The Audience

The Luthier's Apprentice

Chapter 26: The Audience

The violinist's name was Chiara Bianchi. She was twenty-three years old, a student at the Milan Conservatory, a student in the final year of her diploma, a student whose playing had been recommended to Giovanni by a professor at the conservatory who had played Giovanni's instruments and who understood that the testing of a new violin required not a good player but a great one, not a competent musician but a musician whose technique was sufficient to reveal the instrument's full capacity, the full capacity being the thing that the testing tested, the testing asking: what can this instrument do, what is the range of this voice, what are the limits of this sound, and the asking required hands that could take the instrument to its limits, hands that could play everything, hands that could demand of the instrument everything the instrument could give.

Chiara arrived on a Thursday morning in late July. She arrived by train from Milan, the same train that Nadia had taken ten months earlier, the train from Milan to Cremona, the train that crossed the Lombard plain, and Nadia heard the echo of her own arrival in Chiara's arrival, the echo of the train and the platform and the walk through the narrowing streets and the turning onto Via Palazzo and the pushing of the door and the ringing of the bell, the bell the announcement, the announcement the arrival, and the arrival was different because Chiara was not arriving as an apprentice but as a player, not as a maker but as a musician, not as a woman with broken hands but as a woman with hands that worked, hands that worked fully, hands that could do the thing that Nadia's hands could no longer do.

She was small. Nadia noticed this first, the smallness of the woman who came through the door, the smallness that was not frailty but compactness, the body organized around its purpose the way a violin is organized around its purpose, nothing extraneous, nothing wasted, the body the instrument's instrument, the body trained for the task, and the task was the playing, and the playing required the body, and the body was ready.

Her left hand. Nadia looked at Chiara's left hand and the looking was involuntary, was the reflex of a person who has lost the function of her own left hand and who recognizes the function in others, the recognition immediate, the recognition visceral, the seeing of the working hand producing in Nadia a response that was not envy exactly and not grief exactly but something between the two, something that participated in both, the seeing of the thing you lost in the possession of another, the seeing that is the particular wound of the specific loss, the loss that others still have.

Chiara's left hand was the hand of a violinist in her prime. The fingers were long, the knuckles flexible, the fingertips calloused with the particular calluses of the string player, the calluses on the pads of the first four fingers, the calluses that were the record of the practice, the practice that had built the hand, and the hand was built, was complete, was the finished product of nineteen years of training, the training that had begun at four and that had produced, at twenty-three, a hand that could do everything, a hand that could trill and shift and vibrate and execute the double stops and the harmonics and the bariolage and the spiccato and every other technique that the repertoire demanded, the hand that was the instrument, the hand that was the thing.

Giovanni greeted Chiara in Italian. The greeting was brief, was the workshop's greeting, the greeting of a man who measured people by their work and whose measurement of Chiara would happen when she played. He offered her espresso. She accepted. The espresso was drunk standing in the workshop, the standing the ritual, the ritual the morning, the morning the beginning of the testing.

Giovanni took the violin from the bench. The last violin. The instrument that had been completed, the instrument whose varnish was cured and whose neck was glued and whose fingerboard was fitted and whose bridge was carved and whose sound post was set, the instrument that was ready, the instrument that was waiting for the playing that would reveal its voice.

He handed the violin to Chiara. The handing was the gesture, the gesture that Nadia had seen before, the gesture of the maker presenting the instrument to the player, the gesture that was the purpose of the months, and the purpose was being fulfilled, the instrument passing from the maker's hands to the player's hands, the passing the transfer, the transfer the purpose.

Chiara held the violin. She held it the way all violinists hold a new instrument, with the careful assessment of the hands, the hands measuring the weight, the hands measuring the balance, the hands measuring the neck's thickness and taper, the hands reading the instrument the way the eyes read a face, the reading immediate, the reading instinctive, the reading the first judgment, and the first judgment was physical, was the body's judgment, the body deciding whether the instrument felt right, felt comfortable, felt like an instrument that the body could play.

She tucked the violin under her chin. She adjusted the position. She raised the bow that Giovanni had given her, the working bow from the velvet-lined drawer.

She drew the bow across the A string. Open A. The note filled the workshop, the note the same note that Giovanni had played when he tested the instrument, the same note that Nadia had played when she played the folk song, the same A, the same 440 hertz, the same pitch, but the sound was different, the sound was Chiara's sound, the sound produced by Chiara's bow arm and Chiara's pressure and Chiara's speed, and the sound was the sound of a concert violinist, the sound rich and full and projecting, the sound filling the workshop with a presence that was different from Giovanni's testing presence, the testing presence being diagnostic and the playing presence being performative, and the performative was the thing, the thing that filled the room, the thing that changed the air.

She played a scale. G major, ascending, the scale climbing through two octaves, and the left hand moved and the left hand was a machine, was a precision instrument, was a trained and calibrated mechanism that produced the pitches with an accuracy that was absolute, the intonation perfect, the finger placement exact, the shifts from position to position executed at a speed that made them inaudible, and the inaudibility was the skill, the skill that Nadia recognized because she had possessed it, had owned it, had been it, and the recognition was the wound, the wound that did not bleed but that ached, the ache of the recognition, the recognition of the thing you were in the body of the person you are watching.

The scale climbed into the upper positions. The left hand shifted, the thumb sliding along the neck, the fingers finding the notes in third position, fifth position, seventh position, the positions that Nadia could no longer navigate, the positions that the focal dystonia had closed to her, the positions that required the fourth finger to function independently and precisely, and Chiara's fourth finger functioned independently and precisely, Chiara's fourth finger pressing the string with the exact pressure at the exact location that the note required, and the requiring was met, and the meeting was the playing, and the playing was the thing that Nadia could not do.

She played Paganini. Caprice No. 24, the caprice that was the violinist's Everest, the piece that demanded everything, the piece that was a catalog of every technique the instrument possessed, the variations that Paganini had written to display his own supernatural virtuosity, the piece that required the left hand to execute passages of such speed and complexity that the listener's mind struggles to track the notes, the notes arriving faster than cognition, the notes existing in the realm of physical reflex rather than conscious thought.

The left hand blazed. Chiara's left hand moved on the fingerboard with a speed that Nadia's left hand had once matched and could no longer approach, the speed of the trained hand, the speed of the hand that has practiced the Paganini Caprices for ten years, the speed that is not fast but fluid, the notes not hurried but inevitable, each note arriving at the correct time and the correct pitch with the ease that difficulty earns when difficulty has been dissolved by practice, and the dissolution was visible, was audible, was the thing that filled the workshop with the sound of a virtuoso playing an instrument made by a master.

Nadia stood at her bench. She stood with her hands at her sides, the left hand and the right hand hanging, the hands that had made the instrument that was being played, the hands that had held the ribs and filed the f-holes and applied the varnish and sanded the surfaces, the hands that had participated in the making, and the making was being tested, and the testing was the playing, and the playing was everything that Nadia's hands could no longer do.

She listened. She listened with the ear of the musician and the ear of the maker, the two ears that she now possessed, the ears that heard the sound in two registers simultaneously, the register of the performer and the register of the craftsperson, and the hearing in two registers was the thing that the apprenticeship had given her, the thing that the year had produced, the double hearing that was the maker's gift.

The performer's ear heard the Paganini and assessed the playing. The playing was excellent. The playing was the playing of a young musician at the height of her technical powers, a musician who had not yet developed the interpretive depth that the decades would bring but whose technique was formidable, whose left hand was a precision instrument, whose bow arm was controlled and varied and capable of producing the full range of dynamics that the Paganini demanded. The performer's ear heard the playing and the playing was excellent and the excellence was the wound, the wound that the excellence inflicted on the person who had possessed the excellence and who no longer possessed it.

The maker's ear heard the instrument. The maker's ear heard the spruce and the maple and the arching and the graduation and the f-holes and the bass bar and the sound post and the varnish, the maker's ear heard the making in the sound, heard the months of work in the voice, heard the wood from the Val di Fiemme and the maple from Bosnia and the ebony from Africa, heard the hide glue and the oil varnish, heard Giovanni's hands and Giovanni's knowledge and Giovanni's fifty years, and heard, beneath all of that, her own participation, her own contribution, her own hands, the hands that had not made the instrument but had helped make the instrument, and the helping was audible, was present in the sound, was part of the voice.

Chiara played Bach. After the Paganini, the Bach. The Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D minor, the piece that was the mountain's other face, the Paganini being the technical face and the Bach being the musical face, the Chaconne requiring not speed but depth, not virtuosity but profundity, the Chaconne being thirteen minutes of unaccompanied violin that contained everything, every emotion, every key, every texture that the violin was capable of, the Chaconne the piece that every violinist returned to, the piece that was never finished, never mastered, never exhausted, the piece that revealed the player and the instrument equally, the piece that hid nothing.

The Chaconne began. The opening chord, D minor, the four strings sounding together, the chord the foundation, the foundation of the variations that would follow, the variations that would build and build and build through thirteen minutes of music that was as close to a religious experience as the concert stage could provide, and the providing was the instrument, and the instrument was the last violin, and the last violin sang.

The instrument sang the Bach and the singing was the voice, the voice that the making had produced, the voice that was raw and new and tight with the newness of an instrument that had been played for only a month but that was already showing its character, the character that would deepen and darken and ripen over the years of playing, the character that was the potential, the potential that the Chaconne was beginning to reveal.

The lower register was dark, was rich, was the voice of the spruce from the Val di Fiemme and the maple from Bosnia, the woods combining to produce a sound that was warm without being muddy, that was deep without being heavy, the sound that was the bass bar transmitting the vibrations through the plate, the vibrations reaching the far edges, the projection the purpose, the purpose achieved.

The upper register was bright, was singing, was the voice of the thin graduation at the edges and the arching that Giovanni had carved and the f-holes that Giovanni had cut, the elements combining to produce a sound that was brilliant without being harsh, that was penetrating without being painful, the sound that the varnish had mellowed, the varnish damping the highest overtones, the damping the softening, the softening the maturity, and the maturity was the future, was the years of playing that would soften the sound further, that would develop the instrument's voice into the full, complex, three-dimensional sound that a well-made Cremonese violin produces after decades of playing.

Chiara played the Chaconne and the workshop listened. Giovanni listened at his bench, his arms folded, his eyes on the instrument, the eyes assessing, the ears assessing, the maker hearing his making, the maker hearing the voice he had built, the voice he had carved and bent and glued and varnished into existence, the voice that was his last voice, the last instrument's voice. Marco listened at his bench, the viola maker listening to the violin, the colleague listening to the master's work, the listening the respect, the respect the tradition.

And Nadia listened.

Nadia listened and the listening was the thing that the year had been building toward, the thing that was more than the making and more than the playing and more than the craft, the thing that was the convergence of the maker and the player in the sound, the convergence that happened in the workshop when the instrument that Nadia had helped build was played at the level that Nadia could no longer play, and the convergence was the grief and the pride simultaneously.

The grief. The grief was the left hand, the left hand that hung at her side while Chiara's left hand blazed on the fingerboard, the left hand that could not do what Chiara's left hand was doing, the left hand that had once done what Chiara's left hand was doing and that would never do it again, the left hand that was the loss, the loss that the focal dystonia had imposed, the loss that was permanent, the loss that was the condition, the condition that was the companion, the companion that was unwanted.

The pride. The pride was the instrument, the instrument that was producing the sound, the instrument that Nadia had helped build, the instrument whose ribs she had held and whose f-holes she had filed and whose varnish she had applied, the instrument that was her work, not entirely her work but partially her work, and the partially was enough, the partially was the connection, the connection between the maker and the sound, the connection that the apprenticeship had forged, the connection that said: this sound came from my hands, these hands, the hands that cannot play but that can build, the hands that built the thing that is being played.

The grief and the pride. The two feelings were not separate. The two feelings were not experienced sequentially, first the grief and then the pride or first the pride and then the grief. The two feelings were simultaneous, were present in the same moment, were occupying the same space in Nadia's chest, the space where the word dystonia had settled and where the word bene had risen, the space that was the emotional center, the center that held the loss and the making, the losing and the building, the past and the present.

She listened to Chiara play the Chaconne on the violin she had helped build and she felt the grief and the pride simultaneously and the simultaneously was the thing, the thing that the year had produced, the thing that was the discovery, the discovery that the grief and the pride could coexist, could share the space, could be held together the way the left hand and the right hand could be held together, the holding the accommodation, the accommodation the living-with, the living-with the life.

The Chaconne reached its center. The major-key section, the D major that breaks through the D minor like sun through clouds, the major key arriving after seven minutes of minor-key intensity, the arrival the relief, the relief the beauty, the beauty the Bach, and Chiara played the major-key section with a tenderness that her youth did not diminish, a tenderness that was the music's tenderness, the music carrying the tenderness the way the instrument carried the sound, the tenderness not the player's but the composition's, the composition giving the player the tenderness to play, and the playing was the giving.

Nadia closed her eyes. She closed her eyes and she listened without seeing, listened with the ears alone, and the listening with the ears alone was the purest listening, the listening that removed the visual and left only the auditory, the auditory being the sound, the sound being the instrument, the instrument being the making, the making being the hands, and the hands were Giovanni's and the hands were hers and the hands were the workshop's and the hands were Cremona's.

She listened with her eyes closed and the sound was the sound of the instrument she had helped build being played at the level she could no longer play. The sound was the convergence. The sound was the grief and the pride. The sound was the loss and the making. The sound was the hand that was broken and the hand that had built. The sound was the thing.

Chiara finished the Chaconne. The last chord, D major, the chord of resolution, the chord that resolved the thirteen minutes of music into a single harmony, the harmony the ending, the ending the silence, the silence the space after the sound.

The workshop was quiet. The quiet lasted for the duration of a breath, the breath that the room took after the music, the breath that was the room's response to the ending of the sound.

Giovanni said: bene.

The bene was the assessment, the master's assessment of the instrument, the assessment delivered through the single word that the workshop used for the thing that was right, and the thing that was right was the sound, the sound that Chiara had revealed, the sound that the Paganini had tested and the Bach had confirmed, the sound that was the instrument's voice, the voice that was good, was right, was the voice that the making had intended.

Chiara lowered the bow. She held the violin in her left hand, the instrument at her side, the instrument that she had played for forty minutes and that she would return to Giovanni and that Giovanni would place in the case with the blue velvet and that the case would close and that the closing would be the completion.

She said to Giovanni, in Italian: this is a beautiful instrument. The sentence was the player's assessment, the player's bene, the praise that came from the other side of the tradition, the player's side, the side that received the maker's work and that assessed it through the playing, the playing the testing, the testing the confirmation.

She looked at Nadia. She looked at Nadia with the look of a young musician who had been told that the woman at the bench was a former violinist, a former student of the orchestra program in Cleveland, a woman whose career had been ended by focal dystonia, and the look was the acknowledgment, the acknowledgment of the shared language, the shared training, the shared understanding that the violin demanded everything and that the everything included the risk, the risk of the injury that Nadia had experienced and that Chiara might experience and that every violinist risked, and the risking was the playing, and the playing was the life.

Nadia looked back. She looked at Chiara and the looking was the seeing, the seeing of the young violinist, the seeing of the hands that worked, the seeing of the future that Chiara embodied, the future that was ahead of Chiara and that was behind Nadia, the future of the concert stage and the orchestra and the solo career, the future that Nadia had lost and that Chiara still possessed, and the possessing was the youth, and the youth was the hands, and the hands were the thing.

She did not say anything about the loss. She did not say: I used to play. She did not say: my left hand. She did not say: focal dystonia. She did not say any of the words that the loss contained, because the words were not necessary, the words were not the workshop's language, the workshop's language was the nod and the bene and the silence, and the silence said everything.

She said: the instrument sounds good.

The sentence was the maker's sentence, the sentence of a person who had helped build the thing that was being played, the sentence of a person who heard the making in the sound, and the hearing was the pride, the pride that coexisted with the grief, the pride that was the other half, the half that the apprenticeship had given her, the half that said: the sound came from my hands, the sound is the making, the making is the work, the work is the year, the year is the apprenticeship, the apprenticeship is Cremona.

Chiara placed the violin on the workbench. She placed it gently, the way all musicians place instruments, the gentle placing the care, the care the respect, the respect the tradition.

The workshop was quiet. The workshop held the memory of the Paganini and the Bach the way the workshop held the memory of every sound that had been produced within its walls, the memory held in the wood and the stone and the air, the memory that was the workshop's history, the history written in sound.

Giovanni picked up the violin. He held it by the neck. He looked at it. He looked at the instrument that had been played at the highest level by a young musician from Milan, the instrument that had responded, that had produced the sound, that had given the player the voice that the player demanded, and the giving was the proof, the proof that the making was right, the proof that the craft had produced what the craft was meant to produce.

He looked at Nadia.

And Nadia looked at him.

And the looking was the exchange, the exchange that the year had earned, the exchange between the maker and the apprentice, the exchange that said: we heard it, we heard the sound, the sound of the thing we made, the sound played by hands that are not ours, the sound that will outlive our hands, the sound that is the purpose.

The grief and the pride.

The loss and the making.

The hand that was broken and the instrument that was whole.

And the whole was the sound.

And the sound was the thing.

And the thing was what the workshop existed to produce.

And the workshop had produced it.

And the producing was the craft.

And the craft was the year.

And the year was the apprenticeship.

And the apprenticeship was the life.