The Concert Pianist

by Conrad Williams

  ‘Oh, God!’ He pulled his shades off and grimaced. Merely to contemplate the question was somehow draining.

  ‘It’s never enough to play the notes, but playing the notes is no easy matter. Entrenching technical security is a priority that steals your youth. Because, you see, this incredible repertoire that we play is so difficult.’

  Derek was ready with notepad and biro.

  He paused to consider the issue more carefully. ‘Difficulty is a metaphor for emotional adversity, for psychological terrors and demons. The greater the difficulty, the greater the triumph. In mastering difficulty the pianist purges the audience’s suffering and fear. He’s a kind of gladiator. His adversary is the emotional extremity of life transformed into the symbolic language of music expressed through technical difficulty. You see,’ he was warming to his theme, ‘the composer pianists of the nineteenth century wanted to burst open the expressive potential of the piano. In the course of fifty years Mozart’s domestic pet of a piano gets turned into a thrashing Moby Dick.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Court pianists become artist heroes. The result is a repertoire of impregnable difficulty for laymen and epic challenge for professionals. To have a prayer in this extraordinary arena, your aspiring pianist needs to practise fanatically the length and breadth of his childhood.’

  Derek was feeding in steak morsels with one hand and burning down notes with the other.

  ‘So you don’t develop like ordinary kids. You lose the timelessness of childhood, the mental space for fantasy, the first innocent impression of the world being carefree - those halcyon years are colonised by Czerny etudes, Mozart piano concerti, the ladder of technical hazard from Bach to Godowsky, with a few million contrary motion scales thrown in. And your character suffers in ways that are later damaging. Because you are made such a fuss of, you don’t work hard to win friends or relate to people who aren’t consumed with the same interest. You’re inclined to be narrow, precocious, wretchedly competitive. The gifted child’s preened self-esteem is a two-edged sword. If everything hangs on one’s musical brilliance, it comes as a mortal blow to discover one’s talents are relative when some little shit superstar blasts past at the speed of light, turning you to stone. It’s always a gamble that you’ve got what it takes.’

  Philip glanced up at the waiter - showing someone to a table. Everyone on Charlotte Street seemed so young, so innocent of the twentieth century, so entitled to success and happiness. Had people suddenly got younger-looking for their age? Or was he just feeling older than he was?

  ‘Technique’s not enough, of course. You have to understand the purpose and placing of every single note. Where does it come from? Where does it lead? Why this note and not another one? You need to shape line and dynamics, make phrases logical and movements inevitable. Instinct and intelligence working in tandem. Talent, as much as you like, curbed by humility. A good student needs a healthy respect for the greatness of music.’

  He scratched his head. His lamb cutlets lay before him, untouched. ‘But that’s not enough. The repertoire engages an incredible range of experience: mystical, romantic, erotic, poetic, religious, which you need to discover emotionally and then convey, and that’s a harder challenge because our modern lives are so comfortable and godless and insulated. Feelings run at a lower level these days, so it’s sometimes hard for a young person who has never known unrequited love, because sex is so available, to understand yearning in the way Schumann felt it. Music reifies so many dimensions of feeling. It’s only through a student’s sentimental education that he makes the link between his inner life and the psychological truth of music - the truth of the way music structures emotion - which is why you never stop suddenly grasping what a familiar piece really means. Without emotional intelligence the biggest technician is just a bore. Of course . . .’ He was happy to natter on, letting it all flow out, as if from some mechanically competent part of his brain, though the tiredness was gathering. One sip of wine brought it on. ‘The emotionally vibrant player has his own problems.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because emotions can’t be restricted to one application. An intensely feeling musician will feel rather too intensely about everything.’

  ‘The so-called artistic temperament.’

  ‘Yes, but living with that particular cliché takes self-knowledge, or you go off the rails. I’m sure it’s just as hard for accountants.’

  ‘So what are the obstacles, the make-or-break moments?’

  He looked at his cutlets. He felt odd for a moment. The world seemed to edge to the side by a couple of degrees, as though vision were sliding off. He blinked and stared at the street, fixing buildings and cars in their place. The day’s colours and shadows were steady at the centre but fuzzy at the edges. He had not slept well for nights and was aware of an ocular compression effect, as though sight were screwed too tight for its own good. He was suffering the physical symptoms of stress, no doubt. When he should have been practising he was sitting in a restaurant pretending this emergency did not exist. It came to him suddenly that he should cancel. Anybody else would have by now. But cancellation seemed as unthinkable as the concerts themselves. This was an important series, his first in some time at the South Bank. The publicity was behind him for once. John had a record deal lining up. Derek was making headway with the documentary. His reputation was rising up to haunt him on all sides and it just seemed impossible to turn his back on all the timing and opportunity, and on the million man-hours of practice he had invested.

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  Derek had described the difficulty of selling arts programmes to BBC 2, where so many of the decision-makers saw classical music as off-limits, old-fashioned, elitist, too plummy for words. To bypass prejudice one needed to crank up the pitch, max the stakes, rack up the spin, and generally think of any conceivable reason why a classical-pianist documentary might perforate the audience’s apathy and indifference. There was talk of the pendulum swinging back, but Derek figured the pendulum had been snapped off or got stuck. He assured Philip that there was ‘interest’, if only because Derek’s last film had ticked boxes, rated well, bought kudos. BBC 4 was a fallback, but the budgets were minuscule, and Derek wanted Two, or ‘Toe’, as it was now pronounced. ‘Bay Bay Say Toe’.

  ‘I want the crisis points,’ he said, chewing meat. ‘The “Oh shit” moments. The story structure of triumph and failure.’

  Philip frowned, trying desperately to concentrate. He was feeling hot around the collar. ‘A major competition victory is virtually essential. A record deal. You need to find patronage, benevolent promoters, an agent. You need to hit the ground running because there’s so much competition. So technique, musicianship . . . But they’re not enough. The X-factor,’ he grimaced, ‘is . . .’

  ‘You have to look promotable?’

  He was suddenly overwrought. ‘Great pianists are extraordinary human beings. They hold an intense vision of music and communicate it hypnotically. The ability to master the instrument, perform under pressure, maintain artistic purity - that takes real heroism! Not just talent. Great moral strength.’

  ‘Which some people don’t have?’

  ‘The loneliness, the solitude, the esotericism, the competition. You have to survive all that! You have the task of constant regeneration. The conflict between what the business asks of you and what your inner world requires. You endure terrible crises of faith. Are you living your whole life in the past, playing old music to shrinking audiences, or are you recapitulating the very development of the human soul? Are you the guardian of sacred fire, or a cultural anachronism?’ Philip stared at him. ‘You have to commit everything. Not everyone has the resilience.’ He wiped his forehead. He was feeling so bad.

  Derek nodded. ‘So you win a competition, earn a few engagements. What happens then?’

  ‘A ten-year struggle for consolidation. You tour and record and suddenly, somehow, you become necessary.’

  Derek was chewing
hard. ‘Necessary?’

  ‘The people of your age must hear you play.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Great music is so because it is necessary. Interpreters must be necessary, too.’

  Derek looked at him strangely.

  Philip had to leave. His mind was boiling over. He felt absolutely restless and drained at the same time.

  ‘You’d be in the top twenty or thirty in the world?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’

  ‘How d’you make top ten?’

  Philip gave him a strained look.

  ‘Like, who are top ten?’

  He sighed profoundly. ‘Amongst the dead, some stand above the rest.’

  ‘Death’s the final career move?’

  ‘Death is a test of the eternal spirit of the artist.’ He wanted to cry. His tear ducts were swelling. ‘Great recordings collapse time.’

  ‘It takes thirty years of posterity to know whether you’ve made the pantheon?’

  ‘Excuse me.’ He put his napkin on the table. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Are you a great pianist?’

  Chapter Five

  It began with a dot on the carpet, a circle of carbonised fibre that dilated gradually and darkened like blotted ink, joining with other dots, travelling outwards, merging and then racing to the edge of the carpet, and running at its curved periphery a blue flame that seemed almost too frail to ignite a magazine or the hem of a sofa, until both objects were smoking, and the wood basket was burning nicely, its wickerwork snapping and crackling, and the footstool rug was glowing orange, shedding sparks, and smoke was winding between beams, and drifting under doors, and sneaking in wraiths between floorboards, while the sound of burning developed from hisses and pops to the wind noise of incineration, the violent crackle and whir of intense heat engulfing everything, using everything to create more heat, curtains, furniture, dried flowers whisked into flame swirling up the walls. Peter was outside now, smashing through the window, and then the stairwell erupted to the sound of screams as Jamie and Clarissa were trapped in the upburst, hair twisting into smoke and pyjamas curling and browning like leaves on a bonfire whilst Peter lay under a post on the living-room floor, head stoved in like a plastic doll’s. And now more smoke billowed from the cottage as the living-room ceiling collapsed and the roof caught fire and flame twined through every attic gap and cupboard space as rafters went down, crashing, and thick clouds were emitted in pulses from the roof into the night sky, hellishly underlit by an orange glow, which seemed to catch his sleeve and wake him with a jolt.

  He drew himself up in bed, heart beating hard. He felt frightened and alone and remained propped up on his pillow for an hour as dark faded in the early daylight hours and the grey lines of the bedroom cupboard became visible.

  Philip stood in the hall trying to remember what he was looking for. Sleep-loss had engendered a sort of hangover. He was in a daze and kept forgetting what he was doing or which room he was supposed to be in, and as the morning progressed he kept hoping that a cup of tea, or a shower, would clear his head and let him get going. But with each passing hour his mind seemed foggier, his will weaker, and now at midday, sun pouring in the bay window and casting spots of colour on the tessellated floor of the hall through lozenges of stained glass, his motivation expired completely. He held a credit-card bill and appeared to be taking it either to the kitchen, where the kettle had boiled, or to his study upstairs, where it could be neatly lost on a desk. But there was something else as well. John’s assistant, Serena, had posted a packetful of flyers for his concert and these were around somewhere, and, although he had no intention of mailing them to friends, he wanted to look at them for a reason he couldn’t remember, in which case he should go to the piano room and have a root around there.

  Today he would practise. That was the plan, an iron resolve made the night before. He would force himself back to the piano. He would hack through the Waldstein, the Funeral March Sonata, the Samuel Barber, the Rachmaninov. Somewhere inside the shuffling shipwrecked figure he saw reflected in the hall mirror was a virtuoso pianist, and he had to become that person quickly. The day was zipping along, unfortunately, and Philip had accomplished only basic tasks (with strain), and was limiting himself now to a vegetative shuffle round the house.

  His cleaning lady had been the previous day, passing a duster along dado rails and picture frames, returning the shirts that she ironed to shelves in his bedroom. The house was spick and span, in its usual state of fading readiness for guests who never stayed. Light blazed in bedroom windows warming carpets and stirring dry dust, bedspreads were neat and taut in spare rooms, chairs squared against the wall. It was like a family home that had been at the ready for years, never filled, never disrupted, and now the wallpaper colours were softening and fabrics were fading. The second-floor bedrooms were almost empty. He lived mainly on the ground floor and had grown oblivious to the covetable Edwardian features that a young couple buying their first house would have prized: ceiling mouldings, art nouveau fireplaces. His ex-girlfriend Laura had made certain changes in her own bohemian taste. The piano room had become something of a salon: swags on the garden window, pelmets around the bay. A pillar from an overpriced garden centre had been found to support his bust of Beethoven. She spent his money on floor rugs, on an easy chair to complement the recamier, which together with the Steinway rather half-heartedly suggested nineteenth-century paintings of Liszt playing to divas and grandees in damask-draped Parisian apartments; and yet despite these add-ons, the room in daylight hours looked like a musician’s den with its alcoves crushed full of sheet music, and its tottering CD stacks, and slumped yards of LPs against the wall. A life’s worth of accumulated orchestral scores was shelved in the room beyond the arch, along with his library of composer biographies and reference tomes. Laura’s touch had made more sense in the kitchen, overhauled at remarkable cost, and now a shrine to Italian elegance and German efficiency. Floor tiles and ceiling spots set off marble work surfaces with integrated hobs and concealed white goods. The kitchen cried out for dinner parties, or cappuccino breakfasts, or candlelit a deux. Her vision of their mutual future was not to be, alas, and so he had a woman’s taste everywhere and no woman to share it with.

  He sat on the stool by the counter sipping coffee. He would finish the coffee and then practise. He could feel the lines in his face this morning, the weight of his eyelids, the prickly surface of his skin. The prospect of his concert was solidly in view and, as he gazed through the mesh of his decrepitude towards that prospect, it seemed like someone else’s bad dream. How could a man in his state deliver those titanic pieces to a paying audience? He should cancel, of course; but cancellation seemed almost as absurd as the concerts themselves. Cancellation was an obverse disaster no less forbidding than the thought of the first recital next Wednesday evening at seven-thirty, when a thousand listeners would pack the Queen Elizabeth Hall in complacent expectation of absolute brilliance.

  A few minutes later he passed from the kitchen into the hallway, and from the hall to the music room. He went steadily across to the piano and sat down on the stool. The lid was raised and ready. The stand he set flat. He arranged his feet on the pedals and glanced down the long length of the instrument, allowing his shoulders to relax and waiting for the impulse to gather, to rise up as a tactile need for the keys. He placed his hands on his lap, holding back a little, marshalling himself. He regarded his hands, conjuror’s hands, unusually lined and walnut-creased at the finger joints, crosshatched on the palms. The skin was weathered and elastic around the knuckles and smooth near the cuticles. He had large, well-architected hands, good hands for a pianist. He looked at them now with a kind of compassion for their hard-won suppleness and strength. The open piano was a sorcerer’s brazier from which these dextrous hands had conjured the most marvellous sounds, gossamer traceries, exquisite cantabiles, thunderous fortissimos, prismatic washes, aqueous translucencies. These hands had worked hard to transpo
rt and enthral. They had served music well.

  Slowly he shut the lid of the keyboard and sat motionlessly on the stool.

  He found the packet on the shelf and opened it carefully. He sat down with the contents spilling into his palms, leaflets, copies of the concert programme, Xeroxed ads from Piano Gazette and Music Magazine. John’s assistant Serena had photocopied all four pages of the Sunday Telegraph article and folded them in. The flyers were gloss-finished and showed a profile of Philip at the keyboard in his usual convulsed state. He flipped the programme, saw the heading ‘Sonata Series’, the works listed in each recital, and a commentary by someone called Geraldine Mercier. ‘An epic journey of Himalayan purview,’ she wrote. ‘A traversal of the repertoire’s most spiritually demanding summits, culminating in Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. Morahan’s sequencing demonstrates the aesthetic and emotional range of sonata form, its narrative properties and metamorphic imperatives. From Haydn to Scriabin, Mozart to Medtner, Chopin to Samuel Barber, his selection encompasses phenomenal diversity and the coherence of a remarkable tradition.’

  He passed a hand across his face, dragging at the sallow skin under his eyes. Was sonata form itself to blame, he wondered? The element of quest, the struggle for transformation, the harnessing of extremes and the reconciling of opposites: was it too much to ask that one played these highly wrought works in sequence? In the first recital he would play Beethoven’s Waldstein and Chopin’s Funeral March Sonatas before the interval, and pieces by Scarlatti, Barber and Rachmaninov in the second half. Setting aside the epic concentration required to play these works, he wondered now whether it was really the concert’s underlying theme of death and regeneration that was sapping him. How could he approach the Funeral March Sonata in this frame of mind? The whole piece screamed out a negative transference of its composer’s terror of death.

  His hands were shaky now: the coffee and insomnia, the hive of nerves in his belly. Hopelessly he unfolded the Sunday Telegraph article, eyes skating over the column inches and the full-page photograph that meticulously investigated the lines in his forehead, and captured the defenceless light of his blue eyes behind specs. He looked like some sort of intelligent life form from outer space, caught on a brief visit to Planet Earth, his craggy face strangely innocent of the ways of the world whilst looking fraught with otherworldly concerns: a face that had lived life from the brain out.