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Opus One: A Reader's Guide

Ryan Sylander

Introduction and Act I: Chapters 1 through 8

This is a companion guide to the story Opus One. What follows is not a sequel or a related tale, but rather information and commentary on the musical aspects of the story. Kind of like the commentary track on a DVD, so if you hate that kind of stuff, no need to read further.

If you do go on, please read the following warnings before proceeding.

WARNING: This guide contains big spoilers all over the place, so I strongly recommend reading Opus One before reading this document. I know it's not a murder mystery, so you won't perish if you read this first, but there's not much point in doing so.

If you are here looking for a piece of music, translation to a chapter title, song texts, or character lists, please look at part five, which is a spoiler-free appendix containing those elements organized by chapter, and has none of the random thoughts I've thrown in below.

Disclaimer One: This document contains links to videos of performances of the music described in Opus One. These performances are by real people, while the story is about fictional characters. No similarity of these real performers with characters in the story is implied in anyway, except that they are playing the same piece of music. The point of these links is to allow you to hear some of the music; it is not to suggest that the performers in the video were the basis for a character or a scene, nor should the videos be used as a representation of the characters' attributes. The videos are freely available on the web, and my links to them are a one-way connection. Please respect this fact.

Disclaimer Two: Regarding making recommendations about musical recordings and artists, I want to state that I have no financial interest in any of the recommended items. This document is not a commercial.

Introduction

So what is the point of this thing? The main point is to provide an audio track for the story.

Originally, I was just going to list that information, and be done with it. But then people started requesting translations, and song texts, so those are in here too. Then people started asking questions about the music, and the background, and conducting, and so on ... So, I have covered some of that, too.

Why are these things not in the story, you might ask? I could have put them in, but I felt like they would interfere. I guess I admire books that have a lot of behind the scenes story and background to them (whether real or fictional). Also, the story, for me, has to flow a certain way. Many times I'd have some of these explanatory sections in there, and couldn't make it work. Therefore: deleted...

Now some of those things get a chance to see the light. By being in here, they're optional, rather than forced down your throat as they would have been if I'd stuck them in the main piece.

First, a few other questions readers have asked about the story:

Some have asked if Opus One is autobiographical, and the answer to that one is easy: No. The closest thing to autobiographical in the story is Allison, in the line of her work and her interest in music. I do play music as an amateur, but the vast majority of the story is completely fictional.

So where did the story come from, then?

"Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the poet, the artist, and the musician continue the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples; reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs; and reminding them that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide." — J. F. Kennedy

I heard that quote a few years ago at the beginning of a ballet DVD that was filmed at the Kennedy Center. The part about 'quiet work' struck me, and it got me thinking about how we perceive art, and the people who create it, be they dancers, artists, writers, or musicians.

I've been lucky enough to have known a number of really good musicians over the years, and there is a very interesting world there that many people perhaps don't get to look into very often. We see the stage act, and perhaps we read about their awards and significant performances in short program biographies. We might be told of the struggles and sacrifices they and their families faced, by people who know them, or on some television program.

But what's it really like to play music at such a level? That takes more looking, and asking.

One answer I've gotten from those I've known, is that it can be all consuming.

Around the same time that I saw that DVD, I visited a friend who used to dance with a well known ballet company. We met when I was in college, and we struck up an occasional and unlikely relationship. Each visit, sometimes a year or two apart, things related to ballet in her life were slowly replaced by other things. Family, of course, but other interests, too: a wall full of pictures signed by great dancers was always something I'd spend twenty minutes looking at. One visit, it was gone. The wall now had a metal shelf full of plants standing before it. The pictures were relegated to a cardboard box in the basement. Over the years, her fine collection of ballet films moved from being beside the TV stand, to the family room, and eventually to the basement as well.

As someone on the outside, I had trouble reconciling this. I was fascinated by her life as a dancer, but she lived it, burnt out, and moved on. I couldn't understand why, or how. It made me sad, too.

The third thing that was going on about then was that I had started outputting my first serious attempt at fiction, Looking Through The Lens. So writing was generally in my thoughts at that time. These things all got me to thinking that the world of professional musicians would make a good yarn.

Now I wish I could say that I had this great master plan before setting out to write O1, but I can assure you that that's not the case. In fact, the opposite is true: my original blurb for the story announced (with great expectation!) the arrival of one Hayley, fiery violinist, in my main character's second year of conservatory. She was going to be the heroine of the tale.

Of course, things didn't quite go as planned...

So, besides babbling on about the background of the actual story, I will offer some other details here, including links to videos where you can hear the music. For this purpose, I'll be using YouTube. There are disadvantages to this method. First, videos are limited to 10 minutes, which makes longer pieces somewhat annoying to listen to, since they are uploaded in multiple parts. Second, the audio quality can be quite poor. Third, these can be pulled from YouTube at any time for various reasons, meaning the links may die out over time. And fourth, the selection of performances to listen to may not always be of the highest quality. Some pieces in the story are not even represented on YouTube at the time I'm writing this.

Still, it's my best option. Full length audio recordings of these pieces are not available for free, and for me to provide them through a website would quickly get me in legal trouble. The other option, recommending CDs for purchase, can get pretty expensive just to accompany some random story. So YouTube it is. I realize that stuff on YouTube may run afoul of copyrights, but it is not my job to police that stuff. Many artists maintain sites on YouTube, and may have permission to post what might at first appear to questionable material. Those owning copyrights can also easily have things pulled from YouTube.

I ask that if you find dead links or better links than what I have in here, please let me know. As long as I'm active in this community, I'd like to keep this thing updated, and since new videos are constantly being uploaded, this guide can certainly be improved down the road. Of course, I encourage you to use the search function to find more versions of the music, should you be interested.

Finally, there is the risk that listening to the music I had in mind will not be satisfying to you. Most of the music listed here is classical music, including some opera. If you have an aversion to classical music, you may want to keep your own imagined musical selections in your head rather than those I link to.

For those of you with slow internet, you might consider removing the '&fmt=18' (without the quotes) at the end of the YouTube links. This flag requests a better version of the video with higher audio quality, but may take longer to load on slower connections.

Things will proceed chapter by chapter. The first four sections of this guide correspond to the four sections of the story:

Act I (chapters 1 — 8) covers the first week at Wexford.

Act II (chapters 9 — 17, plus an intermission, chapter 18) covers the first few months of the first semester.

Act III (chapters 19 — 27) covers the end of the first semester and the winter break.

Act IV (chapters 28 — 35) covers the second semester.

The fifth part, as mentioned above, is an appendix which distills all the information from the first four parts for easy reference, and takes out spoiler material.

Okay, the intro is threatening to get longer than the rest of it, so let's get going. I'll translate or explain chapter titles, and I'll also remind you of each chapter's events as we go, in case you're not reading along with the story.

Act I: Chapters 1 through 8

Chapter 1: Praeludium

-Praeludium is an alternative for Prelude, and is commonly used in Baroque music. Often it is a piece that starts out a work, so it's appropriate for the first chapter.

-Richard meets Emily and Sandra, and they go out to eat.

From the start, the girls were going to be secondary characters, keeping Richard entertained until Hayley arrived the following year. I was going to cover his first year in about 120K words, and focus on the relationship with his teacher. The girls would be a side story: a fling of sorts.

Um, right ... Way to stick to the plan.

Practice times among musicians vary. I knew some for whom four to five hours was right. Others surpassed eight hours in a day without a sweat. Then there are percussionists, who are practicing all the time, tapping out beats on desks, dishes, their chests, where ever... !

Some instruments have associated tasks. Oboe players seem to spend lots of time making their own reeds, and even more time cursing about them, heh heh.

Chapter 2: Offertory

-Offertory is a text used in some settings of a mass or requiem. For example: Faure's setting in his Requiem.

-Richard has his first lesson. The trio attend orientation activities. We meet Jer, his roommate. Things get more intimate with the girls.

In his first lesson, Richard plays Après un lecture du Dante, by Franz Liszt. This is from the Années de Pèlerinage suites, the seventh piece of Volume Two (Italy). Also informally known as the Dante Sonata. It is a technically challenging and flashy piece, as is a lot of what Liszt wrote.

There are a number of videos of this piece on YouTube. The pianist in this first one is, coincidentally, a young Italian man, but again, my point here is not to try to establish a visual on the characters. E. Pace:

Another Italian pianist, M. Scalafiotti:

A. Brendel's version (not my favorite Liszt interpreter; he has some commentary at the beginning about the piece):

One of the stories that inspired me to bust out a blank document and write some fiction was the Rev. Cotton Mather's Playing the Game series. It deals with soccer, so I had to throw in a little homage in that direction, even though I knew I wasn't going to have the trio play.

There are lots of ways to get through music school, despite the typical idea of the serious music-above-all, practice-thirty-hours-per-day student. I've known a few people like Jer who were good at what they did even though it seemed like they weren't taking things seriously. His character comes out of them.

Chapter 3: Scherzo

-Scherzo is Italian for joke. It usually denotes a sprightly and sometimes lighthearted musical movement or piece.

-The trio take their own city tour and visit the art museum. Attraction starts to weigh on them as they pose in the museum.

The ATM trick actually came out of my own financially challenged college days!

The artwork in the museum is:

Another story that got me writing was Nick Scipio's Summer Camp. In that story, some of the characters model for an art class. A little nod to that inspiring story is in this chapter.

Chapter 4: Trio

-Trio is a piece for three instruments or voices, naturally. Sometimes it can come in the middle of a Scherzo (which was the previous chapter title).

-The trio hangs out some more, and Emily kisses Richard during Sandra's head massage.

Some non-classical selections in this chapter:

The song is from the brilliant album The Downward Spiral.

Jacques Loussier is a pianist who plays classical pieces in a jazz trio setting. His arrangements of Bach are really neat. Here are the videos of his version of J. S. Bach's Italian Concerto. I really love the second movement (start of the second video).

He's been at it for almost fifty years now, starting with a series of albums on Decca called Play Bach No. 1 through No. 5.

Chapter 5: Sonata

-A sonata is a classical musical structure, traditionally for solo instrument or small ensemble. Usually in three or four movements.

-The trio's history in areas of love is touched upon. We hear about Arlene, Joel and Billy. The girls each kiss Richard at the end of the chapter, setting up a tense moment.

The only music here is the mention of a couple of operas. Richard's piano teacher loves Giacomo Puccini, including the opera Suor Angelica. A string teacher I knew in New York was obsessed with Puccini and always had it on at parties, so that's where that detail came in. Lots of versions of the aria Senza Mamma from the opera are on YouTube. Here are three classic sopranos singing that aria:

More scenes can be found using search.

Sandra's one and only opera attendance before coming to Wexford was seeing Rigoletto, by Giuseppe Verdi, at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC.

It was probably around this chapter that I started realizing that Sandra and Emily were not really going to want to stay secondary characters!

Chapter 6: Intermezzo

-Intermezzo is a movement which goes between others, or also a character piece.

-The trio explore their new relationship with a massage. Orientation events build up the wait, until they can be alone again. The girls discuss the situation, and then Richard comes to their room at last.

When I was writing the first scene, the song Utrus Horas by Orchestra Baobab came on my iPod, so I threw it in as the Cuban background music. They're actually a Senegalese band, but it's a Cuban based rhythm, with some killer guitar work over it.

Their 1982 album Pirate's Choice is really nice.

Chapter 7: Theme and Variations

-Theme and Variations is the structure of the movement from the Beethoven sonata that Richard plays. It consists of a single melody, which is then developed, usually by changing texture, rhythm, mode or instrumentation (for ensemble pieces).

-A wild game of Spit leads to a trip to the conservatory. Richard plays for the girls. Inspired, they retreat to the dorm to make love for the first time.

Richard plays the third movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, Opus 109. Here's a version of the complete sonata by R. Serkin. The third movement (theme and variations) starts at 1:55 of the second video.

Some other keys to the text:

The first time Richard stops ("Jeez, Richard,") it corresponds to 1:25 of the third video. The fourth variation, which Richard figures out how to play with a new approach, is at 1:56 of the third video, and ends at 0:15 of the fourth video.

Another version by D. Biran is here:

The fourth variation starts at 0:32 of the last video.

The lovemaking music ... Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 (1976).

This is a complicated piece to provide samples for. The second movement text comes from a prayer inscribed on a Gestapo cell wall. While Gorecki favored a broader interpretation of his Symphony, the piece has become associated with remembrance of the Holocaust. Most of the videos available for this piece contain images of this horrific time. I don't feel it is appropriate to link to them in the context of this story, out of respect for those affected. Be aware that if you search for this piece beyond what I provide below, you will encounter these images.

There are a few videos which contain simply the music.

I came to this piece from the musical side, unaware until much later of the source of the texts, or their meanings or political implications. Though some might question the use of a piece with these themes in it for a scene of love, I think music can transcend the details and just be about emotion. My editor reminded me of a phrase recently: "The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference." Spoken, of course, by E. Wiesel, a survivor of that time. I think that applies here, in that sadness, love, hate, happiness, hope ... They are all the same in a very fundamental way, and so easily interchanged.

The most popular recording of this piece, by far, is the one with Zinman and Upshaw, easily found just about anywhere.

Chapter 8: Allegro

-Allegro means happy or cheerful in Italian. It can be used as an indication for music which is not happy, so generally it is taken to mean fast and lively.

-The trio wakes up to their new relationship. Dinner at a Thai place leads to a promise of taking the girls to Italy. It rains on the way back to the dorm, and Richard and Sandra get frisky at the fountain. Back in the room, the fun continues, on their last night before classes begin.

No music in this one to link to. Just some fun before they get into the swing of their schedules. First time I ate Thai food, I had Richard's experience, heh heh...

If you have feedback on this guide, please take a moment to send your thoughts. Also, please report dead links if you find them. Anonymous submissions are accepted.

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