When a voice wants to dominate others, even music can begin to die
by Marialuisa Veneziano
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🎧 MUSIC FOR LETTURE
Arnold Schönberg — Variations for Orchestra, op. 31
Before entering the reign of the twelve princesses, click on the black arrow and press play.
This time music not only accompanies history: the secret.
In Arnold Schönberg's Op. 31 Orchestra Variations, the twelve sounds enter a new order, in which no one is called to reign permanently on others. They meet, transform, return in different forms, until they build a sound universe where balance is not born from the dominance of one voice.
It is the same question hidden behind the empty throne.
While you read, do not necessarily seek a melody to follow.
Let the music surprise you.
Twelve sounds. Twelve princesses. No queen.
Start listening.
Then open the door.
There are thrones scary when they're busy.
King Aldebrando's name began to make it when he was empty.
No one would have admitted it, of course.
The courts have always had an extraordinary ability to attribute decent names to their fears: ambition becomes sense of the state, envy prudence, cowardly moderation and the desire to know who will command tomorrow, when expressed with sufficient gravity, takes the name of concern for the good of the kingdom.
Thus, in the morning after the death of the ruler, no one said:
«Who will take the throne?»
They said:
«We must ensure the continuity of the Crown.»
Which, translated into the language of men, meant the same thing.
The problem was that Aldebrando had not left male children.
He left twelve daughters.
And what was worse for those who love simple matters, he loved them all.
Not the same way — parents who say they love all children in the same way are perhaps sincere, but certainly imprecise — but with that difficult art that consists in understanding that different people need different loves.
The elder was called Aurelia.
It was prudent, composed, accustomed for years to hear that one day should assume great responsibility; so he had finished with the assumption even those that no one had entrusted to her.
Beatrice he possessed a sharp intelligence and the defect, not rare in intelligent people, to use it sometimes when it would be more charitable to leave it in the sheath.
Cecilia He spoke little, but he remembered everything.
Diana had such an impetuous character that one day an ambassador had observed that the princess entered the rooms a few seconds before her body.
Elena He loved the rules.
Flora He loved people, which often led her to violate the rules established by Elena.
Geneva He wanted the throne.
It's good to say it right away.
Not because she was mean.
Bad people are much more comfortable in fairy tales: they hurt and save the narrator every explanation.
Geneva, however, was generous, brilliant, courageous and sincerely convinced that the kingdom would be better under his government.
It is a conviction that has caused more disgrace in history than pure wickedness.
Livia He was afraid of everything, but he had the curious ability to be brave when someone else was more afraid of her.
Matilde He questioned everything, including the need to question everything.
Black He preferred libraries to the receptions, a choice that was judged in court with the same indulgence reserved to a child's disease, hoped, to pass.
Ottavia had a prodigious memory.
And finally there was Purple.
The youngest.
So accustomed to being the twelfth that had soon learned a truth that the first born understand much later:
who comes last to speak, if he has patience, he often hears things that others did not listen.
When the king was buried, the Crown Council gathered in the Great Hall.
At the bottom of the hall was the throne.
Black, very high, with twelve small silver inlays arranged along the back.
No one's been paying attention to those inlays for centuries.
It is a common destiny to the things we see every day: they become invisible thanks to their presence.
In front of the throne was the Chancellor, Marquis Ortensio di Cadenza.
Ortensio was a lean, accurate and perfectly combed man, who nourished for the order a affection so sincere to distrust everything he had not personally arranged.
— Height — said turning to Aurelia — according to the custom of the kingdom...
— My father did not appoint a heir — I interrupted Geneva.
The Chancellor took a short break.
— I do.
— So there is no applicable custom.
— Princess, customisers have precisely the advantage of being applicable even when no one remembers why they exist.
Beatrice smiled.
— It is perhaps the best definition of custom I have ever heard.
Ortensio ignored her.
— Princess Aurelia is the major.
Everyone looked at Aurelia.
Aurelia watched the throne.
He could have said yes.
She had been prepared for years at that time.
He had learned law, history, economy, diplomacy.
They taught her how to greet a hostile ambassador, how to receive a terrible news without bleaching and even how long it was appropriate to silence before responding to a declaration of war.
No one, however, taught her how to sit on her father's throne the day after she was lost.
— We'll wait — He said.
Ortensio was almost imperceptible.
Men who love order tolerate many things.
Waiting is rarely among these.
— Will we wait for what?
Aurelia took from the pocket of the dress a key.
— This.
He showed her.
It was a small silver key that the king had brought to his neck until the last day.
On the night before his death, he gave it to his eldest daughter, saying only:
«When everyone is looking for who must be the first, open what I left.»
Aurelia approached the throne.
Under his right arm, he found a lock.
None of them had ever noticed it.
The key entered.
He did something.
A small drawer came out of the back of the throne.
There were twelve letters inside.
Everyone was named after a princess.
And under the letters, a thirteenth envelope.
No name.
Aurelia took her.
On the seal there were few words:
Geneva raised a eyebrow.
— Our father kept the sense of theater until the end.
— We finally know who you inherited it from — said Beatrice.
Aurelia distributed the letters.
Every sister opened her own.
There was silence in the room.
— Mine contains a note — said Cecilia.
— Even mine — said Elena.
— My purse.
One after the other showed the sheets.
On each one was written a single name of musical note and a phrase.
Aurelia reads:
♪ — "Don't be the first just because others put you in front of you. "
Beatrice:
FA — "The intelligence that humiliates a voice ends up listening only to itself. "
Cecilia:
— "Remembering does not mean repeating. "
Diana:
SOL — "The force that cannot wait becomes noise. "
Elena:
REDES — "One rule is just as long as it protects even those who did not write it. "
Flora:
THE — "Listening someone means running the risk of changing your mind. "
Geneva:
— "Who wants the center should first wonder who will stay on the margins. "
Livia:
REQUEST — "The courage is not to speak first. "
Matilde:
— "Doubt your doubt, too. "
Nerina:
Yes. — "What is forgotten is not always what is worth less. "
Ottavia:
— "Memory becomes prison when it claims that the future resembles the past. "
Viola last opened.
FA DIESIS — "What is missing seems small only until it really misses. "
No one spoke.
Then Diana said,
— What does that mean?
— That our father had become even more enigmatic in recent months — answered Geneva.
Ortensio cleared his voice.
— With all due respect to the memory of the sovereign, the kingdom cannot be ruled by a riddle.
It was then that a retouch came from the tower.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then a strange sound.
Like a bell she forgot herself.
They all raised their heads.
The master of the bells entered the room a few minutes later, pale.
— Your Majesty...
He stopped.
The throne was empty.
Not knowing who to turn, he made a collective bow, which was not elegant but had at least the value of impartiality.
— One of the bells doesn't sound properly anymore.
— He'll be cracked. — said Ortensio.
— No, sir.
— So what does he have?
The old man hesitated.
— There's a note missing.
Beatrice smiled.
— A bell can't miss a note.
— Indeed, Your Highness.
— So what?
The old man swallowed.
— The note also disappeared from the others.
This time nobody smiled.
The news took a few hours to reach the city.
The fa diesis He was gone.
Not fooled.
Not lowered.
Not altered.
Scared.
The violinists could put their finger exactly where that note was supposed to be and get a sound that slipped elsewhere.
The organs jumped that point as if there was a broken step on the keyboard.
The flutes were looking for it and producing only air.
Even children, trying to sing it, heard the voice drop a semitone before or climb to the next one.
Of course many declared it was not serious.
Men have an extraordinary inclination to consider negligible what still does not prevent them from eating.
— A note on twelve — said a merchant. — 11 left.
The next day he disappeared another.
Then a third.
Then the merchant stopped making calculations.
The melodies began to deform.
Popular songs tripped.
The lullabies had sudden holes.
A quartet had to stop in half a piece because two instruments could no longer meet.
The most disturbing thing, however, was not the ugliness of new sounds.
It was the feeling that the world was shrinking.
Like a language from which someone erases words once in a while.
The third night Viola couldn't sleep.
He took his father's letter.
FA DIESIS.
The first missing note.
He read the sentence.
What is missing seems small only until it really misses.
He got up.
He crossed the corridor.
The library was dark.
Nerina was sitting at a table with three lit candles and seventeen open books.
— You never sleep?
— I sleep when others stop doing things I have to understand.
Viola showed her the sheet.
— The first missing note is mine.
Nerina remained still.
Then he called Ottavia.
Then Cecilia.
Half an hour after all twelve were in the library, some wrapped in cloaks, others still dressed as night; Diana carried a candle in her hand with the attitude of those who would be perfectly willing to use it as a weapon.
They put the letters on the table.
Nerina observed them.
— Maybe it's not 12 messages.
— Twelve messages are clear — said Elena.
— No. Maybe I'm a single message, divided into twelve parts.
Ottavia took the sheets.
— What order?
Geneva answered:
— In our birth.
They tried.
Nothing happened.
— Perhaps by height — suggested Diana.
— If our father has entrusted the future of the kingdom to our height, we have greater problems than succession — said Beatrice.
They tried according to age.
According to the alphabet.
According to the layout of the rooms.
According to the birth day.
Nothing.
Viola noticed something.
— The notes.
They all turned.
— I'm not in order.
Elena sighed.
— That's obvious.
— No. I mean: Perhaps the order is the fact that they are not in order.
Quiet.
Nerina looked at her.
Viola took a pencil and transcribed:
Ottavia counted.
— No one repeats.
— All twelve — said Cecilia.
At that moment the great bell of the tower beat midnight.
A fourth sound disappeared from the world.
The day after the princesses called the old chapel master.
Her name was her. Erasmus and had reached that age in which men are not necessarily wiser, but have at least stopped worrying if someone considers them such.
He listened.
He watched the show.
Then he took off his glasses.
— Your father had been studying this idea for years.
Ortensio, present at the meeting, stiffened.
— What idea?
Erasm looked at him.
— That of a music in which no sound could claim for itself the right to be home.
— A centerless music? — asked Aurelia.
— Exactly.
The Chancellor shook the boss.
— That's absurd. Every order needs a center.
Erasm smiled.
— You often confuse the center with who sits on it.
Ortensio didn't smile.
— And these notes?
The master indicated the series.
— A law. Before a note returns, all the others must have had the right to speak.
Viola looked at the sisters.
— "When everyone has spoken. "
The thirteenth envelope.
They ran to the throne room.
Aurelia took her.
— We all read our letters.
— But we didn't let the notes speak. — said Cecilia.
Erasmus nodded.
In the hall there was an ancient harpsichord.
Aurelia sat down.
— In the order?
— In the order left by the king.
He waved the Mi.
Then Fa.
Do diesis.
Sol.
At every sound one of the silver inlays on the throne was illuminated.
King Diesis.
La.
Drink.
King.
Bemolle.
Yeah.
Do.
Aurelia arrived at the last.
It's diesis.
The key went down.
No sound.
The first missing note.
One of the inlays was turned off.
The mechanism did not open.
Ortensio said slowly:
— We're too late.
That night the fifth sound disappeared.
The kingdom began to be afraid.
And fear, when it does not understand, almost always asks a master.
People gathered in front of the palace.
— A queen!
— Fallen Aurelia!
— Some governments!
Others shouted the name of Geneva.
The Council is divided.
Ortensio summoned Aurelia in private.
— You'll be crowned tomorrow.
— No.
— Your Highness, the people need a center.
— The people need the notes back.
— And they will return when the order will be restored.
Aurelia looked at him.
— Are you sure?
Ortensio just hesitated.
Too little for anyone else to notice.
Enough because Aurelia yes.
— What do you know?
— What I know is that your father, in recent years, has been seduced by dangerous ideas.
— What?
— That twelve voices could rule without anyone before.
— And you disagreed.
— I know men.
— It is a phrase that often pronounce those who stopped trusting them.
Ortensio got up.
— A nation is not a musical experiment.
— Maybe.
Aurelia fixed it.
— But this crisis is.
Nerina, meanwhile, found something.
Behind an ancient closet of the library there was a door.
On the wood were engraved twelve lines.
And on top:
WHEN THE STRADA DAVANTI A VOI WILL BE CLOSED, CERVE THAT TORNA INDIETRO.
— Back — Ottavia said.
He took the show.
He read it backwards.
FA♯ – DO – SI – LA♭ – RE – YES♭ – LA – RE♯ – SOL – DO♯ – FA – MI.
As soon as he spoke the last note, the door died.
Behind there was a corridor.
Beatrice looked at the others.
— Our father undoubtedly had too much free time.
They came in.
The passage went down under the palace.
They arrived at a hall covered with mirrors.
In the middle was an inscription:
Don't you dare.
I mean, you're trying to break up.
I want you to come up.
Erasm, who had followed them with the slowness of those who know that puzzles do not become easier running, passed a finger on words.
— Reversal.
Elena looked at him.
— I mean?
— If a note rises from a range, its image must descend from the same interval.
Matilde smiled.
— Even our father had understood that the opposite is not always an enemy. Sometimes it's a road.
They rebuilt the series.
It took hours.
Every mistake turned out the torches of the room.
Every time they started again.
Diana lost her patience.
Elena insisted on a wrong solution for almost half an hour.
Geneva accused Beatrice of distracting her.
Beatrice replied that, to distract Geneva from herself, it would have happened much more talented.
Aurelia beat a hand on the table.
— Stop!
Quiet.
Viola, who had not spoken until then, said:
— We're doing exactly what our father wanted to stop us.
— I mean?
— Everyone just waits for the moment to repeat their own idea.
No one answered.
She was irritating.
And, as often happens to irritating things, it was true.
That time they tried differently.
One was talking.
The others listened.
A proposal was not rejected until all had understood it.
They put us less than an hour.
The central mirror opened.
Behind them they found a small room.
And in the room, a tie.
A sheet was missing on the leggio.
The twelfth.
— Someone arrived before us — said Cecilia.
There were no major investigations.
There were prints on the powder.
Ordered.
Equal.
And on the floor a small drop of green wax.
Ortensio sealed all state documents with green wax.
Geneva paleed.
— The Chancellor.
They went up.
But Ortensio was waiting for her.
In the Throne Room.
With the guards.
And with the crown.
— Tomorrow at dawn — he said, — Aurelia will be queen.
— You took the sheet — Nerina said.
Ortensio did not deny.
— I destroyed it.
Viola stepped forward.
— Why?
For the first time the Chancellor seemed old.
— Because I saw a kingdom almost destroyed once.
The princesses were scurvy.
— Your grandfather died leaving two heirs. Two, seven years of war. I saw cities burned because two men thought they were both entitled to the same chair. Your father thought that twelve people could rule without a ruler.
Rise.
Not with joy.
— Twelve.
Geneva looked at the crown.
— So you made the notes disappear?
— No.
Ortensio looked at her.
— But I knew it would happen.
— What?
— Your father showed me the mechanism years ago. He told me that on his death the throne would test the kingdom.
— And you have hidden the last part.
— I stopped madness.
Viola whispered:
— No. You stopped all the rumors coming to the end.
Ortensio indicated the throne.
— That chair held this country for four hundred years.
Matilde looked at the black chair.
— Curious. I thought it was people.
— People need to know who's in charge!
It was then that Geneva took the crown.
They all turned.
He kept it in his hands.
It was the time she imagined for years.
The weight of gold.
The stones.
The right to be looked at first.
Ortensio smiled.
— You understand.
Geneva observed the throne.
Then the sisters.
He slowly approached.
For a moment he seemed to sit.
Instead he placed the crown on the pillow.
— This is the problem — He said.
Ortensio attacked the forehead.
— What?
— That I understand very well.
He turned toward him.
— I wanted that chair half my life. And that's why I don't trust what I think when I look at her.
Aurelia lowered his eyes.
Beatrice made no jokes.
It was perhaps the greatest tribute he could make.
Seven notes were missing at dawn.
The city sounded like a world that was forgetting its own language.
The princesses returned to the mirror room.
The twelfth sheet had disappeared.
But Ottavia remembered every word read.
— I saw it — He said.
— When?
— Once. Our father kept it on his desk months ago. I didn't know what it was.
Close your eyes.
Recited:
"Anywhere you've gotten into the kites, the retractor and the snatch, don't make a name. "
— The kingdom — said Aurelia.
— Our father — said Flora.
— Freedom — said Matilde.
— The throne — said Geneva.
Then he stopped.
— No.
Viola looked at her.
Geneva included before the others.
— Your voice.
Quiet.
In the middle of the room there were twelve small cavities.
One for each note.
Erasmus said:
— Perhaps the last test is not about what you have to play.
— But what you are willing to give up — said Cecilia.
One after another, the princesses placed their seals in the cavities.
When Viola supported the twelfth, the wall opened.
A climb.
He wasn't coming down.
He climbed into the throne.
They arrived behind the back of the big chair.
There they found twelve ropes, one for each inlay.
Eleven were broken.
One could still resist.
Ortensio, who had followed her, entered.
— Stop.
Viola looked at the rope.
— If this breaks, the last note will disappear.
— If you touch her, you could destroy everything!
Aurelia turned.
— What if we don't do anything?
The Chancellor did not answer.
That was the answer.
Erasm examined the mechanism.
— The ropes should not be repaired one by one.
— So how?
The old man pointed out twelve little hammers.
— They must play together in the established succession.
— But the notes are gone.
— From the kingdom, yes.
Erasmus looked at the princesses.
— Not from you.
No one knew.
Then Cecilia brought a hand to her chest.
The letters.
The phrases.
The seals.
Each of them had received a note.
They didn't have to play it with an instrument.
They should have sing it.
— I can't. — Livia said. — Those notes no longer exist.
Erasm smiled.
— They exist in memory.
Ottavia gave the first sound.
Uncertain.
Aurelia followed him.
One after another they sought their height.
It was hard.
Some hesitated.
Some were too low.
Others too high.
Geneva left before his turn.
The mechanism trembled.
— Wait! — shouted Viola.
Geneva did.
And for the first time in his life he waited for eleven other voices to exist before using his own again.
Mi.
Fa.
Do diesis.
Sol.
King Diesis.
La.
Drink.
King.
Bemolle.
Yeah.
Do.
Fa diesis remained.
Viola opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
The first missing note.
The far from memory.
Ortensio whispered:
— He can't do that.
Purple closed his eyes.
He thought of his father's sentence.
What is missing seems small only until it really misses.
Then something happened that no one had predicted.
The eleven sisters didn't sing for him.
They didn't help her by giving her the note.
They remained silent.
They left her room.
Viola I'll reject.
He tried.
Uncertain sound.
No.
Again.
Closer.
Then finally:
It's diesis.
The twelfth rope lived.
Nothing happened for a few seconds.
Then the eleven broken strings began to resonate.
One after another.
The whole mechanism moved.
A bell came from the city.
Then another.
A violin from a window.
A flute.
A child screaming.
The notes came back.
All of them.
But the throne began to tremble.
Ortensio yelled:
— Run!
A crack crossed the back.
Then another.
The crown fell.
The big black seat opened in two.
There was no gold in it.
Not a second crown.
Neither a document that proclaimed the name of a queen.
There was only one silver plate.
And above, the last words of Aldebrando.
Aurelia reads out loud:
"If you're going to be here, you're going to be in full swing because I didn't get an IRADE. "
No one was breathing.
"By SECLES, we believe that the ORDER is deemed to be one of your co-ordinates to get the other. "
Geneva lowered its eyes.
"I've been overwhelmed by the fact that you're a more diffective order. "
Beatrice continued:
"Whatever in your life may be able to bury you before all of your other things are done. "
Viola read the last sentence.
"The TRONO RESTI VOTO. "
Under, smaller:
"No, no, no, no, no.
But because no one needs to be no stranger to the inside. "
Ortensio fell into a chair.
Throughout his life he feared a kingdom without a ruler.
He looked at the twelve princesses.
— And who will rule?
Aurelia smiled.
— Us.
— All of them?
— All of them.
— That's impossible.
Beatrice bowed her head.
— This argument has the defect of having already been denied several times tonight.
— You'll fight.
— Of course. — said Matilde.
— You'll have opposite opinions.
— We hope so.
— One will want to talk when another has not finished.
Geneva smiled bitterly.
— We'll have to work on this.
Ortensio looked at the broken throne.
— And when do you not agree?
Viola responded.
— We will start listening from the beginning.
From that day the throne remained empty.
It was not destroyed.
The princesses wanted him to stay in the Great Hall, with the crack still visible.
To remember.
Twelve smaller seats were arranged in circles.
Nobody in front.
No one behind.
And, which shocked the older dignitaries, no raised place.
The twelve sisters ruled.
They fought a lot.
It is good to point out.
Who imagines that equality produces automatically harmony has probably known little equality and even less human beings.
Aurelia was too careful.
Diana too fast.
Elena wanted to regulate even the duration of discussions.
Matilde wanted to discuss the regulation.
Beatrice made observations that it would be diplomatically preferable to think only.
Geneva still had, more than once, nostalgia for the crown.
And Viola, who had learned the value of the last voice, sometimes forgot that even the last one can become arrogant when he convinces to be the wisest.
They didn't become perfect.
They were careful.
That's more useful.
They set one rule.
No important matter could be closed until all twelve had spoken.
And no one could intervene a second time before the others had their turn.
The courtiers found the slow system.
Exasperating merchants.
Incomprehensible foreign ambassadors.
Sometimes it was.
But something happened.
Decisions began to contain parts of reality that never entered the Throne Room before.
Livia's fears.
Matilde's doubts.
Ottavia's memory.
Flora's compassion.
Elena's discipline.
The ambition of Geneva, which when it could not dominate became energy.
Even Cecilia's silences.
The kingdom did not become without conflicts.
He became unable to pretend that one voice could contain them all.
Years later, a child visited the palace.
In front of the great broken throne, he asked:
— Who's sitting there?
— Nobody.
The child seemed surprised.
— So what's that for?
The guide hesitated.
Viola, now adult, was just passing by at that moment.
He stopped.
— You need to remember something.
— What?
Viola looked at the old chair.
— That not all that is empty waits to be filled.
The child does not include.
As often happens to children, however, he remembered.
Many years later he would have understood the rest.
THE MORAL OF THE WORK
This fairy tale is inspired by dodecafonia, the musical system devised by Arnold Schönberg in which the twelve sounds of the chromatic scale are placed on the same plane: no one has to impose himself permanently as a center, and each has to have his own space before one can return.
That is why the twelve princesses should not find out who is the best.
They must understand that the question itself is wrong.
Harmony is not always born when a voice dominates others.
Sometimes it is born when all can be heard without anyone being declared useless.
The sisters are different, just like the twelve notes.
And their value does not consist in being equal, but in being irreplaceable.
When a note disappears, music becomes impoverished.
When a voice is excluded, the world also becomes smaller.
The empty throne then becomes the most important symbol of the fairy tale: it does not represent a power that is missing, but a center that no one needs to occupy anymore.
Because sometimes we call "disorder" only an order in which we are no longer in charge.
And this is perhaps the most difficult lesson of dodecafonia, and also of life: before repeating your voice, make sure all the others have had the right to be heard.
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