“I haven’t, yet. It’s a melody that I hear in my head when—” He placed his hands on his knees. “When you, me, and Nia are training.”
Anna smiled. “Play it again.”
Max performed the intro to the piece. “Like it?”
“Love it.” She stood from the bench.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m getting something to write with.”
“Why?”
“Because composers need to record their work.” She darted to her room and returned with a pencil and pad of paper.
“There’s no need,” he said as she sat beside him.
“Yes, there is.” She placed the pad on her lap and drew blank piano staves. “I’ll work to get some proper staff paper. In the meantime, we’ll make our own. You’ll need to go slow. I can read music, but I’ve never recorded it on paper.”
“You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”
“Nein.” She rolled the pencil between her fingers. “How many movements will there be in the piece?”
“There are typically three movements in a piano concerto,” he said, “but I was thinking that this would be a suite with five individually composed movements.”
“What is the title?”
“I don’t have one,” he said, shifting in his seat.
“You must call it something,” she said. “What were you thinking of when the music came to you.”
He rubbed stubble on his chin. “Light. I envisioned darkness giving way to a glorious, warm light.”
“Light Suite?”
“Ja.”
“Light Suiteis a beautiful title,” she said.
“The piece I was playing was the first movement, Prelude.”
“Prelude to Light,”she thought. “Key?”
“C-sharp minor.”
Anna scribbled on the top of the paper.
For over an hour, alternating between the base and treble clefs, she recorded the notes per Max’s direction. Whole notes. Half notes. Quarter notes. Eighth notes. Bar lines. Ties. Slurs. Crescendos and diminuendos. At the bottom of the paper, she stopped to rest her fingers, which had begun to ache from squeezing the pencil.
“Thanks for being patient with me,” Anna said, rubbing her hand.
“How about we pick up tomorrow?” he asked.
“But we’ve only written a few bars.”
“We have plenty of time to finish before I leave.”
I wish you didn’t live so far away, she thought.
