The Gradual (6 page)

They were young men half a world away, so removed from me musically and artistically that there could not be anything interesting to say to each other, certainly not about music. Their music, their record, seemed a crude thing to me. In spite of its apparent success, I assumed it would soon fade into obscurity.

I felt tainted by the disdain for young musicians in the letter that had been sent to me, and could not entirely throw off the feeling, but I knew that the only way to deal with the problem was to try to ignore what had happened, move on. I had not created the situation. I did not want and could not afford a dispute with Msr Ante and his friends, but I wished he had not stolen my ideas.

Other than this distraction I was busy and productive. Two more long-playing records were released, one of them to coincide with and celebrate my fortieth birthday. This brought my first symphonic work to the public. It was formally called Opus 37, Symphony No. 1 in E Flat Minor, but it was also known less formally as the ‘Marine’ Symphony. I had scribbled this word in pencil on the first page of the score and someone at the recording studio noticed it and picked up on it.

The Marine Symphony was about imaginings, about dreams, wishes. It celebrated islands I was not supposed to know existed, it depicted the seas around them, the life that was in, of and on the sea, the ships and boats and the people who worked on them, the creatures who swam beneath the waves, but most of all it was about my imaginings of the beaches, houses, harbours, reefs, mountains, endless glowing vistas of the islands that crowded the shallow sea.

Settled, feeling creatively fertile, I began to forget about Ante. It was a false dawn, though, because an experience much worse than plagiarism was soon to happen to me. This was a real crisis, a disaster, my life thrown into chaos – but there was no hint of what was to come or how it would develop. It started so well.

I was negotiating with the management of the Federal Hall in Glaund City for the first live performance of the Marine Symphony, when a large sealed envelope was handed to me. It contained a letter of invitation. There was to be an overseas orchestral tour – I was requested to join it.

The plan was for a series of concerts on a few prime islands in the Dream Archipelago. ‘Requested’ would be an inadequate way of describing the words they used. I was implored to grace the adventure with my presence, my lustrous genius, etc.

I read the letter many times, savouring not the flattery and the blatant appeals to my vanity, but the thought of travelling at last in those islands so sacred to my inner world. There was a condition to the invitation, though, one I was not happy with. It created a conflict for me.

As soon as I was home again I showed the invitation to Alynna, handing her the envelope, urging her to look inside. I tried not to reveal my feelings as she scanned the extravagantly polite letter.

‘Are you pleased?’ she said, still holding the letter.

‘Of course! Of course!’ I said, knowing I was shouting the words at her, but I had for the moment lost control, such were the feelings pouring through me. I had been holding back the excitement all day, waiting for this chance to share the news with my wife.

‘I thought you would be,’ she said, and we embraced and kissed.

‘Then you knew this was coming.’

‘Sandro, I have been trying for many weeks to find a way to have you included in this tour. They wanted you from the outset, but they were afraid to ask, did not know what to offer you, were concerned that you would reject them.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

She hugged me again. ‘You can be difficult to please sometimes.’

I stepped away from her, taking up the letter again. I took what she said as a cue, because she knew me so well.

‘You know I would love to be on the tour,’ I said. ‘But they don’t want me to play. How could they do that to me? I have two concerti, several sonatas, the new symphony. Those suites about the islands! They are begging to be played by me. I am the best person, the only person, to perform them. I could conduct if they don’t want me to perform—’

Alynna stood quietly beside me, waiting for me to subside. We knew each other well – I could feel her patient regard, but I also knew that first I had to relieve the pressure of disappointment.

Finally, she said, ‘Sandro, they want more of you than you think. You are not a player any more – you have grown beyond that now.’

‘They want me to stand by, wait around in the auditorium while other people struggle to play my music?’

‘You haven’t read the prospectus yet, have you?’

‘I don’t need to,’ I said. The three or four extra sheets of paper had been tucked into the envelope, a firmer fit than the small, elegantly hand-written letter of invitation. ‘I’m being marginalized again.’

‘Sandro – read the prospectus.’

She sat down on the small hard chair that was on the opposite side of my writing desk. It was unusual for her to be in my studio with me. She knew all along what the letter contained. Was she complicit in the plans? Had she realized the conflict of feelings they would arouse? I extracted the extra sheets and glanced at them dismissively, skimming.

The whole thing felt irrationally to me as if it had been spoiled. Part of me accepted how temperamental I could be. Alynna had known for some years what I was like to live with, my preoccupations, my sudden changes of mood, my long silences. I was driven by my art, the giving, the expressing, but I was also ambitious, conceited, quick to jealousy. I was a cocktail of artistic urges and motives, all ultimately caused by the music that surged through my mind. I tried hard to temper my passions, make myself seem normal, modify the impulses that otherwise I would yield to. I loved Alynna, she was everything to me, but I had the devil of music in me, the unavoidable obedience to its demands. This, I knew, was one of those difficult times, but I was annoyed as well as disappointed.

I did not recognize the name that was signed at the bottom of the letter. But as I read hastily through the prospectus I did glimpse several names I knew: principals from orchestras I had worked with, musicians I knew, solo singers, two conductors based in Glaund City, three more guest conductors whose names I did not immediately recognize.

Then the list of works that would be performed on the tour: it was the familiar repertoire: symphonies and concerti, operatic arias, several popular light classics, a handful of short modernist works. (Two of mine were included.) All well chosen, varied, acceptable, enjoyable to perform and be listened to.

On the final page my name appeared. Written large.
Composer emeritus – Alesandro Sussken
.

I was to mentor young musicians, conduct masterclasses, tutor singly, run seminars, give private demonstration recitals.

‘It’s the kind of work you’re best at, Sandro,’ Alynna said, leaning towards me intently. ‘Please don’t be too proud to accept this. The tour could change everything for you: work, career, even your life.’

Hindsight recalls that moment of inadvertency. Prospects are always ambivalent: Alynna meant changes for the better, and I understood them to mean what she said in the same way. Neither of us then knew any different – but hindsight is the opposite of foresight.

If the future by some miracle became knowable to us, how would we really behave? Alynna spoke the words at the moment I was feeling my disappointment and annoyance fading away. The tour glittered before me, a prospect of sea and islands and the music I loved. I saw what was intended for me, I realized the great potential.

‘Tell me what you knew about this, Alynna,’ I said.

‘I had little to do with it.’

‘But you knew the letter was coming.’

‘The man who wrote the letter, the one who is promoting the tour, is called Ders Axxon. He’s an islander and this is his first major tour. It’s incredibly important to him. He comes from a small island, one called Memmchek, but he works from Muriseay. You remember Denn Mytrie?’

‘Of course.’

‘Msr Axxon made contact with you because of Denn. He is here in Glaund to set up the tour and book the artists. He didn’t know the correct way to approach you.’

‘Couldn’t he have called me?’

‘Sandro, he’s terrified of you.’

‘Terrified of me?’

‘You frighten some people. You have … a reputation for irascibility.’

‘Me? Irascible?’ I said.

‘You are often short with people,’ Alynna said. ‘Some of the people you most need are frightened of you.’

‘But I mean no harm,’ I insisted, feeling defensive.

She moved around my desk, leaning over beside me as at last I read the prospectus carefully. She rested her hand gently on the back of my neck – these days there was not much physical intimacy between us but I still enjoyed having her close to me.

We had grown over the years into a working partnership, confiding, supporting each other, working separately but in harmony, planning our lives, but the excitement of the early days had passed. It seemed to suit us both, but at that moment I liked the warm companionship conveyed by the feeling of her fingers against my skin.

‘What about you, Alynna,’ I said finally. ‘If I decide to go on this tour, will you come too?’

‘This is for you. They have already asked me if I would like to join the tour, but I said no.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to be there with me? To see the islands?’

‘Obviously I’ve thought about it. But for you the islands are unique. You must go, make the most of the opportunity. You’ve always wanted this. I’ve all the usual things to do here.’

I turned back through the pages. ‘But I’ll be gone for – what is it? Eight weeks?’

‘Nearly nine.’ She reached back to her music case, which she had brought in with her and laid on the floor behind her. She pulled out her diary, showed me the entries she had already made, blocking out the period when I would be away. ‘Look – I’ve been preparing. I’m taking on two extra students. I’ll be busy all the time you are away.’

Later, while I was browsing through the itinerary, a list of towns and islands and island clusters I had never heard of before, I noticed that one of the places we would visit was the island of Temmil. The home of the man who plagiarized me. The choker of air, amid the floating of flower scent.

So it began.

So, immediately, it went on. Time was short, and in the whirl of necessary preparations I found it more or less impossible to work. The duties I would have to perform during the tour were obviously designed to be light. There would be an opportunity for workshop meetings in every city and on every island. Spare days were set aside for me to fill with whatever I wished. I could take on extra tutorials or masterclasses as suited me, but there would also be abundant time for me to explore some of the places we visited, or even to find some solitary time for a little composing. It was, in short, designed as a working holiday, a reward perhaps, something I would find attractive.

But I still had to prepare and three trips to Glaund City were necessary. I had to meet the organizing staff, fill out innumerable official forms from various island states, make sure I had a passport and various visas, succumb to inoculation against a range of tropical diseases and possible insect stings, create a list of which musical instruments I intended to carry with me (I opted for my violin), and in general discuss any other requirements. The staff who helped me with my preparations were all native Glaundians like me, so they had only the vaguest idea of what we would discover during the trip.

They told us there would be a full briefing by the tour promoter before we departed.

My commitments during this period were lighter than those of the orchestra members and soloists, so in spite of travelling to and fro, fretting about what clothes I should take with me, and so on, I did have time to reflect.

I had spent so much of my time dreaming and fantasizing about the islands that I had created a plausible but totally imaginary Dream Archipelago in my mind. I had drawn music productively from these fantasies, but would the reality live up to the dream? What in fact was I going to find, and how was I going to react to it?

Three days before the actual departure I travelled to Glaund City for the final briefing. Once I arrived I realized for the first time how many people were going to be involved: the full personnel of a symphony orchestra, other musicians who would take part in smaller recitals and chamber pieces, many soloists and singers, sound and stage crews, admin staff.

I was in good spirits – so too was everyone else I spoke to. If nothing else we were leaving Glaund as the cold weather was about to set in – the damp darkness of a typical winter was imminent, where inversion layers intensified the fog and fumes of the industrial pollution, the ground was permanently frozen, the winds bore down from the northern mountains. We would miss the first weeks of that, always the worst because there was no hope of a change for the better for several long months ahead.

Eventually, everyone was asked to take a seat and the unfamiliar figure of Ders Axxon, our promoter, addressed us. I loved the sound of his voice from his first words: he had the same musical lilt, the sound of the islands, that I had discovered in my friend Denn Mytrie.

He spoke briefly and amusingly about the prospects for the orchestra and the players, how enjoyable the entire excursion was likely to be, and how important it was for us to take our modern musical culture out to the islands. He explained that many islanders considered themselves to be isolated, and gave a mock warning that our concerts would be greeted with an enthusiastic appreciation that would be more effusive than anything we had experienced from northern audiences.

He concluded his presentation by introducing the many notables who would be participating in the tour: the conductors, soloists, singers. I was among those asked to stand up, and everyone there applauded encouragingly.

After this, members of Axxon’s staff gave some extra information about practical arrangements: the travel plans, how to deal with small emergencies, who to contact for particular requirements, and more. A Q&A followed, where several small concerns were raised and dealt with.