadn't described as “the bowels of Lincoln Center.”

- - - - - - -
to be continued...

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The Lost Chord, a Music Appreciation Thriller, is a serial novel written by Dick Strawser and is a musical parody of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. It is being serialized on this blog: watch for the next segment on Monday, July 26th.
©2010

Source: http://dickstrawser.blogspot.com/2010/07/lost-chord-installment-10.html