It was not to be, however. As often happens, particularly in New England, the sky suddenly changed its mind. Just when it seemed as if the storm was about to erupt in all its spectacular fury, the winds went quiet and barely a drop of rain fell against the window. The dark clouds, so full of menace just a few moments earlier, gave a few desultory grumbles as they rolled by, but that was all. They seemed as disgruntled by the sudden cancellation of their performance as Rosa, who stood at the window, hands on hips, looking out with keen disappointment as the storm slipped harmlessly away. Feeling strangely let down, he turned away from the window and slouched to the living room in search of solace.There he pushed aside some of the papers and books piled on the piano bench and sat down.

There were in the stacks of sheet music about him on the piano innumerable selections he might have chosen to play as he sat there contemplating the keyboard, some the work of the classical masters; others, sonatas and concertos he himself had composed early in his career. Before him, on the piano’s music stand, lay his last work, a sonata in A he had started composing years ago but for some reason along the way had one day become incapable of seeing through to completion. Subsequent efforts to press forward with it, or with any other new work for that matter, proved fruitless, and the unfinished pages had remained there on the piano ever since, gathering dust while they awaited inspiration to return to their creator.

And so, unable to write anything new, and no longer interested in playing the old, Rosa sat there for a time, gazing straight ahead, before inevitably turning in frustration to the only thing left to him. Reaching out over the keyboard, he began to play scales and arpeggios, basic piano exercises to improve one’s playing technique that he had first learned as a child, though now he played them not to improve, but simply to preserve. Not knowing what else to do, he played them over and over, major and minor scales, parallel and contrary motions, his fingers running up and down the keyboard, back and forth, their journeys always beginning and ending at the same place, always in motion, but never really going anywhere. On and on he played them, over and over again, until finally, after a time, Giancarlo Rosa began to forget about his troubles.

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

Pain.