7 February, 2023
The Pianists
I.
Lexi was reluctant to be Matthias Gerner’s accompanist for the gala concert, but not for the reasons her colleagues at the Manila Youth Conservatory imagined. It wasn’t that she missed the limelight and wanted center stage for herself, or that she had nerves about performing. She simply didn’t know if she could trust him.
He was the most popular concert pianist in the world. Young-looking even at forty, muscular, with a disarming smile, he had been the darling of classical music fans, young and old, for almost twenty years, until a mysterious falling-out with a conductor named Elias Wojciekowski. At the last concert they were supposed to do together, Wojciekowski walked off the podium without even touching his baton. Matthias remained to conduct and play on his own, which had the audience in an uproar of admiration by the end. Not long afterward, Wojciekowski completely disappeared from the public eye, and Matthias took a noticeable break from performing and moved to Osaka to be guest faculty at the music school. The move, such a long way from Vienna, struck Lexi as odd, and a fundraising gala in the Philippines after some master classes with young Filipino musicians seemed like a convenient redemptive photo op.
“Maybe he’s just a nice, generous guy who cares about young artists all over the world,” Lexi’s best friend, Cherry, suggested in the car on the way to the conservatory.
“Maybe,” said Lexi.
Cherry pulled into a parking spot behind the main building and retrieved her oboe case from behind the driver’s seat. Lexi got out of the passenger’s side with a shoulder bag and the oboe sonata by Saint-Saëns. The two went up the stairs to the rear entrance, where the guard, who had worked there for a decade, raised a hand to greet the distinctive pair – Cherry with her loud ‘70’s blouse, flare pants, and a frizzy bob dyed green at the edges, and Lexi, at 5’6” taller than most Filipinas, in white pants and a sleeveless cornflower blue top, her black hair in a long, high ponytail that hung to her ribcage.
“And you did turn the gig down,” Cherry pointed out as they entered the elevator.
“Because someone who quit performing before her career really went anywhere shouldn’t be putting her name in front of the phrase ‘master class.’”
“You won an international competition!”
“That was a lifetime ago.”
“1991. Twelve years. Then when you recorded your CD people compared your Chopin interpretations to Rubinstein and your Liszt to Brendel, for God’s sake.” The elevator pinged as they arrived at the fourth floor. “Ugh. I hate that it pings in G instead of A.”