Read The Virtuoso for Free Online Page B

or with anyone else.
    ‘You play secondo just right, you know,’ he said.
    ‘Nice and quiet, not thumping away!’
    I laughed to myself, that he had misinterpreted my timidness so positively.
    At the end of the piece we bounced off the last chords and I sat glowing beside him; I couldn’t wait to play another. Then he turned to me, his smile dropped and he spoke gravely.
    ‘Well, you can’t stay sitting there , you know.’ He stood and stepped backwards, away from the stool.
    I blushed, started to stand and edge out of the seat, mumbling a thankyou.
    ‘I just farted! I’m terribly sorry!’ he said and burst into laughter, waving his hand in front of his face, bowing over in hysterics. ‘But if you don’t mind, then let’s play some Schubert.’ And chuckling to himself he stood and started shuffling through the music pile. ‘Righto—this ought to clear the air.’
    He sat down again, placed the D major Rondo duet in front of me and flashed a devouring grin.
    Notre amitié est invariable— the publisher’s subtitle winked at me cheekily from the page.
    I’d seen this duet played before and was aware of the intimacy required between the two players, that it was virtually impossible to play without all four hands ending up in knots. I tried not to read too much into his choice; maybe I was being presumptuous. I sat quietly, obediently, like a student in a lesson. We wriggled closer together, a warm seam now running along the length of my body. I could feel my heart beating in my throat. Looking straight ahead at the music, I breathed in, swallowed and waited, avoiding his gaze, which I could feel branding the side of my face.
    I’ve often wondered of whom Schubert was thinking when he composed this flirtatious piece. I imagined the young romantic (the ‘divine spark’ of whom Beethoven spoke from his deathbed), in the winter of 1818, sitting alone in his room in the schoolhouse where he worked, in the Rossau, just outside Vienna, fantasising about a beautiful pianist, his heart at a gallop, while scratching away with his quill on his manuscript sheets. He was twenty at the time, and although his life of poverty, illness and melancholia was carried away by a lethal bout of typhoid only ten years later, when he composed the Rondo in D his voice was filled with the idealistic poetry of youth. The theme—or main subject—of the Rondo, which keeps returning, taunting, teasing around a string of other episodes, is a lively and elegant dance.
    Noël was looking at me with goading eyes, his face inches from mine. ‘Are you ready?’
    I gathered every trembling impulse, nodded and brought my hands to the keys.
    We began.
    Whenever I’d heard this duet in the past, I’d always thought of a couple dancing a mazurka, holding their torsos erect, their heads high and aloof. Playing the secondo, a strong dotted rhythm, I was the stomp and click of the heels as we strutted about on the floor, only braving the scantest of glances as we passed each other under the chandeliers. Noël was smiling to himself as he played the primo, the majestic twirl and curtsey that pranced about me. Then it was my turn to sing out the melody, with Noël’s notes echoing my call. My earlier nerves had completely subsided and I seemed to be doing no more than simply humming the tune.
    Noël turned the page and we moved into the first episode—a fiery exchange in E minor. I stormed up the keys, fortissimo, then his chords jumped down towards me, and skipped lightly away. We rallied back and forth, calling out and demanding answers from each other as we both toyed and cavorted about. Despite our passionate displays, I was most relieved when we returned, in the middle of the next page, to the safety of our dignified yet provocative dance—our courteous sidestep, executed with the subtlest wink.
    Each time my part rose and his tune dipped lower, we’d almost meet. I’d climb up to a B and tricklestraight down, and moments later he’d