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had not yet been played, and that fore-
reference worked because he - they - understood what would happen in the
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fourth movement.
Kristine was smiling ecstatically. The audience fell silent. The tension had
been impossibly resolved.
The second movement ended. The third began without more than a few seconds'
pause. The Synclavier and the mutilated piano involved each other in a
philosophical discussion. The third movement passed, and Michael did not
remember its passing, or even what it was. It was played, but it added a
nonmemorable subtext to everything around it. It was a movement and a bridge
in itself, effective only as a commentary.
The fourth movement was upon him. Kristine's face showed irritation or pain.
The pain changed to dismay.
The fourth was not the same movement referred to in the second. There were in
fact two adagios, but only one was being manifested. The other existed as a
creation solely in the minds of the audience, a phantasm of music, yet Michael
had no doubt that both movements had been minutely composed and scored by
Waltiri.
He began to fear what the fifth movement might bring.
The fourth, as played, was slow, primitive, spare, even deliberately
inelegant. It was a new world unresolved, the shape undefined, though with all
the elements present, coalescing. Instruments played to different rhythms,
slowly coordinating, then fading, then coming to agreement again, themes
weaving in and out, with then a reprise of the original theme transposed to B
minor. Moffat had called this the
"explosive," yet it seemed anticlimactic.
The normal piano began to dominate, with its precise laying down of individual
notes and chords, no
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-...0Power%2002%20-%20The%20Serpent%
20Mage.html (85 of 208) [5/21/03 12:44:32 AM]
Bear, Greg - Songs of Earth and Power Vol. 2 - The Serpent Mage glissandos, no
slides, simply sketching what was to come.
Then, entirely unearthly, the Synclavier mocked the piano. It created the
slides and linked the sketched-
out harmonies. It played them back upon themselves and created canons and
reversed them in ways only a machine could manage.
This was the human contribution to the music. The Sidhe would never have
countenanced a Synclavier, or anything similar to it - not even a simple
theremin. What Waltiri had requested was something only humans could add to
music. Through technology, they were performing music the Sidhe could have
created only through magic.
Humans had found their place in the world to come. They had lived in this
universe long enough to master it not with magic, but on its own terms. Not
with outside skill, but with skills taught by the hard, unyielding nature of
reality. And they had turned those skills into devices for creating wonderful,
impossible music.But this isn't music any more, Michael thought.
"What is this?" Kristine whispered.
The Synclavier had made its point and did not belabor it. Sounding almost
abashed, the orchestra resumed its dominance, but the normal piano was done
for. It played no more in the fourth and not at all in the final movement. The
final movement was home for the mutilated piano and the Synclavier.
Michael shut his eyes. It seemed as if all his hopes and concerns were about
to be examined. The fifth movement would be himself. And he knew Kristine was
feeling the same thing - that it would be about herself.
The music, a sweeping, demanding dance, was now a training ground for a new
world.
In 1939, before its time, opus 45 at this point in the score would have sown
the seeds for a translation into the Realm. Other music had accidentally
achieved this effect; Clarkham, and perhaps Waltiri as well, had deliberately
designed The Infinity Concerto to work in such a way.
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But Waltiri had woven in something else. With time, the effect of the music
would alter. It would not translate; it would prepare. The audience was being
made aware of the world they would ultimately have to face.
The music vanished into its own purpose.
Only in the last part of the fifth movement did the adjunct Song of Power rise
up and show its medium again. The music became light and beautiful,
consciously showy and rich with melody. The melody switched to C minor.
"Jesus Christ," said a man behind Michael, loudly.
Out of the last hundred measures - the measures Moffat had confessed he could
not "hear" while reading the score - came quiet assurance, not disturbance.
The bomb was being carefully, elegantly defused. The worlds would meet, pass
into each other&
They would not destroy each other. .
The concerto reached its conclusion. (Rut the unplayed fourth movement echoed;
perhaps it would never stop. Das Unendlichkeit Konzert.)
The music faded.
The hall was as quiet as empty space.
Kristine shut her eyes folded her hands as if in prayer. "They're going to
like it," Michael reassured her.
The audience exploded. Everyone stood at once. Applause, shouts of "Bravo!"
and exclamations of amazement both crude and ecstatic. Michael stood and
looked around anxiously, seeing a few people still in their seats, limp, eyes
glazed. But gradually they, too, stood and applauded, returning to the hall
from wherever they had been. Moffat took his bow and called out Crooke from
the wings. The applause redoubled and did not diminish as the soloists were [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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