Days went by as I rehearsed with the young orchestra. By rehearsing, I mean practically taking over it. Forte Waltz settled on being the conductor while I took over as the pianist. Those next few days were amusing, considering the graceful fact that the orchestra did have a sense of humor. Especially at one point during the third movement, when I set those teenagers to roaring by commenting, “A little more from the brass – let it be known to the world as if you’ve given a great fart!” While the teacher didn’t approve of this, the students certainly did.
At the same time, the closer it got to the opening of the Empire’s music festival, the more excited I became. Even as I went to and from the Opera House, I could hear it in the air that musicians were warming up, getting ready to unleash new melodies on the crowd. Indeed, new faces appeared in the streets, whose very presence prophesied the coming of unheard harmonies. Stages were being built this way and that. Banners and posters that were blank in the morning became a rainbow of images by the evening. Even the pubs too were scheduling performances.
But the morning when the first concert was to be performed, my fortepiano was carried through the streets and me in a carriage behind it. Around me in the blinding light of dawn, guards were keeping the path towards the theater open as crowds came to see me. Countless onlookers were flashing their cameras in my direction.
“Remind me again why you don’t want to go discreetly?” That came from Wilfried as he, the cook and the new maid were riding with me.
“Because,” said I, “it would be a crime to have been missing for two centuries, have your works become famous over the years and then not show your face in public. That’s just rude,” I giggled, turning my face at another flashing camera. “Are you all as excited for the festival as I am?”
The maid nodded, “We’re looking forward to it. Every singer, band, soloist, orchestra, for every genre of music, has come here to play. There’s a few of them, I admit, that I especially want to hear.”
“So do I.” Grinning, I practically bounced in the carriage. “This is going to be so much fun! It’ll be like a carnival, only for music lovers!”
“But what exactly are you planning on doing after you perform the opening number?” my cook inquired.
“Get lost of course,” I laughed my hyena cackle. “That’s the real fun. You can’t enjoy any festival if you can’t get lost in it a little.”
Soon enough we arrived at the Crystal Opera House where there were lines encompassing the place. We disembarked from the chariot and followed the piano until my servants had to go take their seats. I, however, followed it closely to the open stage behind. After carefully placing the instrument down, I hopped onto the lid, letting my hindlegs dangle off the floor, watching the theater being filled up. For several minutes, I watched the young orchestra come in, wearing their finest clothing, tuning up their instruments. Meanwhile, in the audience, flashes of light caught my eye as they flared up here and there before disappearing in the flood of faces.
I waited on the lid of my piano until it was time. At ten o’clock sharp, the last empty seats -- the Royal Box -- were filled in. Right across from me I saw not just Princesses Cadance and Twilight, and Prince Shining Armor – but also Princess Celestia, and three other figures that I’ve never seen before. One was a unicorn with a blond mane. One was a small dragon with green and purple scales (many of the crystal citizens cheered him on sight). And there was another who I couldn’t see but stuck to Celestia like a shadow.
The princess in pink walked up to the railings as her horn sparked. “Mares and Gentlecolts, Citizens of the Empire, fellow Equestrians, and those from afar: On behalf of the Crystal Empire, I welcome you to the opening of the annual Crystal Music Festival.” There was applause all around, the familiar stomping hooves against the ground. “Now, this year’s festival is extra special. As we have with us a legend in the realm of music, as you’ll soon see, he’ll be the one to start it all off. We are fortunate enough to have one of history’s greatest virtuosos: Wolfgang Amadeus Moztrot.”
I smiled and waved both my forelegs while the crowds cheered. At this point, I jumped off from the piano and landed all four legs on the crystal stage. “I have to say,” I called out as the cheering died down. “That this, right here, is the largest audience I’ve ever had. Really, even with my most popular of operas, never have I beheld so many ponies come out just to hear me play. So I thank every one of you for coming here.” There was another burst of applause, and then I added, “Just one more thing.” I turned to the children. “Out of all the orchestras I’ve performed with, this one here is of the highest quality that I have heard in years, so please, give them the credit due them for the hard work they’ve put into this.” Another round of applause; the young musicians stood up from their seats and took a bow. “So how about we don’t waste any more time and get straight to what you came for?”
Buoyed by the energy of those eager ponies, I hopped over to the keyboard, signaling to the conductor to begin. Forte Waltz lifted up a white stick (surely the sad, distant, starved to the edge of death descendant of the baton) and his students raised their strings and brass, readying themselves for the opening bar.
The Allegro began from the strings. A dark tonic in D minor, which in its brightness casts foreboding shadows. Like the fading light of a sunset, darkness stretched and expanded over those who listened. Bassoons, clarinets, and brass softly come like threatening clouds. A storm was coming, approaching in the twilight hours, disturbing the calm night. Within a moment, once the only light had gone down behind the horizon, and the storm approached with great urgency, did thunder from the tympani strike!
I turned to look out at the reactions of the audience, and there were plenty to choose from. The elder folk were listening with reverence; however, the young seemed to look at one another with confusion and perplexity. In fact, near the front row, I heard one of them ask, “Is it me, or does it sound like something that Beethoven would write?” Ah! A clue to this unknown musician: that he was known for darker, if not a little bit noisy, works. However, I hadn’t much time to ponder about it as my part was coming up.
With my hooves on the keyboard, I redirected my imagination towards a coach driver who had lost his way. Pulling a sleepy family in the carriage behind him, he tried to navigate the woods through flickering lanterns. And as I began softly, I noticed that every murmur went dead silent, leaving nothing but the sound of my instrument to echo in the great hall. As much as I wanted to look out over the audience, my attention was firmly on the instrument before me as my hooves played out our hero’s desperate plight to find his way through the woods in the midst of the chaotic storm. Several times, this imaginary driver pleaded to nature to have mercy and give him guidance – much like how a worshipper begs their angry Deity for deliverance from Their wrath. Back and forth, this dialogue continued as the coach driver tried to survive the strong wind, the heavy rain, all the while holding on to that desperate hope that he may make it through this uneven landscape.
Having my hooves synchronized to the story of a lost traveler in my head, I unleashed notes in rapid succession and harmony with the orchestra. Icy winds made my left hoof tremble. As the hero sought shelter my right let the notes linger in anticipation. In my mind’s eye, I saw the coach driver galloping through the mud, shining his lantern this way or that while pulling the heavy carriage behind him. However, the orchestra proved the storm was still in control as woodwinds blew a hurricane at the precious cargo, threatening to topple it over. The strings provided the wintery rain that blindsided the driver. And the crashing horns and drums, too, shook the hope of our hero.
Then in the few minutes before the end of the first movement, I decided on a whim to improvise, to increase the dramatic climax of the coda. The music instructor glanced over to me bewildered. “What are you doing?” he whispered. I didn’t answer him; I was too focused on what my muse commanded me to do. She instructed me that the driver was getting close to the edge of the woods so he made a mad dash towards the end. I didn’t know why he -- or even the orchestra, come to that -- looked surprised, for I improvised in the middle of my concertos all the time. If anything, you were considered dull if you didn’t do so.
For a brief moment, I let my hooves spin a new addendum to the tale in my head while at the same time, never straying from the same key, time signatures and even the bars of the original passage. Then with a wave of a hoof, I set the orchestra back again on the story’s course, into the closing of the movement.
Thankfully, the audience approved of this. Before the students could flip their copies to the next movement, the opera house gave over to the stomping of hooves. I couldn’t resist standing up and taking a bow while encouraging the young ones to do the same.
In the second movement, it was my turn to start. The romance began with a nostalgic memory for the hero in my head -- that of home, of a burning hearth, the warm nuzzle of a beautiful spouse and the plucking of a music box playing a forgotten lullaby. However, my thoughts had drifted to a different sort of daydream. It was a sort of fantasy when I and Constanze were just married, of that morning when we woke up in our wedding bed.
Even the orchestra too, had provided the right atmosphere in which we were woken up as the dawn was shining through the curtains of the window. The movement brought it all back to me as if it had happened yesterday. Of those warm sheets, my hooves still wrapped around her. The scent of that garden-like perfume on her mane and the faint scent of long burned out candles. And those soft lips that told me: “Good morning, Wolfie.” It was almost enough to have me just stay there forever and ever in that cocoon of the finest sheets in the entire world. How I thought that I was holding a sleeping goddess. Then as I reentered with the piano, to which the students played in harmony, other memories came to mind. Of parties that we spent hours playing our games and disgusted the guests to the point they vomited. Or the times in which we made up dances, stomping around our apartment until those living below shouted at us to keep it down.
From the violins and violas, came the same passion that I’d had for my wife; the winds and brass were my heart swelling up every time I came back home. Even on my worst of days, I could always count on her to make me smile.
Back in the present, I glanced over at the audience again. Among the sea of faces, were islands of couples with hooves wrapped around each other. Many of them leaned together like couples bathing in the warmth of the sun – no doubt relaxing in the atmosphere so serene.
But then came the development that disrupted that tranquility: Father. Out of the explosion of sound, the piano and the orchestra became battling opposites. From one side, the orchestra suddenly took on the role of my father, always against our marriage; and on the other, the piano that had taken on my wife’s voice, quarreling how he was wrong. In other words a musical impression of a furious argument. Stubborn chords clashed with arrogant harmonies, creating a vast gap between the high and low registers. However, this descent into chaos ebbed away; the tyrannical strings and brass eventually lost their voices until only the piano was left, drifting back to the original theme which it closed as softly as it began.
We then moved on into the final movement in which I began with a tantrum. Sharp, loud chords opened the beginning of the end where notes tumbled in a sort of freefall. When the orchestra made its reply in a whirlwind of sound, my ears picked up murmurs from the audience. It was many different things, but I could tell that they were all talking about the same pony: “Beethoven.” Even in this last movement, it was like his mysterious spirit hovered about. Yet, I was left to wonder why as the youth performed contortions of pianissimo and fortissimo with a dramatic flair.
Still, I carried on, as now my mind went back to a particular moment in time. Vague at it was, I played with grace, at the memory of how I was thrust from the day I died to the day I was reborn. All I could remember of my travel through time was the sensation of falling without end. Of how my sickly, weak body flung about this way and that as if I were a ragdoll. Even when the movement took on a more lighthearted theme, my virtuosity still refused to let my hooves become frantic, as though possessed by a musical demon.
The rest of the movement was a rush, ending just as soon as it began. As the young orchestra and I made it through the final cadenza, these children playing their hearts out towards the final chords, it was over. The opera house was an avalanche of applause. Both from the audience and from the orchestra. I had never heard such a loud expression of delight before. So I got up and bowed in every direction.
While my forelegs were weary, I was excited because now the music festival was open. I couldn’t wait to hear what new music this new age had to offer on a golden platter. And I knew as I bowed just what I wanted to do: seek out Beethoven.