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First Unitarian Church
June 25, 2006
The sun beat down from a sky which was that same sparkling shade of blue you see in the girl's eyes just before she passes out.
It was hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk.
If there was a sidewalk.
If anyone wanted to eat fried eggs.
"Eine Kleine Sold Out", the sign said. It could have been a simple statement of fact or an accusation of something darker.
That's what I was there to find out.
That's what I do - I'm a music critic, finding out who's been playing presto when they should have been allegro, who's been mixing their forte with somebody else's pianissimo.
It's a dirty job but somebody has to do it.
It all started a few days earlier when the Fat Man came calling.
"Mr. Marlow?" came the wheezing voice through my office door. "I understand, sir, that you take commissions to review concerts."
"That's what it says on the sign."
"Sign, sir?" The man who entered defined enormous; he oozed through the doorway like a slick from a single-hulled tanker; he was clearly puzzled and mopped his perspiring brow with a large, dubiously clean handkerchief.
"That's right - the illuminated sign as you came in, just next to the heated pool and the string of polo ponies."
"Ah, you make a joke sir! Wonderful, I do like a man with a sense of humour!"
"So do I. Let me know if you come across one."
"But seriously, sir. I wish to commission your services. You've heard of Eine Kleine Summer Music?"
"Of course. Sunday's in June, Saanich Peninsula, chamber music, strong track record."
"I want you to attend this week's concert: Joe Trio are playing."
"I heard. So? Apart from the odd name, what's the deal?"
"Deal, you ask sir, as well you might! The deal, sir, involves a statuette, a statuette that my associates and I have been seeking for years."
"Statuette?"
"A carving, sir, an carving of a jungle cat, carved from jade, a jade of an exquisite roseate hue. It was carved for the Emperor Go-Wei of the twelfth dynasty, lost during the Boxer rebellion, resurfaced in Hong Kong in the last days before the Japanese invaded and was lost again. Until now, by Gadfrey, until now."
"So what's the connection?"
"Joe Trio, sir. We think they know where the cat is. There have been rumours of coded messages in their playing. We suspect their contact will be in Sunday's audience. I want you to observe anything unusual about the concert - anything at all you hear?"
"Fair enough. But just so's I know: what's the name? who am I working for?"
"Goldberg is the name, sir, Goldberg."
"Well, that's a change."
Which is how I ended up sitting in the back row of a church that couldn't have have been more crowded if the minister had announced that the Lord Himself would be putting in a personal appearance after the show.
Joe Trio took to the stage: they looked normal enough, but then that's what the mass-killer's neighbours always say.
Your trained investigator knows what's important and what is simply distraction - and the Joes certainly know how to distract. They opened with a witty arrangement of Vincent Youman's "Tea for Two" and their programme was full of similarly diverting tit-bits.
But, just as every actor knows that only he can truly do justice to Hamlet, so the Joes gave us their take on Beethoven. His Trio Op.1 No.1 in E flat.
Maybe pianist Stiles fooled the rest of the audience with his "analysis" of the piece; to me it was clearly some form of secret message to his contact in the audience. All that talk of "Little A" and "Big B" was just so much alphabet soup.
You've got to hand it to the Joes though. They can play and then some. Energy? They had energy aplenty in the quicker music. Lyricism (hey, I have a dictionary, I'm even learning joined-up writing) poured out of the slow movement.
And balance? Maybe it was common where this Goldberg came from, but I've rarely heard all three instruments as clearly as this.
Which, in itself, made me suspicious. What where these guys up to?
The last work on the first half was "A Brief History of Western Music with apologies to Henry Mancini, Op.1" Who was this Mancini? Were the Joes flaunting their mob connections in public?
It was clear to me that the whole work was a brilliant piece of misdirection: "your basic summary of the last 200 years of Western Music" proclaimed the innocuous-looking violinist Wilson.
But Mozart died 215 years ago; and Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" was written in 1972 - so what happened to the last 34 years?
It was but another part of the distraction, as I realised when I identified the theme they were variating on: The Pink Panther!
Suddenly it all came together: Goldberg's missing statuette, coded messages - it was nothing but smoke and mirrors. There was no statuette - or, if there was it was probably at the bottom of Hong Kong harbour or hidden in some offshore bank vault. There was nothing here for me.
I stayed for the second half of the concert, thinking Goldberg was going to be disappointed by my report: he would have got more enjoyment from the music.
Or maybe not. I didn't think Goldberg was Canadian and you needed to be Canadian to understand most of the second half, except perhaps for Elgar's Salut d'Amour and the Joes' arrangement of Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith's Duelling Banjos. Hey - maybe the panther had webbed paws!
Despite the heat the audience just didn't want to leave and the Joes played an encore: Ashcan Farewell.
It seemed like a weird name for a sweet piece of folkish melody, but who am I to argue?
The guy sitting next to me leaned over and said "It's not Ashcan Farewell it's Ashokan for heaven's sake!"
I turned towards him; my jacket hung open and he could see my .45 in its shoulder holster. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"
"Er - weird name for such a sweet piece: Ashcan Farewell!"
"You got that right."
With apologies to Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett.
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