• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 547 0

exercise in mathematics, or grammar. You want all the evidence set out for you, and you think that your job is to put it all together. Music isn’t like that. Music requires interpretation. It requires you to put something of yourself in there.’ He hesitated, trying to find the right words. ‘Any performance is actually a duet between you and the composer. He’s given you the bulk, but you have to add the final ten per cent. It’s the difference between reading out a story and acting out a story.’ Seeing the forlorn expression on Sherlock’s face, he went on: ‘Look, have you ever seen the writer Charles Dickens reading one of his own stories to an audience? Try it sometime – it’s well worth the cost of a ticket. He does different voices for different characters, he throws himself around the stage, he speeds up at the exciting bits and he reads it as if he’s never seen it before and he’s just as keen as the audience to find out what happens. That is how you should play music – as if you’ve never heard it before.’ He paused and winced. ‘In a good way, I mean. The trouble is that you play music as if you’ve never heard it before and you’re trying to work it out as you’re going along.’

That was pretty much the way it was, Sherlock thought.

‘Should I give up?’ he asked.

‘Never give up,’ Stone rejoined fiercely. ‘Never. Not in anything.’ He ran a hand through his long hair again. ‘Perhaps I’ve been going at this the wrong way. Let’s take a different tack. All right, you approach music as if it’s a problem in mathematics – well, let’s look for musicians who write mathematics into their music.’

‘Are there any?’ Sherlock asked dubiously.

Stone considered for a moment. ‘Let’s think. Johann Sebastian Bach was well known for putting mathematical tricks and codes into his tunes. If you look at his Musical Offering there’s pieces in there which are mirror images of themselves. The first note and the last note are the same; the second note and the second from last note are the same; and so on, right to the middle of the piece.’

‘Wow.’ Sherlock was amazed at the audacity of the idea. ‘And it still works as music?’

‘Oh yes. Bach was a consummate composer. His mathematical tricks don’t detract from the music – they add to it.’ Stone smiled, realizing that he’d finally snagged Sherlock’s attention. ‘I’m not an expert on Bach by any means, but I understand there’s another piece by him which is built around some kind of mathematical sequence, where one number leads on to the next using some rule. It’s got an Italian name. Now, let’s try that Mozart again, but this time, as you’re playing it, I want you to bring back those feelings. Remember them, and let them guide your fingers.’

Sherlock raised the violin to his shoulder again, tucking it into the gap between his neck and his chin. He let the fingers of his left hand find the strings at the end of the neck. He could feel how hard his fingertips had become under Stone’s relentless tutelage. He brought the bow up and held it poised above the strings.

‘Begin!’ Stone said.

Sherlock gazed at the notes on the page, but rather than trying to understand them he let his gaze slide through them, looking at the page as a whole rather than each note as something individual. Looking at the wood, not the trees. He remembered from a few minutes before what the notes were, then took a deep breath and started to play.

The next few moments seemed to go past in a blur. His fingers moved from one string to the next, pressing them down to make the right notes, fractionally before his brain could send his fingers a signal to tell them what the right notes were. It was as if his body already knew what to do, freeing his mind to float above the music, looking for its meaning. He tried to think of the piece as if someone was singing it, and let his violin become the voice, hesitating on some notes, coming down heavily on others as if to emphasize their importance.

He got to the end of the page without even realizing.

‘Bravo!’ Stone cried. ‘Not perfect, but better. You actually persuaded me that you were feeling