<<  -- 8 --  Elizabeth Dobbs    MUSIC

The fog made tiny beads of moisture on the fine hairs of Theresa's mink as they walked from the parked car to Davies Symphony Hall. Nikolai waited for them in front of the building, whose curved face was ablaze with light. Expensive perfumes and excited conversations floated on the air as Theresa and Anton worked their way through the throng to the entrance. Theresa slipped her arm graciously through Nikolai's. They were recognized as Lev's family and were ushered respectfully to one of the center boxes.

The orchestra musicians began to take their seats, and the cacophony increased as they blew into horns, ran up and down scales on flutes, violins playing snatches of the concerto, clarinets swooping and diving, oboes calling out to each other.

Theresa took Anton's hand and smiled up at him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to relax. The enormous burnished pipes of the organ, lit from below, rose like architecture behind the musicians. Anton watched as the musicians began to settle down, knowing that any moment the conductor would take the stage.

And then Michael Tilson Thomas, coat tales flapping, strode onto the stage. The audience burst into applause and he turned to face them, sweeping the concert hall with his gaze, then bowed deeply. He raised his hand and Lev walked onto the stage in a teal blue shirt with Shakespearean sleeves, the violin tucked under his arm. The applause grew again. Lev nodded respectfully to the conductor and bowed to the audience. The concertmaster played a note on his violin and Lev tuned his instrument to it.

Silence weighed down the air in the hall, and then Michael Tilson Thomas raised his baton. Lev tucked his violin under his chin, the bow held loosely at his side. Softly, softly, the orchestral violins began to play the barely audible first notes of Sibelius' Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Minor. Lev's bow touched the strings of his violin and the instrument began to sing, pianissimo, growing louder, turning and reaching, the music becoming something alive.

The hairs on the back of Anton's neck lifted with shivering energy as if Lev's music had completed an electrical circuit in his most primitive core. Music swelled from the horn section, then flitted through the flutes, oboes, and clarinets, dropping down to the bass section, building from the rumbling of the kettledrum only to subside again. Lev drew sound from the bottom of the G string, his fingers racing up the neck toward the body of the violin as the notes soared into their highest register, and then down again. His upper body swayed then was still, now leaning back as the notes climbed, then tilting slightly to the side, as the music moved along the minor key's angles.

Though Anton had seen his son perform many times, wonder, surprise, pride, love rose to his eyes in the form of hot tears. Joy overflowed from every pore.

Theresa nudged him gently and tilted her head towards Nikolai. In the gloaming of the darkened hall Anton saw his father's hoary head moving with the music, his face alight, his eyes drinking in the sight of Lev.

Envy, like the coppery taste of blood, filled his mouth and he almost spat.

The double basses began a beat like riding, riding quickly, and the violin traveled along the top of it. Lev took Anton away with him on the music. The music filled him, became him. If only he could play like this, if only he could make this stupendous thing happen.

Contradictory feelings wrapped round each other and pulled taught. Anton resonated through and through, the minor key of the concerto playing him as if he was a violin.