Chapter 19.

(Peggy O'Brien-Hughes. Friday, October 13th, 1978; Severance Hall.)

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In her imagination, Peggy and the gigantic saxophonist in his wild, Soul Train-worthy threads walked through the clouds. Albeit, they managed in different ways. Sax Man stood next to the mountain, his head in the sky and clear-heeled platform shoes digging into the earth. Peggy, on the other hand, drifted like a butterfly, dancing in three dimensions over strains of the opening allegro to Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik some musicians played, warming up.

She breathed deep, smelling linseed oil and dust. And smiled because the music shimmered like moonbeams.

And then she tensed, remembering her performance that evening.

Enough daydreaming, she thought. Forcing her circus mind present, Peggy bade her imaginary friend farewell and double-checked her violin’s A-string against the 440-hertz tone piping over the PA.

Perfect.

One at a time, she tested the other strings, tuning from the A-string.

Again, perfect.

Content, she smiled, rosining her bow, and listened to the assorted second violins, violas, cellos, and woodwinds who played Nachtmusik, orienting herself. And then, without thinking, instead of running through her scales, Peggy played the first violin bits. Others arrived, jostling chairs, snapping open cases, and tuning in the background. Like her, most ditched mechanical warm-ups and joined in.

Playing music, Peggy thought, was a groovier way to warm-up, by a mile.

Peggy knew their performance wasn’t by-Hoyle pretty. Since they hadn’t run scales, many players’ intonation was off. And new arrivals jostled elbows, interrupting players’ phrasing and rhythm. Worse, some musicians had jumped in untuned, and, playing from memory, everyone, including Peggy, sometimes veered off-score as others moved forward, coaxing those in error back on course.

The performance sounded ragged, unpolished, and off-the-cuff. But it didn’t matter. Despite the mistakes, their version of Nachtmusik rocked. Big-time. Sure, it lacked polish, but she’d dug it, hard. The effect reminded Peggy of Gramps’s rag-tag jazz records: loose-limbed and exuberant.

When the allegro ended, the musicians giggled and clapped, happy with their effort. Peggy figured that the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s conductor, Maestro Stanislaw Klaczko, would cringe.

But fuck it. Playing Mozart jostled a tad out-of-tune and elbowed off-rhythm was a freaking blast, crisp or not, full-stop.

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Smiling at her quiet rebellion, Peggy began her favorite part of the night’s program, the section of Appalachian Spring based on the song ‘Lord of the Dance.’ At least, that’s what she called the tune, which Sister Ursula Marie taught her in second-grade music class. Gram and Gramps insisted that the tune was some ancient Irish folk song, and the maestro maintained that Copland’s inspiration was a Shaker hymn.

Peggy rolled her eyes.

Grownups can be such dorks, arguing as if that crap matters. It’s just a groovy tune, and I love it, full-stop.

The melody made her imagine the spring and Easter, with Jesus and Mary dragging all the wild animals, birds, bees, and flowers from their winter slumber as he danced, celebrating the green and growing world.

She grinned and played. As if by instinct, the others joined in, following her. It made sense. She held the second chair in the first violin section. Since the first chair hadn’t arrived, she became the de facto concertmaster. So she played the tune with vigor—or, ‘con brio,’ in official “orchestra speak”—and they followed her lead. Buoyed by her rebellious heart and egged by her followers, Peggy ditched constraint, accentuating rhythm over melody, expressiveness over technique.

Just playing and having fun.

Soon, the entire room swelled as the young musicians jammed con brio. As they played, her mind floated, dancing on the wind.

Copland’s first run through the ‘Lord of the Dance’ theme ended, and Peggy wrapped up the tune, full-stop, but on the tonic instead of modulating to a remote key and shifting to the next theme as in the score. But the orchestra read her mind and resolved on-key.

Everyone followed?

Groovy. Freaky. Like we have ESP.

She smiled, tallying another reason to love music: it helped you read minds, like Spock’s Vulcan mind-meld.

And then, clapping drifted from backstage as the conductor emerged. He stood, dressed in a crisp charcoal suit and starched white shirt, his arms outstretched, with a look of unbridled joy on his face.

“Now that, that was crisp playing. Though maybe madame concertmaster…,” he halted, bowing with respect towards Peggy, whose cheeks burned hot, “played with too dotted a rhythm. But overall, it was vital, alive. It danced. Copland would approve.”

Maestro bowed. Peggy smiled, basking in the applause. She liked that even a muckety-muck like Maestro Klaczko, the backup conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, felt like she did about music.

Maestro stepped forward, clapping, calling the players like the Pied Piper. From the wings, missing musicians scurried to their chairs. Soon, Peggy’s run as concertmaster ended as first violinist Dexter Forester, a bespectacled cutey, all elbows and bulging Adam's-apple, took his seat next to Peggy and began tuning.

Sax Man, now shrunken to life-size, shrugged, his eyes kind and a little sad, as if lost in a sweet memory he longed to relive. And then he applauded, his yellow-brown face exploding into a grin, his Hollywood-white teeth flashing wanton joy. This made Peggy ecstatic as she ran through scales.

Like Maestro Klaczko, Sax Man approved. And he reminded her of Jimi Hendrix, who was cool as hell despite being a golden oldie who had died when she was, like, four or five. Though the saxophone dork wore goofier threads than the rock god and played saxophone instead of guitar.

Nevertheless, the resemblance was there….

Sort of? Maybe? The same, but completely different?

Joy tightened her cheeks and squinched her eyes as the logically illogical but somehow accurate statement landed. Regardless, both Maestro and Sax Man appreciated the rendition she led as concertmaster. Both were pros, one hip, one square, but both talented, and both dug her ‘Lord of the Dance.’

That meant something. At least she thought it did… until she realized that she’d imagined Sax Man into existence. Which made her feel decadent and devilish, cherishing his approval even more.