Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival

The Piano in the River

The piano’s legs are cold. 

No one knows exactly how it happened, but the piano appeared in the river this morning —and while she is trying to maintain her grandeur and insouciance, she suffers humiliation. 

The Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival draws near; the piano, a Steinway, holds steady, waiting for rescue, fighting to rise above the indignity, and enduring squiggly, slimy fish that swim around her pedals and legs. On this, the first day, a curious North Cascades black bear bumps the piano one more octave down the river, and the low A would pay the price forever more. The piano would have floated away had it not been caught by a gracious root, kind enough to hold the piano near the river’s edge.


Photo by: Teri Pieper


Four musicians come to visit the piano to try to pull her out, but the well-meaning root that has saved her now becomes her captor. On day two, the music director comes with a friend and tries again to pull the majestic instrument from the cold river. The open lid keeps her soundboard cold and the felted mallets grow soggy. The piano shudders again, and some kind soul, sensing her discomfort, closes her lid. Later, a brave pianist wades into the river and tries to play, but the water has soaked the sound. Opened to the elements, the strings can only mutter, the piano fights to be heard, and in the end, the sound falls flat: she has failed! 

There is a lonely elegance to the suffering. The Steinway, matte black (not shiny, no, not shiny), braces. Trying to remain aloof and unbothered, the “L” size, as she is called, stands quietly. She has the 160-year Steinway history to defend —a reputation to uphold. No ordinary instrument, this Steinway feels an obligation to not only endure the elements, the ridicule, and the ignominy, but also to maintain her grandeur for the good of the Chamber Music Festival, already in its 18th year.

Late in the afternoon of the third day, the piano in the river is rescued. Now with her pedals warm, her soundboard dry, and her legs polished, she will perform. Oh yes. She will be there. She wouldn’t miss the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival for all the tea in China or all the wine in the Methow Valley.

Kathryn’s Riff on the Mendelsohn’s Piano Trio in c Minor Op 66, No. 2 trees now thick with fog, spiking through the woodland carpet. She has a last glimpse of her lover as he rides away from her, not seeing, not hearing, and not knowing she is there. The fog saturates the trees, muffling the sound of her voice. She [the music] runs frantically after him until she can run no farther. 


Photo by: Ed Stockard


[In the adagio section] Exhausted and spent, she seeks shelter in a tiny cabin. It is small with one table. A fireplace holds a cauldron of stale water. A worn oval rug and barren slat bed are the only pieces of furniture. The wind pushes through the tiny spaces in the walls. The woman crawls under the rug, curls up against the cold, and weeps.

[As the music picks up again] We see the man in the forest on horseback, still looking for his lost love. Frenzied, he turns one way and the next, the music insinuating his angst and frustration. At long last, and as the music slows near the end of the piece, we know that he has chanced upon the cabin. Has it been weeks later? Months? Years? 


Photo by: Kyrie Jardin of Central Reservations


What is left of her is covered with moss. A few strands of gray hair with traces of black cough out from under the raised mossy rug — an embossment on the bare wood floor. He would have missed her had it not been for the necklace, his gift to her for their engagement. He cries out, the plaintiff theme repeating one last time. As the music ends, he closes the door on the cabin, his lover, and the necklace.