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Updated: May 19, 2025
He saw nothing, heard nothing. His fingers went their own way over the keyboard. Finally, following some latent impulse, they began to shape the opening measures of Chopin's Second Ballade, the one of the enigmatic tonalities, sometimes called The Lake of the Mermaids.
First, they were not more than six inches in diameter; and next, they were arranged, like notes on a keyboard, with their edges towards him, with the whole set curved round him in a semicircle. "Those to right and left," explained the priest, "control the planes on either side; those in front, on the left, control the engines and the gas supply; and on the right, the tail of the boat.
Never were fingers more recalcitrant at musical chores. The Bach "Inventions" were weary digital gyrations against the slow-moving hands of the alarm clock perched directly in her line of vision. Czerny, too, was punctuated with quick little forays between notes, into a paper bag of "baby pretzels" at the treble end of the piano, often as not lopping over on the keyboard.
Think of the years and years of weary torment the women of the piano-possessing class have been forced to spend over the keyboard, fingering scales. How many of them could be bribed to attend a pianoforte recital by a great player, though they will rise from sick beds rather than miss Ascot or Goodwood?
Speed does not constitute virtuosity, nor does the ability to unravel the somewhat intricate keyboard puzzles of Bach and Brahms make in itself fine piano playing. The mind of the artist must be cultured; in fact, quite as cultured as that of the composer who conceived the music.
And they watched, amazed, but less so really than an ordinary piano tuner would have been, at the way he caught octaves, fifths and fourths, sixths and thirds up and down that keyboard like a juggler keeping seven tennis balls in the air. "There you are," he said suddenly, before it seemed that he could be half-way through and began playing a dance. "But you can play tunes!" cried Sylvia.
"See," he whispered; "oh, listen!" He spread Kirk's fingers above the keyboard brought them down on a fine chord of the Chopin prelude, and for one instant Kirk felt coursing through him a feeling inexplicable as it was exciting as painful as it was glad. The next moment the chord died; the old man was again the gentle friend of the fireside. "I am stupid," he said, "and ill-advised.
She loved music, and now found that all she need do was to sit at the piano and listen and watch her hands twinkle over the keyboard. Twilight deepened in the room and Bessie's father came home and hung up his hat and overcoat and placed his umbrella in the rack. Then he peeped into the parlor to see who was playing. "Great Caesar!" he exclaimed.
The children lead it an awful life. It does not seem to matter to the cat. They shut it up in the piano: their idea is that it will make a noise and frighten someone. It doesn't make a noise; it goes to sleep. When an hour later someone opens the piano, the poor thing is lying there stretched out upon the keyboard purring to itself.
Last night Jane almost fought with Peter for the larger portion of the keyboard of the piano; and they played music without any tune in it, to my way of thinking, and there is no seriousness at all about any of them.
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