The Grand Piano
She was a grand piano: grand in structure, grand in beauty, grand in quality
of sound. She had captured the heart of every pianist who had come to play in
the great hall. Once they touched her keys…they fell in love with the
celestial sounds that resonated from her core.
He was a grand musician, adept at playing several instruments. Music was
what made him come to life…his passion seen in the swaying of his body as he
became enraptured in the sounds. He came looking for her, having heard of
her perfection, and once he touched her, he was captivated.
Night after night the hall was packed with music lovers who came to hear him
play, but they also came to feast their eyes for when he sat there at the
piano…it was almost as if he were in the throes of passion. She made him
pour and release his inner soul in notes that vibrated and pulsated within
every listener’s heart. Passion redefined.
His fame spread. He spent hours every day…sitting there on the stage,
caressing her keys, making her do his bidding…moving her to a forte
crescendo…and then another, soothing her with pianissimo after the
storm of passion was spent.
When did it happen? When had the restlessness taken hold? He couldn’t
remember a specific moment, but at night…after the concerts were over, and
he was there in his room, he would dream of traveling again, and he’d think of
the Stradivarius he had seen for sale in the most renowned music store in
Europe, a store right beside the grand hall. She was a beauty…sleek,
streamlined, shapely, and after he had touched and fondled her, heard the
noise he could bring to life with his flexible fingers, he knew…the time had
come to say goodbye.
All his savings and more went into purchasing that Stradivarius that fit
snuggly under his chin. He could travel with her. She was…lightweight, easy to
carry. She was not stationary.....heavy.
It was the last concert, and he gave that piano his all. The audience sensed a
difference in the man. The room was electrified with the notes of a passion in
bursting from the fusion of man and instrument. The piano had never sounded
so angelic, sweet, replete with every nuance of a lover’s dream. Something
seemed to be tugging at the pianist's heart for before he took his bow, they
saw his eyes wet with tears.
Years passed, his fame grew. He was now known as the master violinist....the
shining star among his contemporaries...one of a kind. He was happy and
famous. He was traveling….light. His Stradivarius was his to finger and play
with every night, a perfect mistress, a perfect muse, yet why…why did he find
himself back in the hall after all this time? He stood there aghast, for all he
could see on the stage was the old janitor, sweeping the floor. “Where is she?”
he demanded.
The janitor squinted at him, trying to remember, and then he gave a sad
smile. “Why…didn’t you hear? It was in all the papers. After you left,
something went terribly wrong with that grand piano. All the notes kept
coming out wrong. It didn’t matter who sat down to play, and to tell you the
truth, some of those pianists were even better than you, or so I heard said.
Nothing sounded right. They brought professional tuners. Everything seemed
alright, but…the music, the music lacked….life. She couldn’t get fixed and so,
in the end….she was sold for scrap pieces to a carpenter who hacked her into
pieces to use for firewood.”
The musician stood there, tears streaming down his face. She had been
heavy, her maintenance difficult, her stationary heart, unmovable. He had
longed to travel light…to relish minimum maintenance demands, to travel far
and wide, like a feather on the breeze…airy and light…oh, so light, but could
someone be found who could explain to him the extreme leaded heaviness in
his heart that rooted him, immovable, to the spot where once a beautiful
grand piano had stood.
Eileen Manassian
Copyright © Eileen Manassian | Year Posted 2016
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