The Class

Mercifully, Danny had to be away from Boston for the next few days. First he conducted a pair of concerts in Los Angeles, then took the Red Eye straight to New York. He arrived at 6:00 A.M., caught some sleep in the dressing room, swallowed two “allegro vivaces” for stimulation and went out to rehearse for three hours.

That evening he performed Schoenberg’s complex piano concerto to such rapturous applause that he had to play an encore.

Danny’s choice — a complete musical contrast — revealed that Boston was very much on his mind. He played Mozart’s Variations in C (K 265). Otherwise known as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

He finally got back to Boston at twenty-five to one. As he entered his suite at the Ritz, the phone was ringing.

“Yes?” he said, sighing wearily.

“Welcome home, Danny, are you free?” It was Edgar.

“Hey, I’m dog tired. Can’t we speak in the morning?”

“No, we’ve got a rehearsal call for eleven and I want to get the parts copied.”

“What parts?”

“Leon’s new material. Can we come up?”

Oh no, did he actually have to meet his nemesis?

“Edgar, you don’t need my approval. I’ve already capitulated. I know it’s terrible without even having to hear it….”

“Then let Leon play it and maybe you’ll change your mind. You might even have a suggestion or two.”

Daniel Rossi was a quick study. He now, as it were, knew the score. Although he had waived his right to veto additional music by Leon Tashkenian, he had retained one privilege, empty gesture though it might be.

Contractually, he could still remove his name from the whole enterprise. And, what the hell, wasn’t that something? Didn’t his name lend class to the marquee? Didn’t his reputation as a serious musician ensure some kind of respect on the part of the reviewers? Edgar still had to stroke him.

“All right. But this has got to be as brief as possible.”

“It’ll be the Minute Waltz,” Edgar blurted. And immediately hung up.

Danny barely had the time to swallow an “Allegro” when he heard a knock. He opened the door with trepidation. There stood a bizarre couple. Elegant, melon-shaped Edgar Waldorf and a youngish, swarthy man with Brillo hair. The latter was garbed in black corduroy, save for a white shirt open amply enough to allow an unobstructed view of a gold medallion nestling in a field of fleecy muscularity.

“Hi.” Leon Tashkenian smiled, offering his hand.

“Bollinger,” said Edgar Waldorf, offering a magnum of champagne.

Danny said nothing. Never squander ammunition in a siege. As the two men entered the room, a waiter suddenly appeared behind them, bearing a tray of three chilled glasses. He retrieved the bottle and proceeded to open and disgorge its contents.

“You played really great tonight,” Tashkenian remarked.

“Thanks,” Danny muttered sarcastically, taking it as typical showbiz bullshit. “Were you in New York today?”

“No. But you were live on WGBH.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s all drink up,” Edgar interposed, foisting champagne glasses into the two composers’ hands. He then raised his own goblet in an emotional toast: “To the Show.”

Leon lifted his glass but did not drink. Danny merely gulped it and sat down.

“Okay, let’s see what you’ve done,” he said, reaching out toward Tashkenian’s sheaf of papers.

“Let him play it,” Edgar insisted.

“I can read music,” Danny snapped.

“I would expect no less of a Harvard graduate, Daniel,” Edgar replied. “But, unfortunately, I am educationally deprived. Besides, I like Leon’s delivery. C’mon, Lee, give out with the material.” And then turning to Danny, he editorialized, “It’s fabulous! Fab-u-lous!”

Boom-barn, boom-boom-bam! Leon played like a mad woodman trying mightily to fell a Steinway.

Danny raised his hand. “Okay. I’ve heard enough.”

“Wait, wait,” Edgar protested, “he’s just warming up.”

Danny capitulated with a sigh and turned to refill his glass.

Gradually through the din a few sounds became intelligible. The tonic, the relative minor, the second, the dominant seventh. Could he have expected anything better than the most hackneyed, overused chord sequence in pop music?

There had been moments in Danny’s life when he had dreamed of becoming Beethoven. Now he merely longed to be deaf. For, among his many virtues, Leon Tashkenian had the voice of a ruptured hyena.

Now and then, Danny could discern a word or two of text. There was something about “Mars,” suggesting that the rhyme “stars” could not be far behind, And it arrived, just as surely as “crying” followed “flying.” At last, on the very brink of a vocal orgasm, Leon screeched “above,” harmonized by an E major seventh.

The end was near — and so damn predictable — that Danny had all he could do to keep from groaning the inevitable concluding wordlet, “love.”

By this point, Edgar was pirouetting around the room. He rushed over to Tashkenian, kissed him on the cheek, and announced, “He loves it, Danny loves it!”

Sweating and gasping for breath, Leon looked up at the Renaissance man of modern music.

“What do you think, Mr. Rossi?” he asked like a nervous neophyte.

“Leon, it gives the word crap a new dimension.”

“He’s kidding, he’s kidding.” Edgar laughed nervously.

“He’s not,” said the young man at the piano, quietly but with less diffidence. And then, turning to Danny, he inquired, “Could I have some more specific criticism?”

“Specifically, Leon, I object to the cliched use of ‘one-six-four-five-one.’ ”

“A cliche is what you make of it, Mr. Rossi,” Leon replied. “Richard Rodgers used it beautifully in ‘Blue Moon.’ ”

“You’re not Richard Rodgers — and that mindless sequence of notes isn’t music.”

Tashkenian was young, but he was aware of his own worth, especially at this moment. After this latest barrage of insults, he owed the maestro no more deference.

“Look, Rossi, I’ve got better things to do than sit here and be abused by a pretentious, overrated asshole like you. I know damn well my chord progressions are familiar. But that’s the name of the game. The cliches make ’em think it’s something they’ve heard before. They’re half-remembering it even before they hear it. And that means they can hum it at intermission. And that, in the musical theater, spells success, You don’t have anything against success, do you?”

At this point, however, Edgar Waldorf felt impelled to defend the star who was providing his show with light if not heat.

“Mr. Rossi is one of the great composers of our time,” he said.

But Tashkenian had gone too far to back down.

“Of what?” he sneered. And then turned to Danny. “You’re not even that good at classical. I mean, at Juilliard we studied the last movement of your pseudo-Stravinsky Savanarola ballet — as an example of heavy-handed orchestration, You’re nothing but an Ivy League con man.”

As suddenly as he started, Leon stopped, gripped with fear at what he’d allowed himself to say.

Danny could say nothing. Because some pellets of truth in Leon’s wild shotgun rage had hit home.

They simply stood there, glaring at each other, both frightened at who might explode next.

Curiously, it was Leon Tashkenian. He began to cry. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, wiped his cheeks, and then said quietly, “I’m sorry, Mr. Rossi. I spoke out of turn.”

Danny did not know how to respond.