by Frank Conroy
"I'm delighted." A faint smile. "It's settled, then. Now, as I said, it's all very informal, but we want to do the music justice."
Claude nodded.
"It would be nice to have more time," Fredericks continued, brushing a mote from his sleeve, "but we'll have to make do. We'll be using the Breitkopf and Härtel edition, and I suggest you take a very close look at the orchestral music with Mr. Weisfeld. We didn't do much of that before, and it's important. Study it."
"Yes, sir."
"I can manage four piano sessions with you. I'll let you know the dates. The first will be devoted to the twenty-two bars after the entrance. Now, I know you'll probably be playing the whole thing night and day, but remember, first we'll be digging into those twenty-two bars. We'll get them right, and the rest will follow."
"I understand."
"Excellent." Fredericks stood up. Claude jumped from his chair and they shook hands. "I'm looking forward to this," Fredericks said. "It's such an elegant piece."
They went upstairs to find Weisfeld in the front, staring out the window. "It's a lovely day out there today," he said, as if, for some reason, surprised.
"All is arranged." Fredericks opened the door and the bell tinkled. He looked up at it. "E-flat! How appropriate!"
From inside they watched him enter the Rolls, which pulled away from the curb like a great black ship gleaming in the sun.
"Well," Weisfeld said as they stood shoulder to shoulder, "this is quite a development."
"I can do it. I can do it."
"Of course you can. He knows you can, or he wouldn't have suggested it."
"With an orchestra," Claude whispered.
"With Fredericks!" Weisfeld reminded him. "Maybe the best Mozart player alive."
"I can't believe it," Claude said. "I mean, just like that? Just..." His voice trailed off.
"It's the way things happen sometimes."
For several minutes they stood in silence, watching the street. Claude felt a brief electric shiver over his whole body, the hair on his arms standing erect. "Oh, my God," Claude said suddenly, panicked.
"What?"
"I forgot to ask him what part I'm going to play, one or two."
"We discussed it," Weisfeld said. "The second part. The lower one."
Claude blew up his cheeks and released the air. "Okay. Okay, good."
"It's the part Mozart played," Weisfeld said.
It took a day for everything to sink in, and the next night Claude and Weisfeld talked it over after the shop closed. There was the Mozart, and the need to drop everything else to work on it—the orchestral score, the structure of the concerto itself, analysis of both piano parts, and the time-consuming work of getting the music into his hands, getting it physically memorized so as to be ready for the subtle business of interpretation during his sessions with Fredericks. But there was also school, and the end of the school year approaching with a full load of exams, papers, and the like. Claude was an A student with the odd B now and then, and Weisfeld was insistent that the boy do nothing to erode his progress He pointed out that college was almost upon them and that the boy would need both high grades and the piano to get the full-tuition scholarship to a first-rate institution "I know it probably doesn't feel like it," Weisfeld had said, " but this is really more important than the concert There will be other concerts " Secretly Claude was relieved to hear him say this not because he agreed about college necessarily but because it took some pressure off in terms of the Mozart. Weisfeld would be satisfied if Claude got through it decently as long as he also did well in school.
With pencil, paper, and ruler they drew up Claude's present daily and weekly schedule—a fairly elaborate document as it stood—and moved around various blocks of time, amending the kind of work to be done within them. As the plan emerged Claude wanted to add an extra hour, early in the morning, at the Bechstein. Weisfeld was skeptical, worried about the possible effects of less sleep, but reluctantly agreed to a trial period, reserving the right to put an end to it if he thought it was affecting the boy's strength. They drew up two copies of the schedule and Claude went home.
For some time now, after having changed the alarm clock on the floor by his cot from five-thirty to four-thirty A.M., Claude found himself waking spontaneously at exactly one minute before the alarm would have gone off. He rolled over, reached down, and pressed the button by feel. Then he switched on the light by reaching high for the wall switch.
Moving silently, he got dressed, turned out the light, opened the door carefully, and went to the kitchenette. He fixed himself some cornflakes and sat down to eat in the dark. He watched the fan-shaped window beyond which, as he finished, dawn began to break. He put down his spoon and sat motionless, his mind empty as the gray light filtered into the room.
Then he heard a faint click, instantly recognizable as the knob mechanism on the door to his mother's room, out of sight around the corner. After a moment a figure appeared, fully dressed, tiptoeing to the front door, cap in hand. It was Al.
Claude stopped breathing. If he could have willed his heart to stop beating he would have done so, so eager was he for Al to get out the door without noticing him. But as if by sixth sense Al turned his head, saw Claude, and froze.
Neither one of them moved. It was an eerie moment, as if a movie had gotten stuck on a single frame, arresting the illusion of life. Then Al looked down at the floor, gave a little sigh, and came over to the counter. He put his cap down and sat on a stool. He raised a finger to his lips, with a tilt of his head to indicate Emma's room.
"Morning," he said very softly.
"Morning," Claude said, no louder.
"Well, I told her, I said, 'If he don't know already, we ought to tell him.' But she can't make up her mind." He drummed his fingers on the counter. "It don't matter now." He watched Claude's eyes.
The boy knew that something was expected of him, but he felt unsure of himself, plunged headlong into these adult matters. He found himself actually thinking about what he should say. What was being asked of him?
"I have to get up at four-thirty now," he said. "It gives me another hour for the Mozart."
"All right," Al said.
"I mean that's how come—"
"Claude," Al said, "you know I care about her a lot. A whole lot. Do you know that?"
Claude nodded.
"She's a good woman." He continued to speak in a murmur. "She been lonely."
"She had to stop those discussion groups," Claude said. "That man Eisler warned her, and I guess he was right, because then there was all that trouble. Then she started getting crazy."
"She told me."
"She didn't do anything except drive him around. She wasn't in any Communist conspiracy. The whole thing was ridiculous."
"I know that." He leaned forward. "She was just lonely. Uptown, a person would probably go to church, get some strength from the brothers and sisters, but this ain't uptown, and she ain't no sister."
"I think she's been a lot better since she met you," Claude said.
"I hope so. I believe she is." Al paused. "We've been talking. You understand, we've been talking to each other from our hearts."
Suddenly, for no reason that he could understand, Claude felt a wave of sadness, an utterly abstract, pure, and elemental sadness, washing over him. At the same time he felt a distinct but mysterious sense of relief, as if some hitherto unsuspected weight had been lifted from him, announcing its presence only by its disappearance. For an instant he was totally confused, but then he regained control of himself. "Good. That's good," he said.
Al watched him for a long moment and then nodded his head. "The thing is, we have to be careful. People don't like mixing."
"I understand."
"It could look like we're sneaky, but we ain't. It's just we have to be careful."
"I won't say anything."
"No, no." His voice rose slightly. "I don't mean you. You tell anybody you want. It might even be good you tell somebody—lo
ng as you trust them. I mean the neighbors, the landlord, the Hack Bureau, like that. That's all I mean."
"Okay."
They sat in the gray light as if waiting for something, in tacit agreement that more words were necessary and yet the words weren't coming. After a long time Claude got up.
"I have to go," he whispered.
A frown appeared on Al's narrow brow, but then it went away. "Yeah. Time to work. See you later."
Claude walked the quiet streets to the music store. The stillness reassured him, and the rhythm of his stride, by its very familiarity, seemed to suggest that it was okay for the time being to put Al and his mother out of his mind. He fingered the key in his pocket, eager to get into the store, down to the neatness and clarity of the studio where the Bechstein waited with timeless, infinite patience.
As the weather warmed Claude and Ivan resumed their old habit of occasionally eating at the bench by the river. Ivan had just finished a long description of Schliemann's discovery of the buried city of Troy, which had been presumed to be mythical, waving his Coca-Cola bottle with enthusiasm as he explained how the great man, a relative amateur, had the audacity to take the classical poetic sources literally, and had been led right to the spot.
"I love it when somebody comes in from the outside and confounds the experts," Ivan said. "It's so delicious."
"Hmm." Claude took a bite of his bologna and cheese sandwich.
"I say, old chum, you've been rather quiet the last couple of weeks. And looking a touch peaked. Is everything all right?"
"Have I?" Claude was surprised. "It's just I've been working. I'm fine." Impulsively, he decided to share his secret. "I'm going to play the Mozart Double Piano Concerto in June."
"Oh, splendid," Ivan said casually.
"No, I mean I'm going to play it in a concert, with an orchestra and an audience. At the Longmeadow Music Festival."
"Good heavens!" Ivan said, catching on now.
"With Fredericks," Claude said, turning away to throw the rest of his lunch in the trash barrel.
"Your debut. And with him!"
"Yes."
"I see, I see, I see. Well, this is tremendous. I'm so happy for you." His round face broke into a smile.
"Yes, it's a great chance." Claude paused. "Don't tell anybody, will you? I don't want to tell anybody yet."
"When in June?"
"The tenth, I think."
"Blast! Blast and double blast. I sail for England on the seventh." He leaped up from the bench and strode back and forth. "Maybe I can change it. The trouble is, I'm going with my uncle, but maybe I can—"
"Don't worry about it," Claude said. "It's no big deal. A student orchestra way up in the boondocks somewhere."
"Ha! Tell that to yourself if you need to. But don't expect me to believe it. I know what it is."
Claude stood up and they began to walk back to school. "Just don't spill the beans," he said.
If there was tension building in Claude—stomach pains and short episodes of diarrhea, a tendency to break the pencils he habitually rolled in the fingers of his right hand, exasperation when he had to wait for something or stand on line, sudden headaches, a tic under his left eye late at night—he was barely aware of it, and in any case it seemed of no importance. But it all went away when he worked with Weisfeld. It was like the old days. As if they had all the time in the world.
They sat together at the Bechstein, gazing at the Breitkopf & Härtel edition of the full score. "No one would claim," Weisfeld had said at the outset, "that this is a tremendously deep, profound, earthshaking piece of music. The spirit is more like a game. I'm not talking frivolous, naturally. I mean a kind of elegant, subtle game that once in a while gets a little serious. Almost despite itself, maybe. But if you miss the fun in this, well..." He gave a shrug. "They say he wrote it to play with his sister."
"Is that why he played the second part?"
"There isn't a great deal of difference. Maybe he liked the sonority better down here. Remember, he wasn't playing a full-sized piano. Up above, it could be it sounded more feminine. Who knows? But definitely there's some high-level fun going on here. Between the orchestra and the pianos, between the pianos, between the players and the audience. It's a dazzler."
They had spent more than a week breaking down each of the three sections into its component parts, and then another week putting them back together. Weisfeld concentrated on the orchestral score, identifying the themes and lines that would flow into the piano parts, noting those parts that were merely supportive.
"In here, for instance." Weisfeld pointed to the ninety-sixth bar of the opening allegro. "The violas with those sustained whole notes—the F—and then the violins add to it, like everybody's holding their breath so that here"—he moved his finger to the right—"you get the crescendo, and then this is just pure joy. You play with joy in here. You see what I mean? The strings help set it up."
During another session he stopped at the fifty-fourth bar of the andante. "Look at that oboe! The sustained C! It's special, because you're going into this special section down here. Down here it's practically opera. The second oboe comes in two measures after the first, playing a D a seventh below, and then the resolution to B-flat, you see? That painful clash against your B-flat appoggiatura? Wonderful. You play Fredericks's part and I'll play yours." He counted off the beat, sang the C in a soft thin voice, and they played eight bars to the letter break. Jumping in so fast at a technically difficult passage, Claude had missed a note or two, but Weisfeld didn't mention it. "That's a real highlight in the whole concerto, as far as I'm concerned. But you see what Fredericks says."
Now, at the Bechstein, they looked at the opening bars for the orchestra. "You're going to be excited," Weisfeld said. "The orchestra sound all around you, so strong you wouldn't believe it, so strong you've got to remind yourself you're sitting there with a job to do. So you concentrate, listen to them, focus on them."
"Okay."
"I'm going to tell you what to listen for. When you go out there and sit down and everything's going so fast, I want you to remember to listen to what they do with this note." He pointed to a grace note in the fifth bar. "This one." He played the fourth, fifth, and sixth bars. "Dut-dut-dut dah-dah-dah duh-dah dah dah."
"Okay. The B-flat. I got it."
"The reason is, people can play that several ways. They can play it fast or slow, and if you listen it'll give you a hint how the conductor is going to approach those shapes. Slow gives you one kind of impulse, fast gives you another, and if you can get with their impulse immediately, so much the better."
"Okay. I'll remember."
"It doesn't mean you have to repeat it when you play it, but you'll know what you're coming off of."
Claude played the three bars several times, tipping the B-flat first one way and then the other.
"See?" Weisfeld asked.
"Yup." Claude said with a smile of pleasure. "Right there. Right at the start."
"Okay. Now I want to show you something in the rondo."
On the train Claude read Stendhal's The Red and the Black, required for a Bentley Great Books course, with complete attention. The story of Julien Sorel and his rise from the company of his doltish brothers at the provincial sawmill to the drawing rooms of the rich and powerful fascinated Claude no less than would have the wide, winged head of a cobra swaying before his eyes at roughly the same distance as the book he held aloft with both hands. He almost missed the stop at Frank's Landing.
Everything seemed smaller—the town, the trees, hedges, and houses. It did not seem as long a walk to Fredericks's mansion. The sun caught a window on the highest turret, blazing more brightly than fire, and the gravel of the driveway crunched once again under his feet. He felt well prepared.
The great hushed room with the French doors and the pianos had not changed. Only the light, since it was later in the day, angling in thick mellow shafts over the polished instruments.
"The entrance," Fredericks sai
d from his piano. "Letter A. The trills. Not loud, but firm." He played the trills in his part, using both hands. "Go ahead."
Claude played.
"We want," Fredericks said, "an even sound. Rounded, rolling smoothly. Let's do it together."
When the unison trills were satisfactory, Fredericks called Claude's attention to the subsequent two grace notes. "Softer, but distinct. Distinct. It's the first sense of direction, so be distinct, rolling to the grand unison E-flat." He played the whole passage three times, then listened to Claude. "Good. I remember your instincts with this. Good." They played it together, breaking off the E-flat crisply.
"Yes," Fredericks said, looking at the music. "It's a grand announcement of the root of the tonic. A bold announcement no one could miss. I think of a tall, periwigged, powdered, ruffled personage at the door to the ballroom rapping his great stick. 'E-flat!' he shouts."
Claude laughed.
Fredericks looked over. "Of course, we're not supposed to think of pictures, are we," he said with a quick sly glint, "like a couple of fat burghers. I take it back."
"Too late," said Claude. "I'm impure. I won't be able to get it out of my mind."
"We'll see. Now these sixteenth notes, this running shape. It isn't easy, because we have to play together with phrasing. The whole thing descends, but let us ever so slightly emphasize the higher notes. See if we can phrase together."
They spent the better part of an hour on the first four bars. Claude felt it coming together and was grateful when Fredericks kept on having them play it anyway, until it sounded utterly seamless. Claude had the illusion that he could reproduce it at will, even by himself, back in the basement.
"Now this melody," Fredericks said. "I've got it first. Dut-dut-dut dah-dah-dah duh-dah dah dah." He played it rapidly. "Watch that B-flat appoggiatura to the A."
"Mr. Weisfeld told me to listen for that in the orchestra, bar five."
