The Healing Life of a Music Genius - Chapter 208



Only Noblemtl

208 Boy’s Sonata

* * *

The audience’s standing ovation continues endlessly.

The boy looked at the audience and smiled faintly, then lowered his head slightly. Then he soon raised his head.

That appearance also seemed like a greeting to the audience.

It also seemed like a nod of satisfaction with his own performance.

For a moment, it seemed as if he was reminiscing about the past.

The boy’s eyes, which seemed to be gazing into the distance through the concert hall’s seats, were as deep as the ocean floor and sparkled like stars.

The boy’s eyes remained calm and settled.

The boy was not sad.

It’s not like I overcame my sadness though.

He seemed happy to have completed the performance, but he didn’t seem excited either.

The boy simply accepted everything.

And the image of myself suffering from loss.

I also see myself smiling at the little things in daily life.

Laughing with family, chatting excitedly with friends, sometimes feeling sad, sometimes happy······.

Accept that you are a human being and a musician.

An artist who boldly brings the various aspects of the human mind out into this world through music.

The boy wanted to become a pianist.

He was not drawn to Beethoven’s music, but sought to express himself through the music that the music saint had painstakingly built up.

I had a conversation with Beethoven and shared that story with the audience.

Countless questions and answers contained in each note and rest.

You could definitely feel those things in the boy’s performance.

Beethoven’s music, forgotten for 200 years, has been revealed to the world.

A timeless performance was created.

The audience continued to applaud the boy who created an unforgettable moment in his life.

To show our gratitude, we give a big round of applause to the boy on stage.

One performance brings together the hearts of 2,000 people.

Judge Scott, who had been quietly watching this scene, spoke quietly.

“······ There couldn’t be a more perfect premiere. He made such a difficult piece understandable to everyone. He created a complete performance by expressing the value of incompleteness······. It was an amazing attempt. But I found myself nodding along naturally.”

Before becoming a judge at the competition, pianist Samuel Scott dedicated his life to the piano and music.

He was able to fully accept the boy’s performance.

A hazy yet beautiful melody that makes you feel like tears will pour out.

An amazing tone that can discuss both agony and joy at the same time.

Scott quietly reflected on the boy’s performance, which seemed to have inherited Beethoven’s fate and his indomitable will.

The judges were busy talking among themselves, masking the cheers of the audience.

The Canadian judge, who had been sitting next to Scott and mulling over his words several times, slowly answers.

“As Judge Scott said, it was a truly amazing interpretation. The boy was never discouraged by Beethoven’s powerful music.”

“Yes, I saw it that way too. That young boy stood up to Beethoven in his later years.”

“Rather, the boy seemed to have persuaded Beethoven. He gave meaning to the choices he made in his later years and discussed life. In the finale······.”

Scott takes her at her word for it.

“It gave peace to the music saint. I could feel that emotion through the melody that changed every moment.”

“I never thought that a performance like this could be created in just 14 days. Such a high level of completion······. It’s truly amazing.”

The boy gave an interpretation that penetrated the music of the composer who was called the music saint.

Something that ordinary performers would never dare to imagine.

But the boy made this choice at the ‘premiere’ of Beethoven’s music.

I chose adventure over the easy path.

Moreover, this stage was not an ordinary performance.

Concours. Competition.

A position that requires the support of a majority of the judges.

Nevertheless, the boy confidently expressed his will.

and.

That interpretation seemed all too plausible.

The expression was also perfect.

Even the pianist’s breathing while playing seemed like a part of the performance.

What if you are not impressed by this performance?

‘That guy has no talent as a musician.’

The Canadian judges made up their minds.

Now, I felt like I could dare say that.

The judges, two or three in number, are busy talking to each other.

The Canadian judge looked at them for a moment, then looked away and continued talking to Scott.

In fact, not only Scott and her, but all the judges at Queen Elizabeth were praising the boy’s performance.

“14 years old… He’s still a child-like performer, but his inner depth already seems to be no different from that of the great masters. Did his experience at Chapel help him? It’s only been two weeks, but I feel like he’s become more mature.”

“Well, only the boy knows everything. But I can definitely feel that the boy has grown up.”

“Isn’t that all? It was a perfect performance, without allowing even a single mistouch. It must have been an unfamiliar score······.”

“He was definitely a great premiere. Brussels was lucky. If that boy hadn’t chosen Queen Elisabeth, they wouldn’t have been able to create such an amazing premiere.”

“Haha. That’s right.”

“It may one day be considered one of the greatest premieres of the modern era.”

The boy’s performance was that perfect.

The judges hurriedly finished writing the evaluation forms while listening to the audience’s endless applause.

Meanwhile, in one of the seats on the second floor, a little girl was looking at the stage with her hands clasped together.

Calming down my pounding heart.

His eyes sparkle like a boy on stage.

‘That was a wonderful performance.’

‘I don’t know what this feels like, but······.’

‘My chest felt tight. I felt like crying. But strangely······.’

‘The melody wasn’t just sad. It was warm.’

‘Your music······. always seems amazing.’

The boy’s performance is engraved in the child’s mind, knowingly or unknowingly.

The girl hugged today’s performance tightly, as if it would be remembered for a long time to come.

He puts both hands together and tries to keep it as if it is very precious.

At that moment, a woman standing nearby patted the girl’s head.

The girl looked at her mother with a bashful smile.

“Just like Mom said, my brother seems to be healthy. That’s a relief.”

“Right? So I told you there was absolutely no reason to cry and complain like that? Even though I really wanted to see you, Oppa. Tears and a runny nose······.”

Mom’s sudden words.

The girl waved her hands in the air in confusion.

“Ah! Mom! Secret! We made a promise to keep it a secret! You can never tell Oppa!”

As she spoke, the girl blushed faintly.

I just miss you······.

No, I was just yawning and tears started to fall······.

The girl who wanted to be her brother’s spunky younger sister ended up puffing out her cheeks because of her mother’s teasing.

Thanks to this, the child’s mother and father couldn’t help but smile at the same time.

“Haha! I got it. And Seojin must have really missed Sooyeon too. She might have been really upset because she missed Sooyeon at Chapel.”

“So, Sooyeon, you have to hug me later. Otherwise, I told you, you might be upset.”

“That’s right. That’s right.”

“······Is that really true?”

“of course!”

“Then~ Sooyeon is Seojin’s favorite person in our family.”

“The Han family siblings are also special. How great their friendship is~”

“Ugh.”

The girl, who was looking back and forth between her mother and father, cleared her throat slightly.

“Ahem. Then I guess I should do that? Hehe. I wish I could meet you soon. I’ve got so many stories to tell you. By the way, I’m going to buy you a lot of delicious food! That’s all!”

A girl who received a lot of pocket money from her parents while living in Brussels.

There were enough Euros in Teddy Bear’s bag to buy two waffles and two ice creams for dessert.

There was even money my brother received from busking······.

‘Hehehe. I’m pretty rich, huh?’

The girl smiled brightly again as she looked at her brother on stage.

In the audience not far from where the boy’s family was sitting, several people were laughing heartily.

A group that was particularly impressed by the boy’s performance.

Among them, a relatively young French woman continued talking excitedly.

“It was a premiere worthy of being recorded in history. It’s a shame that Beethoven didn’t get to see this performance in person. As for the results of today’s competition… I think it may have already been decided.”

Words from young French master Chloe Laurent.

At this, many musicians burst into laughter.

“Haha. Lucas would be upset if he heard that story.”

“But there’s nothing I can do. Lucas is still as young as a child. A ‘child’ can’t play Beethoven’s music perfectly.”

“Then what about that boy on stage? He’s not a ‘child’?”

Laurent responds to the musician’s gestures while looking at the stage.

“That boy is a pianist with a stronger inner self than any of the Queen Elizabeth contestants. Although he is the youngest, he is the most mature player.”

“That 14-year-old kid?”

“Yes. Maybe······.”

“perhaps?”

Laurent shook his head and did not finish speaking.

She thought back to the performance the boy had shown her earlier.

‘Maybe in today’s performance······. Seojin may have shown a more mature performance than I did. Really.’

A statement that would have been dismissed as a joke if anyone had heard it.

But Laurent was sincere.

Incomplete and complete.

Frustration and indomitability.

Despair and ecstasy.

The boy showed all of this through Beethoven’s ⌜Piano Sonata No. 33⌟.

A 14-year-old boy perfectly performed a performance that would have even troubled the great masters.

Clearly, amazing things will happen in the future.

Professional performers will create the framework of this music by referring to Han Seo-jin’s ⌜Piano Sonata No. 33⌟, a ‘first-time performer’.

Music schools around the world will analyze that performance in detail.

‘It wouldn’t be strange if a few papers were published.’

Thanks to Queen Elizabeth’s principle of being open, it was certain that the world’s musicians would all know about this child.

Independence as a pianist.

The kid did it at 14.

‘I wonder what he’s been through, and what he usually thinks about to be able to play like this······. The more I watch, the more amazed I am.’

Let me exaggerate a little.

Even if Seo Jin had been born in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Beethoven and Mozart were at their peak, it seemed like he would have been able to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

Wouldn’t it have been possible to develop my music even further by working with them?

Today’s performance was so great that it made me have such wild imaginations.

While Laurent was lost in thought, a contest official came up to the center of the stage.

He whispered to the boy, and the boy immediately started walking with him towards the waiting room.

The boy was unable to return to the waiting room because the standing ovation lasted nearly three minutes, so the contest staff helped him.

At the same time, another contest official who took the microphone asked the audience to calm down for the next performance.

The boy stood in front of the waiting room door for a moment, then greeted the audience who had been applauding until the end, and then went into the waiting room.

The stage situation is reminiscent of a recital.

The contest officials had to sweat for a while.

Fortunately, the concert hall where the boy disappeared began to return to its original calm.

The silence characteristic of a competition slowly descends upon the concert hall.

A breathtaking silence.

But what is so amazing is that even in this quiet atmosphere······.

That one note the boy played, so beautiful, remained so vivid that it was not easily forgotten.

A beautiful melody engraved deep within.

The audience absentmindedly looked towards the waiting room where the boy had disappeared······.

Without realizing it, they were recalling the performance from a little while ago.

.

.

.

The waiting room of the Beaux-Arts Concert Hall.

“Wow! This is really great! How did you come up with the idea to interpret this song like that? I was completely convinced after listening to it all the way through. Are you really Wolfgang? Or Professor Ludwig?”

“······ No way.”

“No. Think about it carefully. Don’t you sometimes miss Karl or something? Yes?”

“······.”

As soon as the boy entered the waiting room, Sylvie Lucas was the first to greet him.

Following this, Brian Turner from the US, as well as participants from Canada and Poland, also welcomed the boy.

Although the performance on stage could not be heard fully in this waiting room, the boy’s performance could be heard vaguely because it was not completely soundproof.

There, as finalists in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, their ears were very sensitive, so they could clearly hear what had been played earlier.

The six contestants who will lead the first part of the competition this morning.

Here, five people, except one, were gathered in one place and chatting excitedly.

The boundary between the waiting room and the stage.

In the darkest part of the waiting room, the contest official speaks to him.

“I apologize. The atmosphere in the arena has become noisy, so we will resume the competition in 10 minutes. I think you will have to wait until then.”

Yankovsky nodded with a faint smile.

“It’s okay. It was a performance worthy of its time. I think the audience responded well to it because it was a performance worthy of a ‘premiere’.”

“······Thank you for understanding. Then I will come back and tell you again 3 minutes before the show starts.”

Something that may break the flow depending on the participants.

But Yankowski didn’t really care about that.

Rather, he was repeating the boy’s performance over and over again.

Looking at the boy who was smiling awkwardly while surrounded by participants······.

Yankovsky closed his eyes for a moment.

One of the most memorable moments I had at Music Chapel.

I thought back to that time when I played the broken piano with the boy at the Chateau de Chapelle.

‘I heard something like this back then too······.’

Existence.

The boy played immortality, borrowing Beethoven’s music.

It became even clearer with the performance a little while ago.

That boy······.

Seojin spoke of the value of incompleteness.

It showed us through a performance our lives that are never tied up.

The illusion that you can truly understand a person’s heart.

He tells us to shake off that arrogance.

His performance that resonated through the Château de Chapelle was certainly like that.

Yankovsky slowly opens his eyes.

Ivan was smiling in front of him.

‘······I thought I could understand my brother’s feelings.’

I thought it would be natural since we had been together for so long.

So Yankowski tried.

To keep up with his brother’s playing, he worked tirelessly to become his proud younger brother.

I tried to suppress my trembling hands because of the memory of the burn and carry out my brother’s will.

I wanted to fulfill my brother’s dream that he could not achieve in the end.

but······.

Is that really true?

I started to have such doubts.

Annoyingly, my brother didn’t answer.

From that day on, my brother kept his mouth shut.

‘If you stretch out your hand like this······.’

In response to Oleg’s actions, Ivan takes Oleg’s hand.

Existence.

‘I feel it so clearly······.’

Ivan just smiled.

Oleg’s heart slowly began to crack.

Ivan.

Just like that back then.

In the form of an affectionate older brother.

He put his hand on his brother’s wound.

Oleg closed his eyes tightly.

Then she hugged Ivan tightly.

A small, small brother.

But despite his size, he felt huge.

The cracks are getting bigger and bigger.

The years that have passed since I began seeing visions of my brother.

An action that Oleg had not dared to do for a long time.

It was here that Oleg first embraced his brother’s fantasy.

I can feel my brother’s heart pounding.

I can feel my brother’s breath.

Actions that I couldn’t do because I was afraid that they might actually exist······.

It is the first and last time that you will be rewarded.

Ivan, although tall, still patted his little brother’s head.

I comforted my younger brother who was crying silently in my arms.

Ivan whispers softly.

Oleg. Oleg. Oleg.

Our very kind younger brother.

My brother is just······.

“I want you to be happy. That’s all I want.”

The illusion disappears.

Ivan’s form first shatters like glass, then turns into small grains that disappear into the air.

Only his bright smile will remain in this space until the end.

Oleg thought he had his brother in his arms until now, but······.

He was holding himself with both arms.

‘Why······.’

‘Just a little more······.’

‘Please stay by my side and cheer me on a little longer······.’

Things that can never be completed.

Things that will be left unfinished.

No, maybe······.

Things that were already completed but were left unfinished.

Yankovsky learned these facts through Seojin’s performance.

Beautiful yet lyrical.

Heartbreaking yet warm.

The sad and delicate melody of the boy was engraved in Oleg’s mind······.

Leads him into the world of existence.

Oleg’s tears, which he thought had dried up long ago, fell one by one onto the waiting room floor.

“Excuse me······. I’m sorry······. There are 3 minutes left.”

At that moment, a contest official approached Jankovsky hesitantly.

Yankovsky nodded slowly.

He looks at the waiting room door with a calm expression, then suddenly turns around.

There, surrounded by other participants, a boy was looking at him.

Their eyes only met for a moment, but they had a definite conversation.

‘You may not even be able to properly understand one person’s heart.’

‘I still don’t want to let go of what I have in my hands.’

‘Do I have a chance?’

‘A difficult decision······.’

‘Does it have to be that way?’

The boy asks.

He asks after showing a performance that transcends time.

Yankowski answered, lowering his clenched fists.

‘It has to be that way.’

The boy nodded very slightly at Yankovsky.

“You must leave now.”

As soon as the contest official finished speaking, the waiting room door opened.

A place with bright lights.

Yankovsky started to walk away, then stopped and turned around, opening his mouth.

Although it may be a little awkward, I leave here in the waiting room some words of greeting, peace, and comfort.

The Queen Elizabeth participants each smiled.

Was it because he was surprised by Yankovsky’s words, which he would not normally say?

Are you laughing at the already-decided best player right next to you?

Or maybe someone who was far superior to anyone else in the past······.

Should we ignore Oleg, who still seems to be inferior to the performer named Ivan?

but.

Yankovsky’s thinking was all wrong.

“Good job!”

“Seojin did well, but we can’t lose, right? You have to make the start.”

“I’m looking forward to your great interpretation!”

“It’ll be a lot more comfortable than when we practice. We’re all built for the stage.”

“go for it!”

Participants sending their support.

A boy waving his hand lightly between them.

Yankowski had no reason to hesitate.

Take a deep breath and step onto the stage.

I walk with heavy steps to the center of the stage, where bright lights shine.

Immediately, cheers from the audience were heard.

There was no one on stage but Oleg Yankovsky.

Ivan, who always followed Oleg around, was nowhere to be found.

A stage where I stand alone for the first time in years.

Oleg stood in the center of the stage, taking in each and every one of the audience members.

And sit down in front of the piano.

With hands that no longer tremble······.

He began playing Beethoven’s last piano sonata.

The illusion that you can tie up everything.

The illusion that you can truly understand a person’s heart.

Finally get away from it.

We hereby······.

It will transcend the meaning of extinction.

The message contained in the boy’s performance.

Bashanov and Lang Yu, who were in charge of commentating ⌜Queen Elizabeth⌟, left a word after watching the boy’s performance.

Immortal.

The youngest participant who showed an immortal performance is engraved with the meaning······.

People began calling Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 33 the “Immortal.”

The first day of the finals of the Queen Elisabeth Competition.

The boy makes his name known to the world.