On Fantasies

60: (July 2021)

I had a fantasy piano that lived in my dreams for many decades; it was a fantasy piano because it was a Steinway grand, and I knew it was something I could never afford to buy. I’m not sure when I had the first opportunity to play a Steinway grand—probably in a piano showroom or hotel lobby. It was a love affair that I thought would never become more than stolen moments of happenstance. 

And then I got a phone call. It was a local realtor who knew I played the piano.

“I’m closing on a house next week,” he said. “The owner is moving to an apartment in Boston and can’t take his piano. Would you be interested in giving it a home for a few years? It’s a Steinway grand.”

Ummm, what?!? After an astonished pause when I tried to process what he said and find my vocal cords, I learned a few more particulars. The house seller wasn’t ready to part with his beloved piano and wanted someone to care for it while he started his new life in the city. The “loan” was more or less indefinite, at least for the time being. He was even going to pay for the piano mover.

After talking it over with my sweet husband and wondering where on earth we’d put it, he suggested turning our dining room into a piano room. So out went our dining room table and chairs, and a week later, the Steinway grand entered our home, maneuvered by big, burly movers who made handling the 6′ 11″ hulking instrument look easy.

My fantasy had come true! Here in the seventh decade of life, a fantasy of almost as many decades became a reality. There’s something about the sound of a Steinway grand that is richer, more mellow, more beautiful than any other sound to me—with the exception of the song of a wood thrush. I sit at the Steinway with gratitude each and every time I play, amazed by life’s twists and turns.

The piano moved in shortly before Covid hit. The man who owns it stopped by earlier this month to finally meet me and to see his piano’s adoptive home. He had been delayed by traffic and arrived close to dinnertime. Perhaps aware of that, he zipped in and out, not even staying long enough to sit down and play. Maybe he just wanted to make sure the piano was being well cared for. Maybe he wanted to see if it was loved.

He needn’t have worried about that. Nor could I possibly thank him enough for making my dream a reality. Here he was, this stranger who had gifted me with a long-term loan of a Steinway grand piano; anything I could say would be wholly inadequate. Life sure can be full of grand surprises.

40: (July 2001)

I recently had the opportunity to play an expensive electric keyboard: 88 keys, touch sensitive, great sound. I pressed the demo button and Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, by Chopin, filled the room, each furiously fast note precisely sounded. It was breathtaking. I used to be able to play the piece reasonably well. Now, many years later, I can barely stumble through it with dozens of mistakes. The electric piano both irked and inspired me. It irked me that a piece of electrical equipment could outplay me so easily, yet its perfectly executed notes inspired me to try to get my fingers back in shape.

I put on a CD of Arthur Rubinstein playing the Fantaisie and played along with it, doing my best to keep up. Then I listened to the recording without playing along. It was exquisite. The beauty of the sound filled me, evoking a spectrum of feelings, largely inexpressible, but felt to the core of my being. Tears flowed from an emotion most closely described as joy.

I decided to spend as much time as I can this summer practicing the piece. Playing the whole thing well may be more than I can hope for, but playing even a few passages with such beauty would be bliss. I think of the many hours, weeks, months, I will spend in order to create about five minutes of sound. And yet it is worth it.

Music transports me to another dimension. In that indefinable space of sound, the composer, musician, and listener merge. When music is powerful, there is a connection to the spirit, the soul of the composer, the very life that the composer drew from in order to create the piece. It is a bit of heaven, a divine connection, a thread through time and space in that series of tones and vibrations that in their ability to express the inexpressible are eternal.

If the whole world were destroyed, the sounds that make up Fantaisie-Impromptu would live, reverberating through time. They are simply too beautiful to die.

60-40:

In this world of so much chaos and turmoil, music can be a haven. It certainly is for me. And more than that, it heals me. Throughout my life, it is during times of stress or heartache when I sit at the piano most often. I play my way through pain and somehow come out the other end all the better for it.

I can create and lose myself in the auditory world of music, yet at the same time feel more connected to the experience of being human on a level beyond words. There is magic in music, an otherworldy element that suspends time and place, allowing us to travel with ease to memories and hopes and dreams.

Yes, there is magic in music. Where else can fantasies and reality weave themselves together with such abandon?