Music From Standing Waves by Johanna Craven Read Free Book Online Page A

“Still, maybe you should stop
talking about leaving for a while. I feel terrible. None of this
would have happened if I hadn’t brought that up.”
    “I want to do it so much,” I said. “And I’m
going to. I don’t care what my mum says.”
    He flashed me a half-hearted smile. “That’s
good. But let’s just keep it to ourselves for a while. Maybe your
mum will calm down.” He knelt back on the carpet and shuffled
through the crate of manuscript. “Are you going to play? I thought
we were having a lesson now.”
    “I didn’t bring my violin,” I sniffed. “Can I
use yours?”
    “Sure.” Andrew produced an old, leather bound
folio with curly gold writing on the cover. “Elgar Violin
Sonata . Want to play it with me?”
    The Elgar E Minor .
    Back then, it was the most magical piece I
had ever heard. It made me think of somewhere distant and exotic.
Somewhere it hailed and snowed. Somewhere the sky was milky and
grey, where mountains broke the horizon. The music made me ache for
something I couldn’t define. Made me long for something I could
never express.
    I opened the score carefully. The pages were
yellowing around the edges. Inside the cover was an inscription
written in faded fountain pen. ‘Happy anniversary 1930 .’
    “Where did you get this?” I asked. “It’s an
antique.”
    “I think it belonged to my
great-grandmother,” said Andrew. “If you like the piece, I’ll copy
it for you.”
    I scanned through the pages of ledger lines
and accidentals. “It looks hard.”
    “You’re up for it. We’ll take it slow.” He
took off his watch and sat it on top of the piano. “This will be
good for me too. I haven’t done much serious playing since I moved
here. This place isn’t exactly a cultural centre, is it.” He
plucked carefully through the opening staccato of the piano part. I
reached down and flicked open the violin case.
    “Andrew?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Being stuck here is a waste of time for me,
isn’t it.”
    “Well… Musically, yes,” he admitted. “You
could be learning a whole lot more somewhere else. But you have
your whole life ahead of you. Fourteen is still pretty young to be
moving across the country by yourself. And you’re not supposed to
be thinking about leaving, remember?”
    He hit an A on the piano and waited for me to
tune the violin. I finished with an angry down-bow. I didn’t want
Andrew to be rational. I wanted him to take my side. To despise my
mother the way I did.
    “Andrew?”
    “Mmm?”
    “When Oliver grows up, you wouldn’t make him
stay here if it was a waste of his time, would you?”
    Andrew turned back to the music. “Oliver’s
one, Abs, I can’t say I’ve thought about it.”
    “But just say you had…”
    “Come on. Let’s just play, okay?”
    We sight-read through the first movement of
the Elgar. Slowed for each other in the difficult sections, but did
so without speaking, listening to the rise and fall of the melody.
The tune passed between the instruments in wordless dialogue;
hidden motifs spiralling underneath. Minor arpeggios yearned
upwards and I felt myself straining for escape with them. The music
made me long for something I couldn’t express. I let the melody
carry me.
    Andrew moved his back and shoulders a lot
when he played the piano. I watched him in my bars rest, moving
with the motion of the music. I wondered if he knew he was doing
it. I wished I had the same deep understanding of music that Andrew
had. He’d begun to show me there was far more to my pieces than
just notes. Each sonata, each scherzo, each study was a product of
another time, another place. Another composer’s response to their
world. I heard Vivaldi’s religious devotion, Paganini’s love for
the stage, the salons of Mozart’s Vienna. I loved to think that for
thousands of years, there had been people like me who had been
moved inexplicably by sound. People who had spent their lives
striving to create beautiful music.
    My tone was richer on