Its paint is chipped and the ivory keys are yellowing. On top of it are black-and-white photographs, illuminated by the sunlight brushing past chestnut leaves and trickling through the window. One of them is of my great-grandmother, a regal-looking woman with her hair pulled back in a bun. This was her piano, though now it stands in my grandmother's apartment in Warsaw, Poland.
As I sit down to play, I examine the elegant lines of the piano and the curves of its flat, broad keys. My mind turns to the instrument's incredible history. My great-grandfather was a member of the Polish Parliament, and when the Germans invaded Poland during World War II, his home was on the list of those to be seized by the Gestapo. My grandmother's family had to remove their belongings one day, and they took the piano to the home of their gardener, for lack of another place to put it. They did not regain it until after the war.
Now, so many years later, I look down at the same keys my great-grandmother and her daughters had played before the war. I open my music, starting with a Toselli serenade and a Donizetti aria, working my way up to Chopin's "Prelude in E Minor." I love this music of the Romantic Era because of its strong emotions, and the black dots on the page never fail to amaze me with their ability to say so much without words. Music is a mystery to me; it cannot be seen or touched, but it speaks to its listener, appealing to the passion within him. The art of music is as old as history, and from medieval ballads to spirituals to rock songs, it has sung its way into the lives of countless people. Everyone is a listener, receiving the gifts music bears. Yet as thrilling as it may be to accept its presents, I find that it is even more rewarding to give them as a performer.
As I play the piano, I am giving the fruits of music both to myself and to my grandmother, who sits in the next room, talking to my parents. Since my family and I are only able to see her once a year in the summer, each moment we spend with her is invaluable, and playing the piano is my contribution to our efforts to make her happy. As I sit alone at the piano, losing myself in the music, I am constantly aware of her presence, and I play more carefully than I do at home in hopes to please her. I think of Walt Whitman's lines in "A Noiseless Patient Spider," when he speaks of his soul as "surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space." Playing the piano, hearing and feeling the music that emanates from my moving fingers, I am at once detached, alone with the rises and falls of the notes, and surrounded, connected by each sound to my grandmother and to my parents.
The final song that I send through the wall to my family is Chopin's "Prelude in E Minor." It's hard not to be nervous when I play this piece, because my grandmother always said that her own mother played Chopin beautifully. My clumsy hands struggle to fit into Chopin's wide-set chords, but once the fingers find each note, their job is simple and repetitive. The music is uncomplicated in its emotion. It sings with passion. I am reminded of Edna in Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," when Chopin's music moves her to tears with its strong sensations. I do not pretend to play Chopin like it should be performed, and I frown to think that I am not doing the great composer justice. The fact that I have played for myself and for my family is enough for me, however.
I slide the stool back under the piano and place my sheet music next to it. I close the door behind me as I return to my grandmother's living room. The air is still now. The music is over.
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