2: Coda
The doors opened wide, left and right.
The people rushing into the orchestral hall, carpeted in deep red.
The atmosphere was light, joyful.
The first day of the Final Round was in the evening. The sun had already set.
Up until the Third Round, the nerves and tension hung in the air, some malodorous tinge, but now, although the competition was not over, a much more comfortable, fresh air circulated.
“This must be what the Final Round feels like.”
Aya looked around the enormous hall. People found seats, and staff ran around with last-minute preparations. Kanadae, who had attended and competed in numerous competitions, nodded.
“Aya, you only know junior competitions—this is what a real Final Round is like.”
“I like it!” Jin murmured happily.
“Gosh, both of you—your first international competition, and you make it to the Final Round—I can’t believe it. Just know that you’re lucky.”
Aya half-listened as she tried to find the words to describe the feeling. “Maybe, hm, we’ve been training to climb a mountain, and we’ve been climbing it for so long, and finally, we’re at the peak. We’ve taken our photos, we’ve leapt and touched the sky, we’re happy as can be—but now we have to descend, and watch our every step, and keep an eye on the setting sun. Something like that?”
“Please quit it, you’re going to be just fine,” Kanadae chided, lightly slapping Aya’s shoulder. She of course understood what she was going through: sustaining tension for two weeks straight was near-impossible even for professionals; it was only natural to slacken at the Final Round.
“Where’s Masaru?” Jin asked, looking around.
“He said he was going to warm up. He seemed as though he wanted to hear the first performance, though,” Aya said.
“And why wouldn’t he. It’s Rach Three,” Kanadae said airily.
Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. A monster of nearly fifty minutes’ duration.
Aya snickered.
“What’s so funny?” Kanadae asked.
“I just remembered Masaru saying how Rach Three sounded as though Rachmaninoff were indulging himself to excess.”
“He said that?” Kanadae said with a touch of sharpness.
And isn’t Aya a little too relaxed?
“Also, you, why did you pick Bartók Three? Did you really want to play it? Was there any other concerto you wanted to play?” Aya asked suddenly.
Kanadae had been wondering too. She was sure Jin had his pick of concerti; one’s choice said a great deal about one’s musicality. A piece one likes very much, or one which shows off one’s skills best, or just something sure to be popular—the choice of strategy bespeaks the musician almost as much as the piece.
“Well, um, I wanted to play the Schumann at first.”
“The A Minor?”
“Yeah. I wanted to write my own cadenza, but.”
“My gosh, that famous cadenza.”
“Yeah, heh, but Maestro said to choose my battles.”
“Hoffman did?”
“Yeah.”
Aya looked taken aback, and then snickered again. With Jin’s talent, he could make up any improvised piece. But nowadays, even with the cadenza, one just played something inked hundreds of years ago. Among pianists, it was vanishingly rare to play one’s own cadenza.
“Well, I’m sure it would have been great. Your Africa says as much.”
Aya knew exactly what Hoffman had meant by choosing one’s battles—she had done the same with her Spring and Havoc cadenza, after all. And with the textual originalism that has saturated modern musicology, putting oneself in the music was almost verboten.
“Thanks, yeah. But anyhow, so I was choosing between Prokofiev’s Third and Bartók’s Third.”
“You almost overlapped with Masaru.”
“Yeah. Thank goodness I didn’t choose that one.” Aya and Kanadae laughed as they watched Jin rub his chest after saying this.
Even the godly Jin Kazama being glad that he wasn’t in direct competition with Masaru. That’s Masaru’s talent.
“So, finally, why the Bartók?”
“The reason’s basically that—I thought I would overlap with someone if I chose the Prokofiev.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“Maya once said, while I was talking with him, that Bartók suited you.”
“Me? And Bartók?”
“Yeah. He didn’t say why he thought so, though.”
Kanadae thought she knew what Masaru had meant. Jin’s naturalness, his unpredictable vitality—kind of as if his life had been as syncopated and textured as Bartók’s music—made him a perfect fit for the proto-modern composer.
“And what about you? Why did you pick Prokofiev’s Second?” Jin asked naïvely.
Kanadae started. Aya paled slightly.
Prokofiev’s Second.
The piece Aya had been supposed to perform when she abdicated. Kanadae knew.
Aya’s concerto repertoire had been quite broad even before. Tchaikovsky’s First, Beethoven and Mozart, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.
But on that day, she turned her back on the stage.
Kanadae saw in Aya’s eyes an emptiness—the emptiness of traversing years of history in an instant.
Aya really barely made it back.
The two made eye contact, and smiled at each other softly.
At last, Aya spoke. “… Maybe it’s best to call it homework.”
“Huh?” Jin asked.
“This piece, it was homework. From a long time ago.”
“Uh huh.”
“And tomorrow, I can finally turn it in. It feels like forever ago, but also.”
Aya’s eyes shone.
Yes, Kanadae thought. I’ve been waiting too. Waiting for you to come back to us. Waiting for you to unlock that magical music in the piano.
A bell rang. The first performance was about to begin.
The trio didn’t speak further; the hall’s lights soon dimmed.
The orchestra’s members streamed in. Soft applause welcomed them: thank you for accompanying our contestants.
* * *
And now tuning.
The concertmaster played an A on the piano; the oboe led, and the orchestra tuned. The hall filled with an eager anticipation.
The Final Round is here.
Akashi looked on, eyes misty, at the orchestra. They weren’t misty from angst, but a deep communal sensation, from one musician to many.
I can stand on that stage too someday. I can do it.
And then the stage doors opened again. The contestant and the conductor.
Applause full of anticipation and excitement.
The first contestant of the Final Round, a Korean named Sujong Kim, smiled lightly and walked toward the piano. He wore all black—suit, shirt, tie, and shoes—as he had all competition.
People were already cheering. He had been a contestant growing stronger by the round, as if he were becoming more confident with each passing success.
In the First Round, he had been visibly tense; now, from his smile to his gait to his bow, he seemed ready and relaxed.
He sat down; the hall stilled.
In these moments, Akashi thought, it was possible to see a pianist’s “size” compared to the orchestra. Not the literal size, of course, but their self-conviction, their independence and musicality. It was a halo, a superstructure wavering just on the other side of visible, looming over the pianist—sometimes it swelled over the orchestra, sometimes it got lost in the crowd, and sometimes it was perfectly even.
Sujong Kim seemed to reflect a moment, eyes closed. And then he looked up to the conductor.
A spark.
The piece began quietly, simply.
Rach Three: a heavyweight among piano concerti. So long—and so many notes. It was very possible simply to tire out halfway through the third movement if one was too tense.
He picked the right piece for himself, Akashi thought.
The blend of piece and pianist is an interesting chemistry. Those pieces which one enjoys and plays well are most likely also to be received well, but every so often, those pieces for which one strains and stresses end up being best loved by the audience.
Akashi had always thought that the Old Masters were his specialty—Bach, Beethoven, Mozart—but he had always been praised for his modern and contemporary concerto performances. Something in him that even he wasn’t aware of was surfacing in those moments, surely.
You’re a strong one, aren’t you. Well trained.
He played easily. Akashi knew he was studying in the United States.
Akashi had entertained the notion of studying abroad once, but, lacking funds and ambition, he had never considered it too seriously.
But isn’t it time to shed that kind of self-conception? Even if I don’t go to Europe, don’t I have the musicality to make it on my own?
Perhaps “the common man’s music” was best developed by not going abroad. He had never been abroad; he had received accolades while playing part-time. Wasn’t that enough to keep going, just as he had been?
Dramatic passages rumbled; the orchestra thrummed.
Rachmaninoff is marvelous.
If the First and Second Concerti have an electric, rigorous perfection about them, the Third is all power, all drama. It feels like a mosaic at times—so many disparate ideas glued together, a highlight reel for the headliner pianist.
But this quality also makes large-scale cohesion perhaps the secret challenge lying beneath the surface-level flair. Because if one is too focused on pulling off the tricks, the piece feels empty, just non-stop stimulation. The narrative arc is lost; counterintuitively, muting some of the fireworks is needed to make the audience seem them as sparkling rather than numbing.
Sujong Kim was handling that challenge excellently. Akashi was watching, mouth slightly open, at how easily he was dispatching those runs of thirds and sixths, those octave leaps, those crystal-clear arpeggios.
He remembered seeing his first Rachmaninoff score and wondering how in the world anyone played his pieces. Truly the notes bled off the edge of the page. Sightreading the Second Concerto felt like watching an illicit film: some deed he was cosmically forbidden from doing. He couldn’t even play one hand at a time.
This lad here, though, after thousands—no, probably tens of thousands—of hours at the piano, could pull it off, just like that.
Akashi sighed.
Him, the conductor, the orchestra’s members—I am watching these people do what they’ve dedicated their lives to.
Why doesn’t that register more often?
These people have thought, I have at best seven or eight functional decades on this planet, and I’m going to give half, two thirds, three quarters of them to making music.
Akashi felt a sudden chill, an overwhelming fear.
The sheer terror of the music industry. What it meant to make music for a living, to have music as a calling.
Could there be a profession where “for a living” fits better? People do this not as a means of living, but as the purpose of living. It is why they live.
And there are so many of them.
It was a perverse, frightening, slightly tingly feeling.
He felt his chest tighten.
I turned down that calling. And I’m accepting it now.
The music heightened in drama. Sujong Kim too had become more active, more impassioned.
This music, written over a century ago, still moved and overwhelmed.
I am sitting amidst history. History resurrected, and history writ.
A vast cheer. Akashi blinked—the piece was over.
Sujong Kim smiled wide and blushed; people whistled and stomped. Half the hall was on its feet.
He shook the conductor’s hand, and bowed to the orchestra. And then the audience.
The other half stood up as well.
Akashi, a beat late, rose and clapped.
* * *
The rests between Final Round performances are fifteen minutes, shorter than past rounds.
A bell rang in the lobby, calling in audience members who had been getting a quick drink or snack.
The subsequent contestant, a French lad—of slight frame and curly hair, dressed in light pastels—couldn’t have been a more marked contrast from the first.
A brisk, energetic air hummed.
Chopin’s First.
After the heavyweight, one of the most appealing, fun concerti in the repertoire. The orchestra opens with the famous theme, and the soloist listens.
Before long, the orchestra quiets, and the piano solo. A near-repetition of the theme, but more plaintive, moving.
From the opening, Aya sunk into the music.
It’s so, so fun.
It was more than the piece; the performance had a joie de vivre about it. It would be shallow to say that it was Frederic Dmiy’s character, but something like that.
Dmiy was not a contestant that either caught the eye or captured the imagination. He had consistently earned awards at international competitions, but there was something hard to define about his musicality.
What makes it so fun?
The more she thought, the more she admired the judges: hundreds—no, thousands—of audience members could listen to this performance and not know what made it have that special something. Maybe the contestant didn’t even know. But the judges did. And they duly rewarded him for it.
His Chopin’s First was rather something else. Not just about articulation and tempo, though those did stand out as well—a crispness normally associated with Bach; acceleration and deceleration at the perfect moments—but something deeply organic and coherent and convincing about it all.
He lived and breathed his interpretation.
Chopin’s First could easily drag if performed as is; numerous sections must be worked out in some detail with the orchestra to create that dynamic, exciting blend of piano and orchestra. Without it, either it comes off without any thrill or speed, or as tense, discomfiting, smothered.
And he solved this—with his character.
He didn’t drag the piece along, but he did lead it, and the orchestra, at an uncompromising clip. His Chopin was a warhorse, needing but the gentlest encouragements—it already had all the enrgy it needed.
I never thought you could play it like this.
Aya listened to the conversation between orchestra and soloist contentedly.
Chopin’s First really is quite nice.
She suddenly thought of Akashi Dakashima, who had come up to her.
There was something magical, that moment of understanding. The sense of sharing something, that certainty and emotion.
She had never cried in the arms of a stranger before.
He had been supposed to play Chopin’s First, too. I want to hear his. It would have been moving; I probably would have cried.
A scene rose before her eyes.
She thought she saw Akashi Dakashima onstage, rather than Frederic Dmiy.
Ah. Maybe I’ll hear him for real someday.
Maybe I’m glimpsing the future.
I hope it happens.
Aya stared at the pianist.
One day, I will.
This was the fun of classical music, after all. How would this person playing that sound. How would this other person playing my piece sound. Infinite combinations. Infinite fun.
If Maya played it, it would be endlessly dramatic and moving. The pinnacle of Romanticism. All the women would be swooning.
If Jin played it, it would be a magic bag. We’d feel like people who’d only heard Haydn and Mozart tasting Chopin for the first time.
And mine?
Aya shivered at the thought.
How would I play it? What could I find in it?
She realized she hadn’t had such a thought in a long time.
I would play it like this. I want to play it like him. I feel the piece is trying to say this.
She had almost forgotten it. She missed it dearly.
And what had let her—enabled her—to think like this was Maya, and Jin, and Kanadae. Maya taught her to play; Jin taught her to imagine; Kanadae taught her to listen.
They—and their lessons—would sustain her as long as she lived with music.
The third movement, angular and rhythmic, soared and soared toward its finale. Joyful phrases befitting a celebration. She loved his aesthetic—a music benevolent but complex, never oversaturated, and above all sincere.
Yes, oh, yes.
Aya felt a welling of happiness in her heart.
It’s so good. The piano, the music. Chopin’s First.
The bright sunburst of a finale ended, and a roar of applause greeted the laughing, exuberant soloist. Aya couldn’t remember a happier moment in recent times.
* * *
Alright, let’s go.
Masaru let out a low, long breath, and then took another through his nose.
He once heard that the default mode of breathing was to exhale, rather than inhale. One begins one’s life with an exhale—a great cry. And one ends one’s life with one last exhale.
While competing in the high jump, Masaru had experimented with various breathing techniques. Breathing to focus his power, breathing to calm his nerves, breathing to push himself.
He had imagined filling an enormous balloon, extinguishing a thousand candles, imagined scattering a desert of sand.
And then he inhaled.
I am bringing in fragments of music scattered about the world. My body is absorbing them, crystallizing them and precipitating them. I will turn them into music, and send them into the world again. I am not making music—I am the function by which the music of the world is taken in, and then sent outward again.
He watched the orchestra members walking out. They were relaxed, talking amongst themselves—it was already their third performance of the day.
He felt very pleased about his order.
I’m seshing.
A concerto was just one big jam session. A session where all the notes were already decided. A session where so much more could be explored, now that the notes were out of the way.
Tuning.
The winds, the brass. The strings.
I feel it.
Masaru closed his eyes and felt the energy of that glowing scene beyond the doors.
He felt the thrill about to come, about to be lived.
The stage fell silent.
No silence could be more mystical.
The audience, the stage, the backstage: all were still.
And then Stage Manager Dakubo nodded. Onodera nodded back, and then looked at Masaru.
A warm smile, full of encouragement. Masaru smiled back lightly.
“It’s time. Best of luck,” Dakubo said. The fourth and last time.
He entered the light-filled, wondrous, anticipatory hall. The cathedral of music.
Applause warming him, welcoming him. He felt the audience’s, and the orchestra’s love.
His sense during rehearsal that they adored him now grew into a certainty that they loved him.
Here I am.
Masaru was happy, unbearably happy. He felt chills.
Prokofiev’s Third.
Woodwinds calmly leading the opening. Something was afoot; something enormous was stirring. Such was the feeling as the strings took the melody and began to lift up the music.
And then the timpani, sketching a rhythm, full of life and potential … a slow crescendo …
This part always made Masaru smile.
What a moving, stirring opening.
He had talked about this with Aya as well, but he imagined the vastness of space opening up.
It really is Star Wars.
The opening crawl disappearing into space.
Colossal ships looming.
Perhaps it was the sense of spaciousness about the piece, but the whole piece stirred with a certain high-strung energy.
Prokofiev’s Third, like Rachmaninoff’s Third, was known particularly for its page after page of endless notes.
It had a certain jigsaw puzzle feeling to it, putting every note in its correct place; conjuring the melody from the whirlwind surrounding it could be even more fun than the direct, imposing rhetoric of a Beethoven or Brahms.
And it’s so modern, eternally modern. Melodies not even jazz could have imagined.
What was Prokofiev thinking as he wrote this?
He had always wondered. But what he really wondered, he supposed, was how so many people who had that much music in their heads—Bach, Mozart, Hadyn, Beethoven, Hummel, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and yes, Prokofiev—and beyond—had all lived. One of these people would have been a miracle. All of them together—a pantheon.
What was it about music that made it so universal? What does it give to humanity that we all treasure it? Wherein lies its magic?
I don’t know.
Even as I sit here, swallowed up by the most amazing music, I don’t know.
But this I do know: joy, satisfaction, and a certain fear at the vastness of it all.
I’m at the Final Round; the awards could be on the other side of the universe for all I care. I just want to play.
Why?
Why do I play?
He felt odd for thinking such existential thoughts while playing. Onstage, with the orchestra, and now thinking about music and human evolution?
—What do you think about?
His non-musical friends occasionally asked him.
—What do you think about when you play?
A hard question to answer. One could think about everything and nothing. Emotions indescribable in words, or pure serenity—a lakeside with sun and breeze.
And now, he could say, During my Final Round, I thought about the metaphysics of music.
Masaru suppressed a smile; the music bounded toward its overwhelming, irrepressible climax, toward that romp of a third movement.
* * *
A light shone on the silver dress in the wardrobe. Aya looked at it, her heard muddled.
The shine of the silver. The fabric awaiting her touch.
“What are you doing? Is there a problem with the dress?” Kanadae asked worriedly.
Aya jumped around, startled. She realized she had been staring at the dress for several minutes.
“No, nothing’s the matter.” She hurriedly closed the door; the closet’s light clicked off. She smiled, embarrassed. “I just couldn’t believe that the day to wear the dress is here. I don’t know what to feel.”
“Ah, I get it,” Kanadae nodded, smiling.
They had just returned to the hotel after having a late dinner with Masaru.
“I was so jealous of how casual he looked. He’s all done now! He can just sleep and wake up nice and late, not that he would.”
“How are you last again?” Kanadae laughed.
“Well, it’s not because I’m the best, so it’s just bad luck.”
“Shut it. You’ll top them all,” Kanadae said, her hands fisted, staring at Aya.
Her calm, cold stare.
It reminds me of Mom’s.
Kanadae, who’s watched over me all competition.
It’s been like having Mom back.
“It feels like forever since we picked out that dress,” Kanadae said as she put a teabag in a mug and poured water over it.
“Yeah, I really never thought the day would come.” Aya flopped onto the bed.
“Aya, the unmoored. Or so she was at the time.”
“Ha, stop it, you’re embarrassing me,” Aya said, scratching her head.
“We’re just barely getting to hear your Prok Two,” Kanadae said with a profound sense of relief.
A long time had passed since she had fled.
“It’s a relief. It’s such a relief. That you’re back. That you made it to the Final Round,” Kanadae said, almost to herself. Aya’s chest tightened at her words.
How much she’s watched over me. Taken care of me. Worried for me.
“Kanadae, thank you.” Aya ran over and embraced her; Kanadae froze. “Thank you, thank you. I’ve been thankful to you for a long time. I’m sorry for making you worry. I really was so stupid. And I’m sorry to Maestro.”
Kanadae managed to shake off her look of shock and laugh mischievously.
“Hey, don’t get any illusions.”
“What?”
“I just mean it’s a relief that I wasn’t wrong. That my hearing is sharp as ever.”
“What are you saying?” Aya stared, uncertain.
“To be honest, I was worried what I would do if you didn’t make it to the Final Round. Because I was sure, you know. ‘Was I wrong? Am I stupid?’ Because my hearing’s all I’ve got, you know?”
“No way, really?”
“I mean, yes, but I’m also teasing. I’m really happy for you.” Kanadae placed Aya’s hand on her own chest. “OK, so, I have something to tell you. I secretly promised myself that if you made it to the Final Round, I would switch to viola.”
“What?” Aya shrieked.
“Yep. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but if my ears could be right about you, I can trust them through this transition.”
“But if things go wrong, it’s my fault?” Aya laughed.
“If you want to carry that cross, sure. I was really rooting for you—I had my own stake in your results, so.”
“I had no idea. Does Maestro know?”
Kanadae shook her head. “I haven’t told him either. It’s not as though it would matter—it’s not something he could decide for me. I’m just going to tell him when the competition is over.”
“Hm, Kanadae the violist.” Aya seemed thoughtful. “Yeah, I see it. I think it works.”
“Glad you think so,” Kanadae smiled.
“I’m glad I didn’t know. It would have been a lot of pressure if I knew I was also making a life decision for you with my results.”
“I don’t think so, but,” Kanadae laughed.
They sipped their tea in silence for a moment.
“So, Aya, what are you going to do when the competition is over? Are you going to start touring again?”
“I don’t know. It’s not something I can exactly control, but. But, if there are people who want to hear my performance, I want to play.”
Kanadae’s face brightened. “Really?”
“Really. I want to go onstage, and play and play.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
The two exchanged wordless grins.
You’re back.
Kanadae felt certain. Aya Eiden was back.
“I also have to tell Jin thanks,” Aya said as she stared at the ceiling.
“Jin? What about Maya?”
“Him too. To everyone, really.”
“Well, hopefully Jin will get a piano out of this whole endeavor, if nothing else.”
“I’m sure he will. What do you think he’ll buy? I imagine he’d tune his own piano.”
“Ha, what if he builds one?”
“He really would. Steinway, Bösendorfer—and Kazama,” Aya laughed lightly. “I want to go to his recitals. And his chamber performances.”
“Me too. Let’s start an agency. I’m sure people would be all over us.”
“In Tokyo and Paris, yep.”
Kanadae looked at the clock. “Is it that late already? We should go to bed. You have your performance tomorrow, still.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I probably should have been practicing or something, instead of chatting,” Aya giggled. She yawned slightly and went to the bathroom.
* * *
The second day of the Final Round, and the last day of the competition, began at 2 P.M. The tickets were already sold out, and the lobby was packed by the time the doors were to open.
Today’s opening contestant was Korea’s Han-sun Cho, playing Rachmaninoff’s Second. Possibly the most popular piano concerto of the repertoire, and extremely popular in Japan. Perfectly constructed for maximal enjoyment, from the menacing, distant opening to the judiciously interspersed climaxes, it’s an easy way to get huge applause.
Cho, unlike Sujong Kim of the day previous, was a youthful eighteen, also all-black but a shade lighter there as well. But his performance was elegant and understated, not one to be swayed by fads or an easy thrill.
Masaru took a seat in the rear. He didn’t see Kanadae; perhaps she was with Aya.
It was his first time listening alone in a while.
He could listen to the day’s performances, relaxed and happy. He was, of course, looking forward to his friends’—Aya’s and Jin’s—performances, but he had come to admire the Korean as well.
Friends.
He felt something stir in him at the word.
The two people he had met (or re-met) this competition. How else would he have met them? Or spent this much time around each other? He was loath to call them rivals, even though of course they were.
To become friends despite the environment, the setting—is this not genuine friendship?
Now, even if they were to separate, they had this bond. They could always come together again.
Or so he felt.
I don’t really want to ever be apart from Ajang, but.
He was sure they would find their way to each other again.
What are the results going to be? he suddenly wondered, back on earth.
He was fairly certain he’d make the top three, but of course the actual order would have to be seen.
But the people’s choice award, probably mine …? he thought. He believed he was being cold rather than arrogant, but he wouldn’t have said it out loud.
In the Final Round, all ticketed audience members could submit a vote for the contestant they enjoyed the most in a ranked-choice vote; the winner received the prize, a particular honor in itself, not to mention the prize money.
If it were only yesterday, I would definitely win it, I think. But with Aya and Jin today, it really might go anyone’s way.
To generous, eager applause, the conductor and soloist entered.
Rach Two—I will too, someday, Masaru thought as he applauded. I don’t think I can yet, though—I don’t think I should. I’m not mature enough yet, but I will be.
Rachmaninoff’s Second was said to be a hit from its debut. Rachmaninoff, after all, was almost what would today be Pops in his time; it was not Beethoven and Rachmaninoff against rock and hip-hop, but Beethoven against Rachmaninoff.
Imagine hearing Rach Two after a lifetime of Beethoven and Brahms.
I can’t imagine the reaction.
Well, he knew the reaction—a twenty-minute standing ovation, absolute bliss for a man whose First Piano Concerto was received so poorly he had to check himself into an asylum—but still.
Where is such joy today?
Would any piano concerto, or any premiere, be received that well today? Was that particular flavor of joy now extinct? In a world where music flows so endlessly, and more creatives than ever share their talent, could another Rach Two be born?
Masaru wasn’t against “contemporary music” per se—the lack of any distinct rhythm or beat; the atonality and the near-smashing of one’s instrument—they had their fun and their place.
But, he thought coldly, it would never move a hall filled to the brim with people of all walks of life—not just musicians and critics but everyday people. Barely ten percent of Russia was literate at the time of the Second’s premiere, but the entire nation had hailed him a hero.
Would there be no more “classics?”
Masaru thought and thought as the swirl of the first movement filled the hall.
His forebears were great, capital-G Great. Their existence, their music, their accomplishments. Could they rise again?
Perhaps in me, Masaru thought naturally. One day, I will.
A Rach Two for our age.
If one leads, others follow. A new idiom, a new language, a new conception.
I will lead the charge.
Masaru saw himself, older and wiser and more learned, playing Rach Two—a hallucinatory palimpsest on Cho. He heard Rach Two—but also something else, a music not yet born, not yet conceived.
He heard his Rach Two.
The melodies flowed, golden and rich; he shivered.
With fright, he realized.
Fear of?
Of his expectations for himself. Of the task he had set himself. Of the future he believed himself capable of changing.
He had much to do. History, theory, composition.
He felt himself oppressed, crushed under the task ahead of him.
When he came to, the third movement had begun.
The clipped orchestral melodies, with the rhythmic exposition, were aimed straight for the climax and finale.
And the beautiful solo.
From here, it’s an instant. Here and there, the piece softens for a passage or two, but the tension just grows and grows.
He felt the expectant audience. Most of them probably knew this section. Even as they knew it, they would think, Here comes the highlight, it’s almost here.
Masaru too, of course.
A thousand times over, he’d call it some of the best melodies ever written.
He thought humanity’s most benevolent form was in music.
However evil or malicious humanity could be, from that black mud, the most beautiful lily of music could grow.
Lily seeds were said to be able to germinate even a thousand years after creation—they just needed sunlight and water.
A peculiar image occurred to Masaru.
Lilies flowering in a muddy expanse.
Small popping sounds as each flower opened.
He realized he had imposed the staccato bursts of the piano onto his floral image.
The piece reached its climax; Masaru sighed.
What music.
* * *
The stagehands began carefully moving chairs.
“Is it here?”
“The tape is right by your right foot.”
Audience members looked at each other, wondering.
But, standing in the back of the hall, Aya knew the reason.
The orchestra was preparing for Jin Kazama, down to the placement of the chairs.
She remembered how, during an earlier round, one of the pianos that was not being used was placed at a particular spot. That, too, was no doubt Jin’s request.
His ear really is something.
What is he hearing? How much is he hearing? What does it sound like to him?
Aya couldn’t begin to understand.
The shock of hearing the Chopin étude. Whenever she recalled the moment, it knocked her breathless.
Every performance, his music had given her just the nudge she had needed. Given her courage. She owed her standing here to him.
And that’s why I need to hear this concerto. If only to be able to continue playing.
She sat in the very last row in her dress. Simple silver. Her cardigan disguised her sufficiently when she was seated.
One more time, she thought desperately. Give me a good push, one more time.
I, more than any audience member, judge, or fan, want Jin to come out. Need him to come out.
Would she ever stand on the same stage as Jin again? Would she ever play with him again?
She hoped she did. She hoped he stayed in her life.
The orchestra members walked in; the audience was ready for them, clapping and smiling.
The members almost loped; they were very clearly happy to be there.
With applause a few notches greater, Jin Kazama and Masayuki Onodera entered the hall.
That boy has no idea that my musical life is in his hands.
It sounded ridiculous, Aya realized, but it was truer than she would have liked or believed.
But she knew he could handle it—even if he knew.
Maybe he did.
Thanks for everything.
Jin sat down; the conductor readied himself.
A silence, not unpleasant but still tense, hung in the air.
Like waves in the shallows, trills emerged from the strings.
A silvery exposition.
Jin’s melodies were added in. His sound was so bright, even with single notes, the audience felt their ears open, almost—as though the volume were increased.
Aya as well, of course.
What do I even say? It’s spreading like a deep pulse through the air—just outward and outward. The most beautiful echo through a vibrant forest.
Bartók’s Third does suit him well, Aya thought. Though he said he had chosen it to avoid overlapping with others on Prokofiev’s Third, she thought it was perfect for his sensibility. Animal, earthen, alive.
Bartók makes one feel as though one is outdoors: the warm petrichor; the dirt underfoot; the dancing breeze. Untainted nature.
Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. Bartók, musical ethnographer, has a naïveté, an unvarnishedness rare in classical music. The calm forest’s colors, the wind’s colors, the water’s colors.
Jin was evoking their mystical beauty perfectly.
For Jin’s sound was the sound of nature. Raindrops, footsteps, and honeybees. Birdsong and rocks.
Most musicians found inspiration in nature and turned them into music. Jin, Aya realized, returned the music to its primal, natural sensibility more effectively and convincingly than anyone she had ever heard. Through a sense of life and improvisation—and astounding technique—his music was more natural than something inked a hundred years ago had any right to be.
And this orchestra does not sound at all like the one playing Rach Two just a little while ago.
A lively sonority, even and percussive and vectorized. Perfect for Bartók.
The two were in perfect synergy, playing Bartók as she’d never heard before.
The second movement, adagio.
The patient, stately introduction. A majestic stag trotting through the woods.
A thin fog appears, cold and a little mysterious.
The cusp of dawn. Silence punctuated not even by breath.
Aya felt a chill, as if the fog were seeping through her.
She felt dew on her skin. Slightly damp leaves crunching underfoot.
A milky haze, clearing from the rays of first sun.
The stag perks its ears. Something is appearing from afar.
A bird soars high above the canopy. It chirps, it sings. It spreads its wings and scissors the sky.
The haze clears, and Jin, playing and playing, ringed by trees and imperceptibly hovering, emerges into clarity.
Andante.
His body swayed as if on a gondola.
Hey, Aya.
How are you feeling?
She imagined him smiling at her.
I’m good, Jin. You’re playing great. I’m glad you chose Bartók—who could play Bartók like this?
Jin smiled as if pleased.
You know, I promised Maestro Hoffman something.
What?
That I would bring music out into the world.
I was wondering what you were going for. But that makes perfect sense.
Did it work?
Yeah, I think it did. You did it.
That’s a relief. I don’t feel done, though.
Jin cocked his head. His eyelashes caught the light, glimmering.
I was saying with him—there are so many sounds overflowing in the world, but music, I feel, is trapped in this box. Music used to be everywhere. And now …
Ah, I think I get what you’re saying. Before, there was music in nature, and in daily life, but now, um, people don’t hear the music in nature and keep it locked up in their ears? And that’s what they call music?
Yeah. So we decided to put music back where it came from. And neither Maestro nor I could figure out how to do it. And now he’s gone, but I promised him I’d keep trying.
So that’s your, um, raison d’art?
Something like that. I just like music, mostly.
That’s all we should need, really.
Right?
Jin smiled softly.
I thought you might help me with it. I thought you’d be the right person.
Me?
Yeah. I thought you’d help.
Um, I’ve never really thought about it either, but I want to help.
Thanks.
Of course.
Aya thought.
I’ve only received music from the piano, I think. We all only take it in, we don’t send it back out. We’re collectors. Hoarders. It’s time we worked to give it back.
Yeah, I think I would have given up a long time ago. Imagine if music were, like, a plant. You just pluck and take. The plant would end up crying, Give me something too!
Ha, I like that. Music as gardening. We live thanks to it, and we don’t even realize.
Right?
We should give back.
Aya looked up. A bright sky; birds in formation cutting through.
We should be grateful. For the world that is so full of music.
She drank in the everblue sky.
Jin looked at her quietly.
I’m taking this as your promise, OK?
Ha, OK. I’m ready.
Yes!
He smiled broadly.
And one more thing.
What?
Show me. Later.
Later?
With your Prok Two.
Aya started. They looked at each other.
Today. Later. Show me. Show me that you’re going to keep your promise. That determination—show me.
His eyes, round like a fawn’s, stared into her.
She jolted out of her reverie into Bartók Three’s third movement.
Jin’s scales angled upward, the orchestra a solid mass behind him.
His Bartók—suave, alive, thrilling, frictionlessly smooth—swelled and swelled.
The orchestra, its sound—enormous. I feel it on my face.
So how is Jin’s sound clearer than ever?
A duet between piano and strings. Neither stepping back one inch. Suffocating intensity. The music a tactile mass, growing and growing.
The music absorbed the audience and kept growing outward.
A world of music.
Jin’s voice echoed in Aya’s mind.
I’m taking this as your promise.
Jin’s music sang to Yoshigaë, and beyond.
Promise.
The concerto ended; a deafening roar from the audience, and yet all Aya heard was Jin’s voice ringing like some celestial bell through her mindscape.
* * *
The last performance of the competition.
The audience knew it; the nerves, the finality, the exhaustion, and the excitement hung in the air, heavy but not unpleasant.
This is it, they seemed to think.
And then something else would begin.
How many knew that this was a new start?
Kanadae stared out, wondering.
She realized she was no longer nervous. She had been amped up to eleven all competition—she was a wreck right up until Aya stepped onstage, every round.
But not this time.
She was comfortable, ready. She didn’t think she would be, but maybe it was that she knew Aya was ready as well.
This comfort—just a pure, happy restedness ready to hear some music.
She supposed she had Jin to thank. His music soothed, grounded Aya.
This competition—Masaru, Jin, Aya—was fated, she felt. The three of them, multipolar and equilibrated and perfect.
When Aya finished here, she would be ready to walk her own path. Aya’s resurrection was also her own. Among the three foci, she was the neutral middle; when they disbanded, floating along their own trajectories, so would she.
* * *
Aya, backstage, waited for the moment to arrive.
She didn’t feel her invincibility from the Third Round. No drama, no power. Just calm.
She thought back to that day, all those years ago, when she was waiting for a different performance of Prokofiev’s Second.
I’m back.
That thirteen-year-old Aya, she realized, was within her.
Should I be afraid right now?
No.
I knew there was nothing on that stage for me. I knew that that piano, that day, was as dead as a slab of rock.
There was no music to be found on that stage that day.
But that’s not true today.
When I was a kid, it was a box full of toys, to be played with and to show-and-tell. And then it was a dead slab.
It took Jin, and Masaru, and Kanadae, to revive it.
My music is growing in there again.
No, that’s not right. It’s not in the box, and it’s not in Mom.
It’s in me.
And I’m back.
She felt calm, absolutely still. Her mind hovered at absolute zero.
I’m back. I’ve returned. I’m walking the path I am to walk. Not some hidden, mossy side road. Fifth Avenue, the Champs-Élysées, the Hollywood Boulevard. Fierce, withering, overwhelming.
The stage doors opened.
A lot to take, a lot to handle. But I’m ready.
The concertmaster played an A.
Her chest swelled at the thought of sending all the music she had into the world.
And she found peace.
She looked up; Onodera smiled at her. They nodded.
Now.
Now, music.
Now, my music.
“Miss Eiden, it’s time. Best of luck.” She heard a smile in his words.
“Yes.”
She felt a warmth pumped from her chest to her extremities.
A warm, sweet, ever so slightly plaintive feeling.
She began to walk; she almost stopped when the applause slammed into her.
She looked at the piano.
It wasn’t a toy chest; it wasn’t a dead slab.
It was a piano.
And she was ready.
Right? I’m ready, right? she asked Jin, surely sitting somewhere out there.
She didn’t hear a reply.
She smiled, bowed, sat down. Exchanged a look with the conductor. A small smile.
I am.
The baton began to dance.