A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu

A violinist remembers events from her past during a performance.

Note: I was inspired to write this little diversion during a live performance by a mature female violinist. She was playing a beautiful piece of music, and it occurred to me to wonder what she thinks about as she plays. For instance, does she ever think of herself as a ten-year old girl learning to play?

Of course, a professional is intently concentrated on her playing, but with a piece that she knows well, I'll bet that her mind wanders, just a bit. Understandably, these mental wanderings would only take split seconds of time each time—like snapshots, with each story built upon many such lapses over time. Let us explore her thoughts some, during such a performance ... kind of stringing them all together. Here goes:

~ ~ ~

How did I get to this enviable place?

I am center stage before a very large crowd. Actually, I am on a raised platform and playing from the orchestra pit. I am playing this lovely music as a soloist, with the orchestra behind me.

I am the associate concertmaster (second violinist) for a local opera company, and reviewers and critics consider me one of the top violinists in the Midwest. I get to play something tonight, which is arguably the most beautiful piece of music ever written; it is Méditation.

It is an entr'acte for violin and orchestra, meaning that it is music usually played between the scenes or the acts. In this case, it occurs between scenes two and three, of Act II in the opera Thaïs by Jules Massenet. It is a very ethereal piece that I know well, and can play in me sleep. Musically, I suppose you might call it an 'orchestral intermezzo.'

This opera describes the conversion of Thaïs, a worldly courtesan, who leaves her life of pleasure, to live one of devotion and contemplation. Méditation is played after she meditates on her wasted life. The curtain closes and no singers on stage and I am the center of the universe; well my own little universe anyway.

After I finish, and the applause from my performance dies down, the action in the opera will continue for the rest of Acts II, and III. The monk who converted Thaïs is himself, enticed into the life of pleasure she once enjoyed. She dies a saintly woman, as he lives on in shame grief.

Opera plots! Right? Not exactly, the familiar boy meets girl theme of most operas, but as operas go this one is very lovely.

Anton is conducting this run of the opera, and is looking directly at me with an imperious smile as I play. God, I hate that he has seen me naked! Anton is a supremely accomplished musician in his own right, but as most opera and concertgoers know, the basic job of a conductor is as a human metronome—he just keeps the beat for the musicians!

Actually, the conductor is responsible for what people hear, the feeling ... the passion ... the sheer musicality. If all goes well or very well, he gets the praise. If it does not, the critics will roast him alive in their columns the next morning. I dated Anton a few times; he can be very seductive with just the sheer force of his personality and his good looks.

He is tall and handsome for fifty-five, and has a very distinguished greying at the temples. He is also a tyrant and a bully during rehearsals. If I am a quarter of a beat too early or too late, I receive a disapproving glare from him. He as even interrupted the orchestra to berate and embarrass a poor and unsuspecting musician ... even to tears.

Last week Janice—an oboe player—became so angry with Anton's criticism that with tears in her eyes she grabbed her instrument, kicked her music stand over, and stormed out with sheet music fluttering to the floor, as a string of shouted invectives trailed her out the door. She could play anywhere in the world and for any orchestra, but this is where her family is and she loves this area. I think Anton has seen Janice naked as well, but I have no real proof of that.

So right now, I have Anton's one hundred percent attention as his conducting is encouraging a very sensitive interpretation from me of this very fragile piece of music. My bowing has never been better as I display my mature and disciplined playing. I am dressed in a full-length flat-black concert dress, with a pretty turned out collar trimmed in white.

I turn my attractive and still shapely thirty-seven year old body toward the orchestra more as I play off them for a moment. Mon Dieu! Has it been thirty-two years already since I first picked up a violin? As I play, the vision of a shy and introverted ten-year old girl comes to mind. Actually, I think of that clumsy nearsighted waif often as I play.

I am five years into violin lessons, and skinny as a rail. So funny to think of myself then ... so different from the accomplished professional I have become, with international awards to my credit. God, I was a geek! My glasses kept sliding down my nose as I played for Professor Kinski—my teacher.

"Ve must hold zee bow correctly, meine liebe! Zee vingers must be curled, mitt der thumb unter-neath." He used to say.

I had all I could do to keep from cracking up!

A few of us young female students used to giggle as we each tried to imitate his broken English while waiting for him to arrive for our lessons. "Germglish" we used to call his insistence on combining German and English words into fractured sentences.

If we did not use the correct hand positions with the bow or on the fingerboard, we felt the sharp sting of the ruler he always carried. I went home many times with bloody knuckles, but I owe my perfect technique to his pedagogy. He used to keep an old Brazilwood bow around for some of his more recalcitrant (meaning bratty and disrespectful) girl students, whom he bent over his desk for a more 'traditional' form of correction ... but modestly over clothing. "Ouch!" I can still feel those bow strokes on my bottom, and the red welts they left!

So here I stand, playing this lovely and ethereal piece to perfection in front of an appreciative audience, with my ex-lover conducting me. Anton was far from my first, of course. I those honors go to Henry Cunningham, when both of us were eighteen. Henry was a French horn player, and we were at band camp the summer before our senior year in high school.

Between the girl's and boy's cabins was a private grassy knoll, and if you kept to the margins near the trees, a couple might find a little boy/girl privacy. I didn't exactly intend to give myself to him, it just sort of happened one night. In retrospect, I have to say that Henry was as good a candidate as anyone was to claim my cherished virginity. He was slight, with blond curly hair, handsome, and cute in a sort of "shy little boy" way.

I liked him, and though I still wore glasses (and still had to slide them back up my nose) I had filled out a little in all the right places, and was becoming sort of pretty. Henry would look over at me when he though I wasn't noticing, and he would look away quickly when I turned in his direction. In the orchestra, he was around the bend to my left, and a couple of rows back. Back then, I was the lead violin, and sat in the first seat in the first row, right at the conductor's left hand.

I so wanted Henry to like me, and I made my move one night after supper. I knew instinctively that the girl needs to make the first move, or nothing will happen. I was walking along with a few of other girl violinists and when we saw Henry coming one of the other girls, my best friend, turned to me and said,

"Look Angela, it is your boyfriend! It's Henry! C'mon girls let's leave Angela and her boyfriend alone for some loving!"

"Shush Rebecca, he is not so my boyfriend, he is just ... just ... Henry!"

"Well girlfriend, I see the way you look at him in rehearsals, so—"

"Stop it Becky! I mean it!" I interrupted my bratty friend.

"Come on girls let's leave Angie and her boyfriend alone." The girls giggled, and disappeared in the direction of the lake.

"Hi Henry uh, nice night isn't it?"

"Oh, hi Angela. Yah, I-I guess so. Um yah ... nice!"

"He was so cute and he is a very talented horn player ... so what, if he was not exactly articulate!" I thought to myself.

"Um Henry, would you like to walk to the meadow with me, I just want to see the moon and stuff, um a little."

"Okay, I guess so."

I took the initiative right away as I grabbed his hand leading him to a semi-shady part of the knoll, where the moonlight would not betray us. Henry looked so handsome that night, and I needed to be alone with him to get a better sense of him. We sat in the soft grass and talked for a long while. My family, his family, how we each came to be in the orchestra, likes and dislikes, just that kind of puppy love sort of, shit.

I was surprised when Henry took the lead away from me, as he leaned over and kissed me on the lips. My first real kiss with a boy, since being an intense young violinist does not leave much time for play or a social life. His kiss was soft and warm ... very nice. I pulled him toward me by his shirt, and smashed my lips against his, taking my initiative back.

Before I knew it, we were lying on the grass with him sort of over me, kissing me and nervously fumbling with my blouse buttons. I opened enough of them to allow him to reach into the cups of my bra, and surround my pert breasts with his soft warm hands. I remember as if it was yesterday, just how wonderful that first touch felt.

My heart started beating faster as we kissed and fumbled with each other. Neither of us knew what in the hell we were doing, but soon I felt a hand rising up the inside of my thigh under my skirt and headed toward my cotton panties. Before Henry could get to the gold, I moved his hand away. I did not allow Henry a "home run" that night, and not for several nights afterward, but I did allow him some "second and third-base" kind of stuff after that first night.

It was the second to the last night of the camp, when Henry again slid his hand up my thigh as I lay beneath him in the grass. As his hands neared my panties, I opened my thighs a little, and he rubbed my young vulva over the cotton material.

It felt so good; I couldn't make myself stop him. Before I knew it with our kisses and fondling, his fingers were on the waistband of my panties. I instinctively lifted my butt a little, as he slid them over my little eighteen-year old butt, down my legs and off completely.

Lying there for the first time with a boy, so completely exposed, I felt nervous and could not stop myself from jittering; I was hoping that he would not notice my nervousness. I was not on the pill or anything else back then, and we never considered carrying condoms, but I spread my legs for him anyway and I softly said between kisses,

"Oh, Henry!"

He took that as his cue to unzip his trousers, and with a shift of position, I could feel the tip of his penis touching the lips of my little cunny. I breathed in sharply as he slid it ... just a little ... into my now very moist and most virginal place. He pushed it in a little further and I bit my lip as I could feel some amount of initial pain as he pushed through. Then it became very nice, very quickly. His breaking through my hymen did not cause much bleeding, but it did pinch a little.

Henry slid into me as far as he could and was soon stroking in and out of me with a nice rhythm. He was very quiet, but I uttered a succession of soft groans with each stroke. The feeling of a boy's penis sliding into my body for the first time is one I have trouble putting into words—as articulate as I am. I remember that it was a kind of ticking sensation inside me, but very warm.

He got close very quickly, and I could feel him pull out and come on my belly. Although I didn't climax, it was very pleasant experience. I quietly sat up; put my panties back on and over my come-covered stomach as much as possible.

Henry folded himself back into his pants, and zipped up. He kissed me on the lips a little, and stood to walk me back to the no-man's land area between our cabins. Back in my bunk, I pulled my panties down to mid-thigh; spread Henry's come on my stomach a little as I teased my little nub to a very nice, but very quiet little orgasm. I licked Henry's come off my fingers. It tasted like nothing, really ... a little salty ... sticky.

Henry and I dated a little after we were back at school, and through our senior prom, but then sort of drifted away and into other relationships. Henry deflowered me in that grassy moonlit knoll, and I will never forget him. He will always be my first love.

I look up from my reveries to see Anton gesturing to me indicating a change in tempo at a particularly emotional part of the music marked as poco piu appassionato (a little more passion). I respond quickly as he nods to me approvingly with a smile.

Anton may be a tyrant and a dick, but he is one of the best, and a maestro with an international reputation, fluent in several languages. I still get a little sexual twinge whenever he narrows his electric-blue eyes at me. I tired of his demanding nature, and his trying to 'conduct' me in bed so I ended it. Anton is not someone to whom it is easy to say no!

"Henry Cunningham!" I thought as I changed the position of my bow over the top of the strings, "Where are you now, m'love?"

We lost contact after high school, and since we were no longer dating, I guess it doesn't really matter ... although I have thought about him often over the years. He did not have very large, um, equipment back then, but his lips were soft and gave me chills whenever he kissed me. That is what I will always remember about my dear sweet Henry!

Well, little Angela ... that skinny-as-a-rail little ten-year old turned into a pretty teenager with soft curves, and ample breasts. I changed from glasses to contacts during my first year at the music conservatory. This conservatory offers a bachelor's degree in music, and my concentration was of course; the violin. I found myself craving sex to relieve the tension of exhausting rehearsals, and dealing with a succession of demanding teachers and technique coaches.

I was not slutty or anything like that, but a girl has needs, y'know? Since my friend Rebecca was my roommate, we did experiment a little. Although her touches and kisses felt nice, it is something we eventually decided was not for us. I learned a lot about the way I like touching, and being touched through my amateur fumbling with Becky.

Terrance was a very patient bowing coach, and we dated through most of my years at the conservatory. He was tall and slender, dark-haired and bearded, and what you might consider as intellectual looking. Terrance knew what I was thinking before I did, most times. He is very bright, and a brilliant violinist with many offers from orchestras around the world.

Before I graduated, he accepted one in Hamburg as their youngest concertmaster (first violinist) ever. Terry was a very sensitive lover, and taught me many things. Let's just say that my bowing is not the only technique he taught me, to perfection!

"My dear Terry," I thought as the piece pressed on toward its passionate conclusion, "I miss hearing about Hamburg. Please write again soon!"

Rebecca and I are members of the same opera company, but she occupies fifth stand. She is a very able violinist, but I will be concertmaster someday, and she will not. I am still single, and Becky and I have spent some of our off time clubbing and dating a little. I will not have sex with anyone I meet at a club, but Becky has done that a time or two. She did that a couple of nights ago; I just looked at her and said,

"Well, you two have fun, I'm going home. Becky, remember we have an seven-thirty call tomorrow morning."

"Don't worry Ang, I'll make it!"

"Yah, right!" I thought to myself as I climbed into my car.

It is always up in the air if Becky will make it in on time or not, since she was been late twice, just in the past couple of weeks. In our company, you are docked pay for being late. Too many times, and your position will go to some hungry musician on our waiting list. That next morning she was five minutes late and in addition to the loss of pay, the conductor sternly reminded her of the tenuousness of her position with the orchestra.

This piece is nearing its completion, and I will replay the main theme twice, to the conclusion. My concentration returns to the music, and to Anton's conducting. The accepted technique for playing the latter part is to use a full bow, and a rather singing tone, but each artist has his or her own interpretation. I go with the standard technique to keep it from becoming overly ornamented.

I am in full concentration as the piece nears the end, which from my part is very expressive and singing, and then slows to the ending on a very high A, which must be crystal clear. I tilt my bow down to finish on the E (highest pitched) string, holding the final note as long as Anton indicates, and no longer. I pull my instrument from under my chin, and relax the bow as the audience rises from their seats, and erupts in thunderous applause, with some sporadic shouts of "Brava! Brava!"

I look around at Rebecca who is in tears, and tapping her violin with the bow as applause, and the rest of the orchestra rises and taps their instruments, showing their appreciation for my sensitive interpretation. I bow to the audience with tears in my own eyes, and turn to my colleagues with a smile of appreciation.

This piece usually goes to the concertmaster but Anton insisted that I preform it tonight. He is standing on the podium like a music god, and gives me another arrogant smile with a slight nod of approval. I mouth the words, "Thank you!" to Anton ... my appreciation for his putting me in the spotlight. The opera continues, and I rejoin the rest of the orchestra playing off the score for the remainder of the second and on through the third and final act.

After the applause for the singers dies down, and the audience starts to file out, I am gathering my music, and putting my instrument back into its case. Rebecca is jabbering to me about something, but I am too excited to listen to her. Then parts of it come through as I hear her talking about drinks at the Wellington afterward. I just say,

"Yah, okay honey."

I turn to see Anton back from the stage after taking his bows with the singers, and I run right into him. He is still smiling at me like some tall handsome crocodile in a tuxedo. He pulls me toward him, and plants a kiss on my lips, as his hands travel down my back with one of them sliding down further onto my ass.

"I knew you could do it Angela!" he says still wearing his million-dollar smile.

"Thank you, Anton. I really appreciated your giving me the chance."

"Let's have lunch tomorrow, mon amour!"

"That sounds delightful, Anton."

He gives me a pat on the rear, and disappears into the crowd of his friends, fans and admirers to receive his love from them. I watch the all too familiar show, and shake my head. Normally, no one gives a damn about a second violinist, but since I became a star in tonight's show, there are fans and opera hangers-on there to shake my hand or to give me their congratulations. I even signed a few programs!

I am looking through the crowd and I spot a familiar face.

A face that is now almost twenty years older than the last time I saw it.

I smile sweetly; cover my mouth with my hand in surprise,

then softly say,

"Henry!"

END