“I want to celebrate being a country pianist...but I want to do so as if I’d been dropped here by accident instead of at the Wigmore Hall or Musikverein.” (A provincial pianist, part 1)
This is almost the exact scenario of “The Music Copyist”, a wonderful tale by “underground storyteller” Spencer Holst. The central event is a student recital presented by a local music teacher in a small Midwestern town. Though attending reluctantly out of family obligation, the title character finds himself charmed by the kids’ spirit and joyousness, when to his astonishment the final little piece on the program is swapped for a famously difficult, monumental piece for enormous forces, in a life-changing transcendental performance.
Can’t say more without spoilers. You can listen to an online audio version (starts at 13:14) read by the author with musical interludes by Tui St. George Tucker, who was the inspiration for the otherworldly music teacher in the story. The track streams for free (pay to download).
If you want to read it instead, you can find it in Holst’s collection The Language of Cats. Not clear if there’s a legal online version. Currently you can “borrow” it with a free account at the Internet Archive; whether the borrowing feature is in compliance with copyright law is disputed, and if the rights holder lodges a complaint, the story may not remain available at the link.
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