The next afternoon, once Spike was finished with his chores at the library, he hurried along towards his piano teacher’s house with a new piece of sheet music under his claw. He was running from street to street, dodging ponies in a mad dash because he knew from his internal clock that he was late. But at the same time, thanks to the newly printed manuscripts that Twilight brought from last night, especially when she encouraged him to have this particular music introduced to his teacher.
On the near outskirts of town and on top of a hill, the little dragon headed towards one of the most unique cottages in Ponyville. It was fitting considering the ponies that reside there. One half was a homely wooden brown with recycled organ pipes for chimneys while the other was violet where the flowerpots under the windows had a piano pattern around it while in front of the house was a musical note shaped hedge.
Heading up to the half and half front door, he knocked on the door while taking a moment to take back his breath. A moment later, the door opened to a white unicorn with a blue mane, purple shades, and earphones hanging around her neck.
“Hey D J,” Spike waved, “Is Octavia still here?”
“I am actually,” said a voice from inside. To which, the unicorn stepped aside, letting the roommate through, “You’re about ten minutes late Spike.”
“Yes I know, I know,” the little dragon said as he walked in. “I had a couple of chores that needed to be taken care of and I was selecting some new music.”
The gray earth pony mare raised an eyebrow as her student went straight towards the baby grand while her roommate returned to the couch. “So I assume that you’ve chosen a new song to practice for the recital in October?”
Spike hopped onto the bench, “Actually, I’m rather excited. Tell me, have you heard about the giant that came in yesterday?”
“I’m not sure, I wasn’t here yesterday,” Octavia approached the piano. “Why?”
“Well, the guy is a composer that by luck had brought all his copies of his music along with him. Better yet, he just gave permission last night to have them published too, which is why I’ve brought this.” He set the sheet music on the piano stand. “I’ve chosen this in particular because by the looks of it, I think I might be able to play it. But can you do it first to see what you think of it?”
“Okay?” Octavia sat down at the black and white keyboard. Looking up at the music before her, while it had a funny name and spelling, the music was easy enough for her to play through. “Alright, let’s see what we have here.”
She placed her hooves on the keys and began a soft, slow dance of sixteenth notes. The very start was a very simple melody to not only listen to but to teach to Octavia’s mind. In a way, it was like a long lost love letter from a child given its simple tune. For a while, she was beginning to think that it was too simple until it started to develop from it. It would return to those two dancing notes before it was resolved again.
As she played on, the piece became a little more challenging as chords were being added and quicker notes added the tension in some places. She noted that there were contrasts of the light melody from a darker undertone that weaved together like a tapestry. Not to mention that there were plenty of sharp and natural notes that made her pay attention. As well as the grace notes that were almost too advanced in some areas.
By the time she pressed the final notes, she sat back, nodding her head, “Interesting… Spike, I can see why you would have chosen this, though, for your level of skill, this may prove to be a challenge for you. For instance, this passage here as well as here would require you to really pay attention where you’re putting your claws at. Not only that, but you would also need to watch out for the decrescendos and grace notes if this is going to work.” She turned to him with a raised eyebrow, “Where did you find this again?”
“I keep telling you, this is the music that the giant wrote,” Spike said. “But before we get to me taking a crack out of this, what did you think?”
“Well… it’s charming, I’ll give you that. To me, it sounds like a forgotten love song in some places, while in others it seems a little too virtuoso in others. But I don’t think it would be anything too hard for you to handle.”
“So I take it that you like it?”
“It sounds nice to me.”
The baby dragon sighed, “Oh good, because right after this lesson, Twilight wants me to give you a message.”
Octavia tilted her head, “That being?”
“The composer who wrote that he and Twi are coming over here to talk to you.”
_*_
Be it Vienna or Ponyville, Beethoven followed his usual routine that after lunch, he would go out into the streets or the countryside with his pockets full to bursting with paper and pencils, thinking about nothing but music in his head. Not to say that he did get a few stares from the ponies around him as he hummed loudly and waved his arms about as if he was conducting an invisible orchestra. This time, he was in the grassy park, listening to the silence to catch the third movement of his new symphony through his head. In his mind, the horns, bassoons, piccolo's and clarinets were improvising a theme in which it was as pleasant as this sunny day. On top of this, a string quartet hummed while a possible violin sonata waltzed, all of which he juggled in his mind.
From the sight of the giant waving his arms about, many ponies had mistaken it as a sign for them to get out of his sight, even fathers and mothers called out to their children to not get too close to him. Friends and families stayed away from the old man’s path that seemed as if he was in the middle of a mental breakdown.
That was, except for a certain alicorn Princess of Friendship that flew around him until she landed before him. On instinct, Ludwig pulled out his conversation book with a pencil and hand it over to her.
I’ve been looking all over for you. What have you been doing?
“Working,” he replied as he continued on his walk with Twilight in tow. “I’ve been trying to think about one of my movements through before I can set it down onto paper.”
You were supposed to come with me to see Spike’s teacher an hour ago. It’s almost three!
“Is that so? Tell me, does that clock tower have bells?”
At this question, Twilight’s frustration transformed from annoyance to embarrassment.
No comment.
With a frustrated sigh, Ludwig said, “Warum bin ich nicht überrascht?” Looking down at the princess, he asked, “How far is this teacher’s home?”
It’s a short walk that way. We might be there within five minutes.
Ludwig immediately changed course with the lilac pony following by his side. By the time they were out of the park, Twilight’s curiosity gotten a hold of her to write down an inquiry for him.
Mr. Beethoven, yesterday you were talking about how you played for your Moztrot. Tell me, how did that happen?
“How it happened?” Ludwig answered, “Well, when I was quite young and was trapped in Bonn to take care of the family, one of my teachers there that taught me about composing had advised me to go to Vienna where I could really learn from the most talented musicians and composers of the day. It took a while to scrape some money for me to go there, but once I did, I took a carriage for several days towards Vienna. I think I might have been… thirteen, fourteen or probably fifteen at the time when I traveled there. Now mind you, there were several other composers that I could have gone to understand music further such as Salieri or Haydn. But for me, the one composer that I wanted to learn from the start was my idol, Mozart.” Just then, he stopped at the cottage came into view, “Is that a house?”
Twilight looked over to what he was looking at and wrote down the explanation.
It is. The house was renovated by two roommates, Octavia (who we’re going to see), and Vinyl Scratch (or as she’s well known as DJ Pon-3). I think it was made like that because they’ve said it was cheaper to share the rent or something like that.
Ludwig looked up again at the house, “I don’t know if I’ll ever understand you ponies.”
Twilight took the lead as they walked up to the door and the mare knocked on the door. A moment later, it was answered by Octavia, “Your Majesty!” she bowed before looking up… and up, at Ludwig. “My… Spike wasn’t exaggerating, he really is a giant.”
The princess looked between her and Ludwig, “You mean you didn’t know about him arriving yesterday?”
“Vinyl and I weren’t here yesterday,” she said, once again looking up at him. “Well, hello there, my name is Octavia Melody, and my student has already told me abo-”
“Stop! Stop!” Beethoven put his conversation book down in front of her, “Write it down, I can’t hear.”
This seemed to taken her by surprise and looked over to Twilight, “Didn’t Spike told you that he’s deaf?”
The piano teacher shook her head and picked up a pencil to write her introduction of who she is to him.
Once she was done, Ludwig picked it up. “So you’re the piano teacher?” she nodded. “And you play the cello in an orchestra. Good, at least I’ve found at least someone in this town that I can relate to.”
“Ms. Melody,” Twilight spoke up, “May we come in?”
“Of course,” Octavia stepped aside, letting the alicorn in while Beethoven had to duck before entering in. Once inside, he reached his hand up to see if his head would touch the ceiling and, sure enough, he had to bend over a bit when he stood up. He quickly noticed that despite the cramped space, he did see some recognizable things in the half and half living room. At one end was a piano, a beautifully made cello with a library of sheet music laying around on shelves. On the other, however, lying was a couch with a white unicorn with a blue mane nodding her head rhythmically with some discs around her ears. She was right next to some kind of machines that Ludwig had never seen before.
Octavia seemed to roll her eyes and went up to the laid back mare and tapped her to suddenly getting her to jolt upright. The gray mare reached a hoof to the discs around the other’s ears to pull them off, “Vinyl, get up, Princess Twilight is here.”
Vinyl, however, looked up at Beethoven, pointing at her before doing the same at him.
“This is a guest of the princess,” she said to her, “Vinyl, this is Mr. Beethoven; the composer of what Spike had brought in to play.”
“Why isn’t she talking?” Ludwig asked, offering his conversation book over to them, in which was engulfed by a violet light along with a pencil. The white unicorn quickly wrote something down before giving it back to him.
Can’t, I’m mute.
“What are you? A musician as well?” She nodded, “Somehow, I’m not surprised. A musician who can’t speak and a composer who can’t hear must be a friendship made in heaven.”
The white mare’s jaw dropped raising a hoof up in the universal, ‘Are you kidding me?’ shrug. Twilight, meanwhile gave a disapproved gaze, but Ludwig wasn’t paying any attention at her.
“Pardon me Princess Twilight,” Octavia spoke up, “but may I ask why you and… Mr. Beethoven, are here?”
“I was hoping that you might help me pull a few strings,” she said. “You see, we have a very rare opportunity, something that has never happened before in Equestria’s history. For you see, in my library I have several dozens of manuscripts that, in our timeline dates around the time after Moztrot’s death. Not just that, but we have music from a completely different universe altogether from where Mr. Beethoven had come from. All classical music that’s completely unknown to Equestria, and I need you to help perform them.”
Octavia raised an eyebrow, “Does this have anything to do with what Spike brought in this afternoon?”
Twilight nodded, “Yes. And so much more! With Ludwig’s permission, I have finished manuscripts – printed manuscripts of nine symphonies, piano concertos, string quartets, sonatas and more. Since you’re a part of the Canterlot Philharmonic, perhaps you can help introduce a new kind of music to the world.”
“I don’t know…” the Cellist raised a hoof to her chin, “You said that your friend is deaf, isn’t he?”
Then, Twilight got an idea, “Do you have a spoon that I can borrow? Like a very big, metal spoon?” Even in her confusion, that spoon was brought to her. The Princess returned to Ludwig and waved over for his conversation book.
She wrote aloud, “Tell… me… do… you… remember… what… you’ve… played… for… Moztrot?”
“It’s Mozart!” Beethoven corrected, “And yes, I still remember what happened that day.” Taking the spoon in his hand, he went over to the piano.
“He played for Moztrot?” Octavia questioned, but Twilight shushed her.
“You see, Herr Mozart wasn’t the kind that easily takes in pupils,” he said pulling the bench underneath. “Since he was a very busy man, he didn’t usually take in students to teach them about the piano, much less for composition. However, he did say that if he were to teach me, I have to prove it to him that I was really worth his time. So by letter, we agreed that he’ll set up a little trial for me at a salon from a friend of his, where I got the privilege to play on his own piano!
“Well,” he laughed, “you can imagine how little I was, so nervous that I was being judged by my idol. But, when the time came, I had to be brave and started playing something for him. I played a variation of his own composition, so I went up with some sheet music in hand, and played something like this.”
Ludwig put the spoon in his teeth, lay the other end onto the piano and began playing. The first four notes walked up from the lower end of the keyboard before switching to the higher end for some quick notes. After playing the same board theme again, Beethoven took out the spoon from his teeth, “But Mozart was terribly unimpressed. ‘Eh, nothing special,’ I remember him saying. ‘Anyone can read a piece of music and play it back like an organ grinder’s monkey, especially when there’s no expressive creativity that makes an artist’s invention.’
“And with that, Herr Mozart left the room, and I was so panicked stricken, that I immediately began to improvise, on a similar theme, but this time, in a new key!” With that, he put the spoon back between his teeth and immediately began playing.
What came out of that baby grand was like a firework going off. Notes from the piano flew off like a well-orchestrated firecracker that had sparks and colors zooming off in theme and variations. Higher and lower notes fought for dominance and grace over the explosion of sound.
Twilight looked over at Octavia in which her lower jaw hit the floor, while the roommate went over to her equipment to immediately beginning recording the wild piano solo. Several minutes went by as Ludwig played out what came to his head, where white and black keys shifted from loud and chaotic to soft and calm. But when he hammered in the final cords, Beethoven laughed as he took out the spoon, “And upon hearing that,” he continued. “I remembered Herr Mozart peeking his head back into the room, and to this day, I remembered what he said. ‘Gentlemen, I’m afraid that I’ve been mistaken. We must keep an eye on that boy because I can hear one day that he might give the world something to talk about.’”