For Love of Music III

With only a week and three rehearsals until the opening of the annual run of Way of the Cross, tensions were already running high.  Then Laura had gone home sick, and left me as interim director.  I wasn’t feeling too either, but someone had to stay, and so stay I did.  It wasn’t, after all, like the acting director and her assistant would be of any help when it came to matters of accompaniment and the timing of musical scores; nor could either of them sing in Latin.

I thought I had everything under control. 

We lined everyone up for the processional, marched the choir in to a recording I’d made the previous year when Laura had been called away for a family emergence and I couldn’t find an accompanist in time, and turned to the Kyrie, which opens with a tenor solo.  The narrators finished their piece, the chord was struck… And there was silence from the back.  The tenors had decided that since Laura had gone home they didn’t have to sing—and certainly didn’t have to take orders from a mere accompanist, without the stature and booming voice to back said orders up. 

Someone, apparently, had told them I was an easy person to walk on.

I ignored the loss of my tenors—and the fact that they were talking amongst themselves whilst the sopranos and altos did what they were supposed to do—and picked up where the gentlemen should have left off had they actually been singing.  When the song had finished, though… I stopped the tape, and gestured to the ladies’ sections that they move aside.  The acting director opened her mouth to give the boys censure—then fell silent as I said “Let me deal with this professor: My choir, my boys, my problem.” 

Over toppled the music stand, sending scores flying about the room.  It was immediately followed by the flight of an instrument case to crash against the wall very near indeed to their heads.  That certainly got their attention.

“Gentlemen.  We have one week.  That’s three practices.  And you’re none of you virtuosos who can afford to neglect your work simply because Madame isn’t here.  I am her named successor, and you will obey me as you would her.  That means that you will shut up when I tell you to shut up, you will sing when I tell you to sing, and you will not speak, will not move, will not so much as breathe without my permission.  Do.  You.  Understand.”

The room fell dead silent.

“Now, gentlemen.  We have at least another hour that we have to be here, but I can—and will—make you stay until you get this right.  The sooner you decide to do what you’ve been asked, the sooner we can all go home.  Got it…?” 

Everyone nodded.

Behind me, the elevator doors opened—and the deputy headmaster stepped out.  “Is everything alright down here?  I heard yelling…”

Oh God, oh God, oh God… “Everything’s fine sir.”  Oh God, he’s heard, we're all going to be expelled... "We've got everything under control."

“Very well.  Professors, ladies.  Gentlemen.  Have a good evening.”

“Good evening, sir.”

Hiss.  Crackle.  Click.  I turned, seeking out the source of the unusual, staticy sound.  

The antiquated tape deck was still running, and it was set to ‘Record.’  Oh, shit.