Opus One

Chapter 13: Quartet

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Allison was falling in love. 

Over the last few hours of being with Emily, Sandra and Richard, she had started feeling something she hadn’t felt for many years.  It had always been there, but now it was thrust into the forefront of her thoughts.

As she drove her rental car back towards the city, she took a glance at Richard.  He looked tired as he stared out of the passenger side window at the dusky fields.

Allison cast her mind back to a warm summer day eight years ago. 

“Allison, look, dear, there’s something here for you!” her mother had called out when Allison returned from school.  As she shrugged off her school pack, she had a feeling she knew what waited. 

Sure enough, when Allison entered the kitchen, her mother pointed to an envelope sitting on the table.  Embossed in the corner was the gold, red and blue seal of the University of Sydney.  The envelope was not thin, and Allison felt a flutter of excitement.

Her father watched with a smile from the other side of the table as he sipped his tea.  Allison tore open the envelope, and unfolded the letter.  The letterhead was from the Conservatorium of Music. 

“I’m in!” Allison said after reading the first few sentences.

“To the music program?” her mother asked.

“Yes.  Oh, and they have given me scholarship, too!”  Allison passed the letter to her mother, and her father read it over her shoulder.  Allison could see the pride swelling through them.  Their faces grew progressively more radiant as they finished the letter.

After sharing a long hug with them, Allison sat on a stool, fingering the pages.

“What are you going to do?” her father asked gently. 

Allison smiled wistfully.  “I don’t know.”

For a week, Allison went back and forth between her choice.  She could either pursue flute at the Conservatorium, or enter the honours biology program at the University of Melbourne, where she had also gotten scholarship.  In a way, she wished that the music school had not accepted her, so she didn’t have to make this choice.  But she hadn’t ever led her life based on wishes and what-ifs, and she wasn’t going to start now. 

She had two equally good opportunities available to her, and she would soon have to decide the course of her life.  It was a difficult thing to do at seventeen.

Allison pulled slowly into the small lot by their dorm building.  The day’s fun was coming to a close.

“Hey, thanks again for giving us a ride,” Richard offered. 

“It was no problem.”

“Great meeting you.”

“Have a good trip home,” Emily added, as she and Sandra climbed out of the car and shut the door.

They traded waves through the window, and then they turned to go.  Allison watched the two girls each wrap an arm around Richard’s waist as they walked to the building.  She wondered where she would be now, had she chosen differently.  As her imagination worked at producing the scenarios, she sighed heavily and backed out of the lot. 

On Monday, school got serious. 

In the morning, Richard met up with Dave, and got a whirlwind tour of the equipment in the control room followed by some basic training on the mixing board.  As Dave went through and explained the function of all the controls, including which ones Richard could leave alone and which were critical to a good recording, Richard began to make sense of the seemingly complicated layout.

“You see,” Dave said, “for most of the recordings we do here, we want to capture the sound of the musicians and the concert hall as they are.  So we try to mess with the sound as little as possible, which means the mixer is simple to use.  Everything is done through microphone selection and placement, rather than making electronic changes.”

“So do you set up microphones every time there’s a concert, like you did for the recording sessions?” Richard asked.

“No,” Dave said, pointing through the window to the empty concert hall.  “We have four microphones hanging in the hall that run up into the mixer here.  There are two mounted on that center bar, and then the two flank mics.  We use those for the concert recordings.  While it would be nice to place mics wherever we liked, there is an audience to consider, heh, heh.”

“How do you move those, then?”  Richard looked at the microphones.  They were suspended from the ceiling on long cables, perhaps fifty feet in length.

“Up above the hall, we can adjust the height.  From here,” he said, leading Richard over to a panel on the wall, “we can move them forwards and backwards.” 

Dave flipped open the panel and revealed three metal spools with thin black nylon wound around the hubs.  Pretty cool, Richard thought.  As he looked out into the hall again, he noticed the thin black lines running through the air to the microphones.

“Don’t worry about moving any mics yet,” Dave said.  “I still need to show you how to get levels, run tape, keep timings, and a bunch of other stuff.”

“I’m ready,” Richard said.

“Good,” Dave said.  “Lesser people have left at this point, overwhelmed.”

“Nah, this is neat,” Richard said.

Dave grinned and nodded, and handed Richard two tapes, which looked like very small VHS tapes. 

“Mostly we record on DAT tapes...”

In theory class, Dr. Dobra seemed to have decided that one week was enough leisure time, and he started the class out with a quiz.  He played a series of intervals on the piano, and had the students write down what they were. 

Richard didn’t find the intervals particularly hard, since they were limited to the handful that Dr. Dobra had covered the previous class.  He could visualize them in his mind on the keyboard, see the two keys that needed to be pressed to produce the interval.

Next to him, he could hear Sandra humming the intervals almost inaudibly as she tried to work them out. 

At the end of the quiz, Richard noticed that Dr. Dobra threw in a few intervals he had not covered.  The man has no principles, Richard thought.  He could still see these intervals on his mental keyboard, but wasn’t sure exactly what to call one of them.  The terminology was still new to him, so he wrote the notes instead.

After the papers were collected, Dr. Dobra admitted he’d thrown in a few ‘new’ intervals, to which the students let out a combination of relieved groans and disgusted moans. 

“I always have trouble with the ones that are low register,” Sandra said.  “I think it’s because I don’t sing down there,” she added.

“Sandra,” Dr. Dobra said.  “Please sing for us.  Example twenty-one.”  Dr. Dobra had a knack for finding the talkers in the class immediately. 

Sandra set to singing the melody, while the rest of the class followed along.  Richard, however, got lost in her voice.  Every time he heard her sing these simple examples for class, Richard’s arm hair stood on end.  He wondered what she sounded like when she sang a real piece.  Maybe it was time to have her perform one of these nights.

Another late arrival to English was inevitable after Dobra kept them slightly over.  For someone who doesn’t tolerate lateness, he sure doesn’t mind going past the end of class, Richard thought.

As he walked back towards the dorm, the aroma of coffee hit him as he passed Buck’s.  He was addicted to their iced mochas, thanks to Emily and Sandra.  Almost instinctively, he turned off the sidewalk and crossed the grass and headed towards the coffee house. 

He had just gotten a surprise check from his Dad, in his mailbox.  He felt a little bad, since he had only called him once last week.  But Richard cashed the check anyway, after English class, and now the money was burning a hole in his wallet.  It must have smelled the coffee, too.

Richard ordered a large iced mocha to go, and then browsed the flyers on the bulletin board.  He grinned when he saw the one for the music festival still hanging on the wall.  It had been a fun day, swimming with the girls and Allison.  Richard wondered what she had thought of the three of them.

“Iced mocha?”

Richard snapped out of his thoughts and grabbed his drink.  As he headed for the front door, he noticed Allison sitting at one of the tables.  It was almost like his thoughts of her had made her appear.

“Allison?” he said, approaching her.  She was reading a journal.  Something with graphs and tables. 

“Oh, Richard, hi!  How are you?  What a surprise!” she said all in a rush.

“Yeah, I was just getting a mocha,” Richard said, raising his Styrofoam cup.

“Me too.  I’m taking a break from the lab.”

“Is the lab nearby?” Richard asked.

“Um, yeah, fairly close,” Allison said vaguely.  “What are you up to?”

“Just finished classes for the day, so I’m going to go practice for a bit.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Allison said earnestly.  “I’m stuck with this paper about the latest news on the p53 gene,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Looks like you’re busy, so I won’t keep you,” Richard said, although he was happy to have seen her again. 

“No, the paper’s not any good.  Looked promising, but...”

Richard shrugged.  “Don’t look at me.  I’d have no idea.”

Allison laughed as she closed the journal up and set it aside on the table.  “Do you want to sit for a moment?” she asked, gesturing to the chair across from her.

Richard set his bag and cup down joined her.

“I had fun the other day,” she said, her eyes lively.

“Me too.  I hope we didn’t make you uncomfortable,” Richard said quietly.

“Uncomfortable?”

“I mean, you know, Emily, Sandra and me.”

“No, I see stuff like that all the time back home.”

“Really?  We need to go to Australia then!”

“No, I was just joking,” Allison said, laughing.

“Oh, too bad.  It’s hard being private about it.”

“What do you say when people ask you if you are together?” Allison asked, her voice full of interest.

“I don’t know.  Usually we say we’re friends.  But it must be obvious.”

“Well, when you are all kissing it is pretty obvious,” Allison said.

“Heh.  We usually don’t do that.  Just at the music festival.  There wasn’t anyone there that we knew, so...”  Richard trailed off.

“It must be fun.  I mean, to be starting music school.”

“Well, it’s fun, but it’s also a lot of work.  Only one week has gone by, and already it feels like a month.”

“But you are doing what you love,” Allison said.

“Yeah, true.  Aren’t you?” Richard asked, meeting her eyes with his.

Allison hesitated for a moment.  “Yes, for sure.  But it’s different.  Music can do things to people that nothing else can.”

“Well...”

“I mean, no one comes to my lab to watch me do research,” Allison continued.  “No one is moved by what I do.”

Richard frowned.  “No one comes to my theory classes to watch me sight-sing melodies either, believe me.  People probably would leave the room, if they could!”

Allison giggled.  “Okay, right, it’s not all fun and games for you either, but...”

“And if you find a cure for cancer, think of the benefit.  All the music playing in the world won’t do that.”

“But it might…  What’s it like to get up in front of a full concert hall and play for people?”

“Well, I’ve never given a full recital in a big hall.  I gave a few small recitals to friends and family in my house, and played a few pieces as part of my teacher’s studio recital.  That was pretty big:  maybe eight hundred people went to that.”

“Wow, it must be amazing to play in front of people who are listening to everything you do.”

“Don’t you play the flute?”

“Yes, but not very much anymore.  My research is all-consuming, I’m afraid.”

Richard shrugged.  “No free time?”

“No, not at all.  I’m trying to finish up my dissertation.  By this time next year I should be getting my Ph.D.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“Yes, one more milestone, I suppose.”

“You don’t sound that excited about it,” Richard said.

“I usually am.  The last few days I’ve not been as excited.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.  Hey, Richard, can I ask a favor?”

“Sure, of course.”

“I don’t want to impose, so I’ll understand if you don’t want to.  I know you’re busy, and you are – ”

“No, no, go ahead.  What is it?”

“Um, can you give me a little tour of the music school?”

“The music school?  The building, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, of course, although there’s not much to see.  Just some practice rooms, the concert hall, stuff like that.  Do you want to go now?  I was heading there anyway.”

 “Sure, let me pack up my stuff.  Thank you,” she said.

Richard watched her stash away her papers, and wondered what she was thinking.  It doesn’t seem like she’s hitting on me, Richard thought, though he knew he wasn’t always the best judge of that.  And she has a boyfriend.  But she seems to be fascinated with me, and music.

“Any particular reason you want to see the school?  The building is not that interesting.”

“Oh, that’s all right.  If this is too much trouble, you don’t have to do this,” Allison said.

“No trouble.  Really.  I was just wondering.  Touring your lab would be cool.  I bet you have all kinds of interesting equipment.  So this seems like it would be boring.”

Allison was quiet for a moment.  “I almost went to a music conservatory, when I finished secondary college.  I was torn between science, and music.  I chose science.”

“You must have been a good flute player, then,” Richard said.

“Yes, I got along alright.  I’ve never regretted it, mind you,” Allison continued.  “But sometimes I wonder what I would be doing if I had chosen music instead.”

Richard nodded, understanding.  “What do you want to see?”

“Oh, nothing in particular.  I  just want to take in the atmosphere.  Show me some places where you go.”

“Okay, let’s walk over there.”

As they made their way towards conservatory, Richard spoke first.  “So how did you end up choosing science?”

“Oh, well, it’s really quite stupid.”

“Stupid?” Richard said, confused.

“I flipped a coin.”

“You flipped a coin?”

“I know, I know.  Heads, it was off to Melbourne and biology.  Tails, and it was off to Sydney and music school.”

“And it came up heads...  Wow.  That’s one way to make decisions!”

“It was not coming to me any other way,” Allison said.  “Have you ever had a choice where you really couldn’t choose either way?  Both choices were the right thing to do?”

“Oh, yes, for sure.”

“And how did you decide?”

Richard grinned.  “I didn’t.  I chose both.”

Allison frowned for a second, and then burst out laughing.  “Somehow that seems just like you to say that.  I only wish I could do that.”

“You’ve at least made the right choice, if you ever want to do both,” Richard said.

Allison frowned.  “How so?  I barely have time to do my research.”

“Yes, but eventually you may find more time.  And you can always play music.  Maybe not in a top orchestra, but you can still play.  On the other hand, I can’t wake up tomorrow and say, ‘Hmm, I think today I will go out and work on curing cancer.’  I mean, that’s impossible.”

Allison nodded thoughtfully.  “But I’ll never reach the level of musician that you will reach, or that Emily or Sandra will reach.”

“So?  I’ll never be a lot of things either.  When I was a kid, I was sure I was going to be an airline pilot.  That doesn’t seem to be in my future anymore.”

“You mean they don’t have flying classes here?”

Richard sniggered as he opened the front doors to the conservatory.  “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

As they traversed the hallway lined with practice rooms, Richard spotted Emily through one of the small windows in the doors.  She was frozen in place, staring intently at the music on her stand.  She did not appear to have her horn out of the case.

Richard pointed through the window with a grin.  “Deep in concentration.”

“Let’s not bother her,” Allison said.

“It’s all right.  She bothers me all the time,” Richard said, opening the door quickly.

Emily visibly jumped.  “Shit, you scared me, Richard!”

“Sorry!”

Allison poked her head in.  “Hello.”

“Oh, hey!” Emily said.  “How did you get here?”

“I bumped into Richard when I was getting a coffee at the shop down the road.”

“Buck’s,” Richard added.

“What were you doing there?” Emily asked him.  “I thought you were all out of cash.”

“Nah, I got a check from my dad today.”

“Gonna blow it all on mochas?” Emily taunted.

“It’s your fault if I do,” Richard retorted.

“Richard was showing me around the school.”

“Did he show you the concert hall?”

“Yes, it’s wonderful!  He also showed me the recording room,” Allison said.

“Hey, I haven’t even seen that yet!” Emily exclaimed.

Richard made a sheepish face. “I’ll take you up there, don’t worry.  What are you working on?”

“Oh, looking over some chamber music.  I can’t play my horn today; I have a sore on my lip.  Probably from that gross festival food.”

“Tell me about it,” Allison said.

“Do you want to get some dinner with us?” Emily asked her.

Allison glanced at her watch.  “Oh.  Well, I need to check on some things in the lab, but maybe after that?”

“Sure.  Here,” Emily said, ripping a corner off of some staff paper and writing her phone number on it.  “Call us when you are done.  Can we ride in your car?”

Allison laughed at the self invitation.  “Of course.”

“Good.  We’ll find somewhere to eat,” Emily said.

“I better go then, so I don’t get back too late.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Richard offered.

As they exited the building, Allison thanked Richard for the tour.

“No problem.”

“Your girlfriends are so nice.”

“Yeah, they are,” he agreed.

Later that night, the four of them were walking back into the school building.  The girls had convinced Allison she had to come back to the conservatory and hear Richard play some piano.  She had wholeheartedly agreed.  She also wanted to hear the girls perform, but Emily was not able to play.  Sandra left the possibility open, but appeared to be shy about singing for everyone.

Allison wished she could spend the rest of her week with the three of them, even though that was not possible.  Still, she was glad they were so open to spending time with her.  At dinner, she had listened raptly to tales about their music teachers, including one Dr. Dobra. 

Richard led them into a large room with a piano in it, and pulled some chairs around the bench.  Emily invited Allison to sit on Richard’s right, so she could see his hands working.

Richard stretched, and then laid his hands on the piano.  For a long moment he didn’t move.

“Hmm, what to play?” he mused.

“You had the whole ride home to think about it,” Emily chided.

“All right, here’s the Liszt I’m working on.  It’s kind of long, so stop me if you get bored.”

And with that he started the dramatic octaves which opened the piece.

Allison’s eyes were glued to his hands.  They ran over the keys like dancers, stretching and running back and forth in a complex pas de deux.  The sound they produced thundered through the small room, at times almost making Allison brace herself. 

She glanced at Sandra, who caught her look and smiled back.

Richard was lost in the music, and soon Allison was too.  This is how music is supposed to be played… 

She had never heard such a good pianist from so close.  She had seen some famous pianists in concert, but that didn’t compare with sitting a foot away with someone she now considered a friend.

Allison dared not move in case Richard interpreted it as a signal to stop playing.  When he finished the piece, Allison realized her body was hyper-tense from the exertion of listening.  She was speechless as Richard turned to her and smiled.

“There you go,” he said simply, as if he had just played a major scale.

“That...  That was incredible!  I mean, simply incredible!”

“Yes, really,” Sandra agreed.

“Thanks.”

“How do you keep all that in your head?” Allison asked.

Richard shrugged.  “I don’t know, I just hear the music and I know what to play after a while.”

“Amazing.  Why are you even in music school?”

“Oh, there’s a lot to learn.  I made a lot of mistakes,” Richard admitted.

“I didn’t hear them.”

“They were there, nonetheless,” Richard said, smiling.  “There’s some stuff which I can do better.  There’s other stuff I probably don’t even know about, like I was telling you earlier at dinner.”

Allison nodded, remembering the conversation about chord voicing.

Sandra stood up.  “Richard, can you sight read some accompaniment for me?”

“Um, sure, I can try.”

“I’ll be right back.” Sandra bounced out of the room.

“Oh, good.  I’m glad she has decided to sing,” Allison said.

“We haven’t heard her either, really,” Emily said.  “Except when she practices in the room: sometimes I catch a bit before I go in.”

“Do you stand outside the door, too?” Richard asked knowingly.

Emily nodded.  “She has a beautiful voice.”

A few minutes later, Sandra returned, carrying a book.  The others looked at her expectantly as she opened to a page.

“Do you know this?” she asked Richard.

“No, doesn’t sound familiar.  I’ve never played any Charpentier.  I don’t know that I’ve even heard of him.”

“Well, I don’t know if you can sight read this, but just do what you can,” she said to Richard.

“G major… Shouldn’t be too bad.  Or not G major,” he added, as he scanned down the page.  “Let me just check it out for a minute,” he said,  glancing through the measures.  He played a few spots here and there, finding the notes and fingerings.  After trying out snippets from the first few pages, he turned to her.  “It won’t be perfect,  but I’ll give it a try.  How fast?”

Sandra hummed the first phrase quietly.  “Something like that.”

“Okay.  Glad it’s not too fast…”

Sandra smiled.  “I’m a little nervous,” she admitted.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.  I love singing.  I guess doing it for the first time in front of people I know is always a little difficult for me.”

“Just get it over with then,” Richard joked.  “Ready?”

Sandra nodded, and then set herself.  Her face took on a concentrated look.  Richard began, playing the pair of two note phrases which served as introduction.

When Sandra’s voice entered, it was otherworldly.  She first echoed the two notes, and then continued along a languorous phrase. 

Allison watched Sandra intently.  She had her eyes closed, and she shaped each note with her lips, arching up to the high notes with ease.  There was no strain in her timbre, only purity.

The music turned more active, and for the most part Richard managed to keep the accompaniment going.  Occasionally he played a wrong chord or dropped out a hand, but it was still incredible to Allison that Richard and Sandra could make music together so quickly. 

As the piece progressed, Richard seemed to lock into Sandra’s performance, following her changes in phrasing and timing.  It was almost a magical transformation, and by the climactic section of the aria, Sandra was looking at Richard as she sang.  Allison shuddered in pleasure. 

How she wished she could be in this environment!  To make music with friends, or even lovers, day in and day out, exploring the subtleties of each other’s feelings through musical performance… 

Allison could see the love in Sandra’s eyes as she sang for Richard. 

When the piece wound down and finished in a final quiet phrase of repose, Allison again had no words.  She had been taken far from the small basement room in which they sat, to a place where she could live forever.  She knew the high of music, and she had forgotten it in the passing years.  To be thrust back there now was overwhelming. 

With watery eyes, she smiled up at Sandra.  Allison stood and gave Sandra a hug, since words were not useful. 

This had been a night Allison would never forget.

Forward to Chapter 14

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