It kills me to hear “Kurt Cobain-with-Nikes” play MY soprano solos. I’m humiliated to be in the clarinet section. I suspect others see it in my eyes. I’ve taken on a number of students for private saxophone instruction and now the university is sending me clarinet referrals as well. When we go on tour, I am to teach master classes for the alto clarinet – NOT saxophone.
The whole scenario would not be so bad if the new guy weren’t so good. He’s had the best education, knows much more than the proper name of notes, has the maestro as his father … nagging insecurities scratch at my stomach as I remember the small illiterate town where I am from. Berlioz on a saxophone – what was I thinking?
Despite my bitterness and shame, René Joly’s creation of “The Lord of The Rings” sweeps me away to another world and I forget all else. “Sweep” is not even the right word. I am engulfed, consumed, submerged, and soon nothing else exists. The whole work probably lasts just a little over an hour but it seems much longer. Easily, I am lost in what solos I have and though the sax solos are not mine, I feel them in my being as if they were.
It is now to the point that there is nothing else that exists in this world and I do not know what I will do when this tour is over and we no longer perform this piece. It has become who I am, what I live for, and the desperation of losing it drives me to craziness. What I will do with myself once we finish performing this? I cannot live without this music so the solution seems clear. When we arrive home and perform our final concert, I will take the whole lot of the pills the Indian doctor gives me, go downtown to the bridge, and jump into the Mississippi.
Posts
3 comments:
Oh dear. Not quite the ending I was hoping for!
Nor I
me either. i'd actually forgotten that part until i wrote it. i'd forgotten allot of parts until recently. odd. i guess that's why the three-part-short has grown to seven, or now, eight.
Post a Comment