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“The Pianist (Part One)” was a finalist in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.
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Munich University of Music and Theater/© Raimond Spekking/via Wikimedia Commons
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The Pianist (Part One)
by J.C. Michaels
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…..The thin-legged, short-statured, bald-headed professor paces tersely around the room, which is half-filled by a pair of ebony, six-foot, side-by-side, Steinway grand pianos. He stops and stares at me on the piano bench, hunching downward, submissively. I turn part way around and glance upward as he pats his rotund belly like Renaissance nobility after a holiday feast but with a scowl suggesting the digestion has not gone well.
…..“There’s a professional and instructive way,” Harmel says, then strides toward the window behind his desk, pausing to look at a distant tree. He begins bobbing his head front to back with increasing amplitude as he mumbles. “The direct way is best … clean, precise … no chance for misinterpretation.” Then he turns, stands behind his desk, and leans on his knuckles.
…..“What the hell were you doing?” he bellows.
…..I glance at his puffing cheeks and taught lips. I have been on campus three days, known Harmel for less than a half-an-hour, played for less than ten minutes…. I wonder how nothing more than the sounds of a piano could so dramatically alter another’s emotional state.
…..“What, pray tell, was all that pedal doing in Bach? … And the rubato in the opening? … And those ill-defined mordents? … Your playing offends the dead.”
…..He scrunches up his nose and winces as though a foul odor is permeating the air.
…..“Your playing is a horribly confused mixed metaphor of sixteenth-century Baroque, nineteenth-century schmaltz, and twentieth-century jazz. I would rather be subjected to nails on a chalkboard or Muzak in an elevator. Are you some kind of anarchist! Where did you learn to play like that?”
…..“I—”
…..“Stop.” Harmel says, stretching out his palm toward my face. “I really don’t want to know. Words are not going to help you. All that matters is the music—and if reform is possible.”
…..Beads of frustrating sweat erupt from his shiny forehead, gently drip down his small nose and toward his thin upper lip. His portly nature causes his arms to rotate outward slightly from the sides of his body, creating an almost cartoonish outline against the bright sunlit window.
…..“I hope you’re up for this,” Harmel snaps as he sits behind his desk, dropping into his chair with exhaustion, resting his elbows on the table, pressing his palms against his cheeks. “You realize, I am also your academic counselor. I’m thinking a degree in piano performance is not a good choice. You can still switch your enrollment. Go to the College of Liberal Arts. Major in history, or psychology, or swimming—anything but music.”
…..“I like piano,” I say, then look downward as I reflect on my childish response.
,,,,,Harmel points a stiffened finger at me. “I don’t care what you like. I’m trying to decide if teaching you is what I like.” He thumps his sternum. “I’m not the kind of professor inspired by the challenge of transforming mediocre and unprepared students. That’s to be done by others—before entering the College of Music.”
…..I hear his anger, but I don’t feel it. I just feel out of place as though I have accidentally opened the wrong door, perhaps one that should have remained locked.
…..“I can make a phone call,” he says eagerly. “You can transfer today.”
…..I don’t react to his taunts. I won’t transfer, I will drop out. I will tell my mother I never wanted to play anyway, that I was just trying to please a man she detested. I will find a menial job, rent a cheap room, buy a grand piano, sleep underneath.
…..“Don’t just sit there,” Harmel blurts out. “Speak up. Do you want to transfer?”
…..I think about the events that have resulted in my enrollment, starting at the age of five, my father said music opened the mind and heart. I didn’t know what he meant, only that it pleased him. I practiced almost every day for the next five years. But that was not good enough to keep him home. He divorced my mother, then disappeared. I continued practicing for eight more years, hoping that when he returned…. He never did. But I cannot stop. I need to be sure I can play as well as possible, so that, if he does appear, he will be compelled to listen, to stay….
…..“Well?” Harmel asks, standing up, moving toward me, staring down at my shoulders. “Has your tongue been eviscerated? Are you collapsing at the first sign of criticism? Just tell me, were you taught this way, or did you learn on your own?”
…..“I’ve had lessons, but mostly on my own.”
…..“A homeschooled pianist, good god.” Harmel flops down onto a dark leather couch directly behind me.
…..I twist around but keep my feet on the pedals.
…..“By the way,” Harmel says, “were those extra notes in your left hand a mistake or some jazz riff you decided to toss in.”
…..“Uh—”
…..“Don’t answer. I don’t want to hear any teenage blabbering from a pimply faced freshman. If you’re going to take that kind of freedom—write your own damn music! I am here to teach you to perform great works by great masters—not to compose. Do you understand? There is a way to play Bach, and a way to play Beethoven, and a way to play Mozart. You are not here to be a composer or even represent a composer. You are here to serve the composer. When you humbly master their work and understand their expectations and the style of their era, then and only then—perhaps—you can take a few liberties with a grace note. Until then, you honor their work exactly as written and keep your pubescent desires to yourself. Are we clear? … “Just one question I would like answered. Who auditioned you?”
…..“Nelert,” I mumble.
…..“Of course, a doctoral student,” Harmel says. “You auditioned at the last minute when the rest of us were on summer vacation. The administration is always trying to fill empty slots with paying bodies. Congratulations on a lucky draw…. One more question, if I may. Did you request me or was this your unlucky draw?”
…..I roll my shoulders in an ambiguous manner.
…..“I’m a curious old man,” he says, lifting his brows.
…..I turn back toward the piano and stare at the white spaces between the black keys. I carefully read Harmel’s biography. He had studied with the great pianist van Heijnoort, who studied with the composer and pianist Béla Bartók, who studied with Istvan Tolman, who studied with the first solo pianist Franz Liszt, who studied with Carl Czerny, who studied with the towering figure of Ludwig van Beethoven. Real or imagined, like family lineage, musical lineage is also a connection to the past. Perhaps, like father to son, destiny can be passed on.
…..“Yes, I did request you,” I say quietly, “but I—”
…..“I don’t want to hear anymore. You’ve dug a hole big enough to swallow a ten-foot Bösendorfer—and you’re liable to fall in and get slammed by the piano lid.” Harmel laughs at his own words, then walks over to shelves filled with music scores. He pulls out the Bach Preludes and Fugues and tosses the music in front of me. “How fast can you learn a new piece?” he asks.
…..I scan the outline of Harmel, who seems like a general preparing for battle, invigorated at the prospect of mortal combat with a student—take down the young upstart with a quick head lock and an arm twist, see how much you can make him squirm. I also see a man of uncompromising belief in how the world should be. Strangely, inexplicably, I feel an allure to his confidence and certainty.
…..“I can learn fairly quickly,” I say.
…..“Good. You have some talent,” he says, opening the music. “These pieces are rites of passage.”
…..I look at the music then reach out my right hand and begin to play part of a treble line.
…..“Stop!” Harmel bellows. “What the hell are you doing? I don’t want to hear you practice. That’s what the practice rooms are for. Can you learn this piece in a week—memorized?”
…..I flip through several pages noting the complex arrangement of four independent voices. “I don’t know, probably not.”
…..“Well, I didn’t think so.” Harmel snatches the book from the piano and tosses it onto the couch. “We have a lot of work to do—a lot of work.” He clears his throat and returns to his chair, props his feet on his desk. Suddenly, he appears peaceful, like a lion sated after devouring a kill of fresh meat.
…..“Do you have anything else you’d like to play?” he asks.
…..“You want to hear something else?”
…..“Can you play anything else?”
“I could improvise.”
…..“What!” Harmel retracts his feet and leans against the edge of the desk as though bracing himself for a storm. “Oh god no…. I hope you’re joking. I mean classical repertoire, not trifles emerging from your jazz tainted, adolescent mind.”
…..“Then I have nothing else to play.”
…..“Good…. I’m relieved.”
…..Harmel leans back in his chair as though exhausted from a full day on the frontlines. He takes a few deep breaths and then attempts to comport himself in a tempered and professional manner. “Close the keyboard cover,” he says. “I don’t want to hear any more.” He rubs his forehead and asks in a calm tone, “Does anyone in your family play piano?”
…..I turn my head sharply. My eyes flash. My answer is quick and stern. “Does that matter?”
…..“Maybe not,” he says, a bit taken aback by my indignant tone. “I’m just curious…. What kind of piano did you play when you were growing up?”
…..“An Erard,” I answer flatly.
…..Harmel bolts forward and slaps his palms on his desk. “An Erard,” he repeats skeptically, “Are you … sure?”
…..“I’m sure. The instrument was passed down through my mother’s family. She’s Venetian.”
…..“I can’t believe it. I would have guessed a sawed-off spinet.” He laughs as he slaps his hands playfully on his thighs. “Erard invented the double-escapement mechanism, the foundation of all modern pianos. Did you know that?”
…..I nod.
…..“Did you know Beethoven wrote compositions just for this instrument?”
…..I nod.
…..“And that Erard gave Liszt pianos to play?”
I nod.
…..“And that Venice has an extraordinary artistic lineage, a place very few can still call a home?”
…..I nod.
…..“You are given a gift from history, and yet know nothing of how to play it.”
…..Harmel smiles like a villainous mentor.
…..“If I already knew such things,” I say, in an edgy manner, “what would be the purpose of teaching me?”
…..Harmel scowls and nods in a self-congratulatory way.
…..“You obviously can play,” he says. “You just can’t play well. You need to realize this is a music conservatory. We conserve the past. Although small, we are one of the most prestigious piano departments in the country. This school is for students fully committed to the art of performing serious music. Students who want to be professional accompanists, world-class educators, concert pianists. Do you understand?”
…..I look away. I feel exposed like someone claiming to be a visual artist whose only experience is painting by numbers. Maybe I did not fully understand the expectations of a conservatory. Maybe I did just get in on a fluke. Maybe I am here for the wrong reasons. But I am here. And now that I am, I want to know if I can become the kind of pianist people seek out.
…..“Yes, I understand,” I say with forced confidence. “I’m ready to begin.”
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The Pianist (Part One) is an excerpt from an unpublished novel, Dream and Deception. If you’d like to read another excerpt from this novel, click here.
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J. C. Michaels is an award winning, internationally published novelist from the U.S. currently living and working as a literary writer in Taiwan.
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