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A Tribute

I was sixteen years old and a snot-nosed high schooler when I first saw the Golden Pair in action on their Golden Pair tour. I may be a decent trumpet player now, but I wasn't even sure I liked music at all then. No, I was just working at the big local music hall for some extra pocket money so that I could go out with my friends.

It was the third and last night of the somewhat quirky but still very much awaited event. Quirky, I say, because Shinichi Chiaki was a conductor by trade, not a violin or piano player, though he does all three quite well. But it was at his wife's urgings that he tuned up the strings once more for the lighter and livelier Golden Pair Tour, which consisted of three duets, for a mix of violin and pianos. This was their last stop on the whirlwind world tour, and at the music hall, we were desperately excited.

The Golden Pair Tour, although I hadn't known it then, had received pretty bad reviews as compared to most of the tours they went on, which was still really good for a musician. Now, of course, it is one of their more well-known tours because it was a rather unusual tour and also because it hosted the unveiling of their first co-written piece.

Although it would be our third time hearing the same concert now, our ears pressed up against the doors to the hall, there was still something enchanting about the performance that left us spellbound and breathless. I had not yet been working in the theater when the Golden Pair had last come to town, with Shinichi Chiaki as a guest conductor for our orchestra and Megumi Noda as the soloist, but apparently that concert had been even better. In terms of the music anyway.

"But there's something about this concert. It's different. Still really good but different," said Jacob. He was one of the longest to work at the music hall and the one who taught me the ropes. He was also an avid music lover, and probably if it was something you'd heard of, he'd seen it; he'd been working at the hall for so long.

I once asked him why he didn't go out for a job more directly in the music industry, where he totally could have scored the big bucks with his immense musical knowledge.

He looked at me squarely and said, "Andy, why d'you think I'd do that? Supposin' I went out fer one of those jobs, I couldn't go listen to the music every night, could I? I'd have ta go talk ta people, and that ain't what I want at all. No, siree, leave me here, where I put down roots, with my CDs and the young 'uns who tell me I'm outdated. Well, whaddo they know? Why, I was here when…" And then he launched off into his spiel of how kids these days don't appreciate real music and how they ought to have heard some of the greats like Vieira (whom he's got a real soft spot for) performing.

"But you do, dontcha, Andy? Going to school fer trumpet an' all that. Maybe all hope ain't lost," he said.

I wasn't at that time. Not exactly, anyway. I was still a high schooler, just playing the trumpet during band class. And sure, it was something I'd once thought of going to school for, but my dad was against it, and my mom wasn't alive to protest. Even then, when the Golden Pair was at the height of their popularity and a worldwide sensation even for people who weren't necessarily classical music lovers and classical music in vogue, there were still not very many jobs out there in the field and those there were didn't pay much money anyway. It really, in those days, anyway, did not compare to my other love, which was both very much in need and did pay well: computers.

When I voiced as much to Jacob, he was very dismayed. But he didn't say anything else. However, he did have an expression on his face that, on that day, I couldn't interpret.

I finally figured out what it was that dreary evening in March just as the lights in the hall dimmed down in anticipation: determination. Seeing as our job was pretty much done for now, all of us rushed to the doors to the main hall, in anticipation of listening to the concert.

Jacob called softly to me before I could reach the doors to the hall. "Andy," he said. "You hurry in now, and you can get in before anything happens."

I frowned at him. "I'm working, and besides, I don't have a ticket."

He glowered at me. "You ain't working now 'cos I say so. You gotta see this, Andy. I ever tell you 'bout the first time I saw the Golden Pair? I'm sure I did. Ain't no time to recount it now anyhow. Andy, you gotta see this. Go on in now. And besides, you wanna see it, dontcha?"

When I nodded, he pushed me at the door. "Go on already. Just come on out as soon as it all ends. You heard these pieces often enough ta know when they end, dontcha?"

I hadn't, actually.

But even so, I slipped into the back of the hall just before the performance began.

They started off with a show. Shinichi Chiaki did a few magic tricks, and Megumi Noda provided humorous commentary. They were good. Provided a mood lightener before the music and made everyone laugh.

Then came the music. The first piece was the two piano duet. Now, like I say, I really didn't know much of music then, but I could tell they were good. It was a cool little piece that carried on from right where their antics had left off, carefree and fun-loving. The couple had thrown in a few nana-nana-booboo twists and turns on this song that nobody knew well enough to be offended. It sounded natural in a way, even though it was all their invention, I found out later. It made the audience laugh, even. That, and the part where the two pianos were trying to outdo each other, it sounded like. Played the same thing in echo with some change each time, until the one collapsed, kind of, towards the end of the piece. They went back to pranking at the end though.

For me, at that moment? It made me think of pranks I'd pulled, like the old-school shaving cream as toothpaste or sewing tags on both sides of my Dad's shirts. It also made me think of getting away with stuff and feeling like you're top of the world. Taunting teachers in grade school, feeding my dog my homework, and sneaking out of the house to visit friends when I was grounded. And best of all, it made me think of all those sorts of pranks, not alone, but with a partner in crime. There was a real sense of camaraderie in the piece.

Then, Shinichi Chiaki related a story of the first orchestra he ever conducted that he and Megumi Noda eventually started acting out. From there, they segued into the next piece.

It was the song the duo had written together, and it was more of an exploratory song, stretching limits and all that, than anything else. It was a kind of a strange song, in that it had all these elements that didn't normally show up in a piece together. Shinichi Chiaki switched back and forth from violin to piano. And like his switching, the song flitted from here to there, sometimes rather abruptly, and sometimes it meandered back and forth, as if to say, "Which do I like better?" The only constant was Megumi Noda's piano, but that was all over the place too. Her fingers were flying all over the keys. Even through all these changes and crazy passages even I could tell were difficult, though, both Shinichi Chiaki and Megumi Noda did not seem to tire.

No, no matter what happened, they never stopped creating this song as it seemed like it ought to be, this song that had the air of being really impressed by everything, which conveyed really well the wonder of seeing stuff for the first time and although you may be saying, "Wow…" or "Weird…" or "Icky..." or whatever, it's still the first time. There's this sort of magic about that first time when it's all so new that shows up everywhere in the experience. You anticipate it very impatiently, and then, you're super curious about it, until you get bored. In those kind of cutesy animal pictures you see sometimes, one of the more popular scenes is a kitten and a puppy getting along together. Sometimes, they're just lying together, but sometimes, they're playing together. That playing together was the image this song brought up for me.

The third and final piece was the violin and piano duet. It was the shortest piece of the night, and it was the only somewhat typical song of the performance. It was a love song but not so much romantic as the love of a child, all-encompassing and unconditional. It got kind of overwhelming at times, actually. I cried during this piece. Always do when I hear their rendition of it. There weren't many people who didn't cry during the concert. It was a very heartfelt performance.

All in all, it didn't take a great musician's ear to know why the Golden Pair was called the Golden Pair. End story? Their music was magical. And sure, that tour in particular may not have been up to their usual standards or even as good as some other professionals, but it was still really good. But what was so… enchanting about it was the way it drew you in and made you feel just the way they did at the same time: happy, joyful, ready to dance and bound along, ready for whatever life puts in your way, mischievous, playful. Like a child again. Sometimes that is what I think it really ought to be called.

But even though in the end it hadn't been a perfect performance, there is no one who will say that the Golden Pair ever had a tour played with more heart or one that was more fun. There are those who will even say that was true for the entire classical music world, but there's a lot more debate there. Personally, I am among the number that count it a music best. I'm biased though.

In any case, everyone walked out of that show with a giant grin on their faces. Some of the older people did twirls around the halls, more so than normal. Most of the time, you can tell really easily who's drunk from stuff like that, but today, it was a little more difficult because everyone was still drunk on the emotions of that concert.

As for me, I was drunk on it too. I wore a silly grin and couldn't quit humming the second song. My co-workers just shook their heads at me, but even they didn't shake their heads as much as normal. They were somewhat punch-drunk too. And yeah, we'd all heard it before, but it was a concert that just moved you and makes me sappy. And another thing I noticed is how much the door really got in the way of the sound. And there was something about being there live and even just watching it that just increased everything tenfold.

Where some people might tell you that the reason for whatever for them was the Golden Pair, for me that wasn't the case. Yeah, it was awesome, and I was still raving about it days later, but having worked among great musical performers and having gone to performances, it was, in the end, really nothing new to me. So I walked out that day, as immediately infatuated with them as anyone else and still under the music's spell, but it didn't make me say right then, "Oh, I've got to become a conductor!" or anything like that.

No, for me, it brought back something I'd thought I'd lost.

When I was a young boy, really young, my mother used to listen to classical CDs. Her favorite was a conductor named Stresemann. He, of course, was also a genius conductor, like Shinichi Chiaki was then, and his teacher. My mom always used to tell of how her parents had taken her to see Stresemann for her eighteenth birthday at the Marlet Orchestra, and it was there that she fell in love with his music.

He was a funny sort of conductor, I guess, and did magic tricks and stuff like that before his performances, like the Golden Pair. And so, Mom did magic tricks for me too. Then, she'd put on one of his CDs, and she'd tell me to listen very carefully. Stresemann's music always had a real effect on her moods. Based on the song playing, you could tell what kind of a mood she'd be in.

Whenever I was listening in, she'd put on a playful song, like the first two songs the Golden Pair played that night. But every once in a while, usually, when I'd come home from school, I'd find her with her mementos of Europe and one of Stresemann's sad songs playing.

But it was that feeling of being swept up by the music; that was what I had lost. The way music could be an escape from whatever, a refuge of sorts. A sort of willing drowning. Not listening for any ulterior motive, just for my own enjoyment. For the listener's own enjoyment. The sense that music could transport you to "a whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew," as the Disney song put it. And the way it could take anyone anywhere and evoke anything.

And it was that, based on the Golden Pair's performance, which pushed me into thinking seriously about music school.