Music found new ways where life had erased those before.
by Marialuisa Veneziano
*****
🎧 MUSIC FOR LETTURE
To accompany The octantotto doors, we recommend listening to Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in King Major by Maurice Ravel.
Ravel wrote this Concert for , the pianist who, after losing his right arm during the First World War, continued his career by entrusting to one hand a keyboard remained, obstinately, eighty keys.
The song was almost dark: smugglers and counterfeit emerge from the serious register, then the orchestral mass grows until the entrance of the piano. From that moment Ravel builds an extraordinary sound illusion: bass, melodies, chords, arpeggios and different musical plans seem to require two hands, while everything is left alone.
It is exactly the journey of our novella: do not erase what is missing, but discover a new way to cross the remaining space.
Click on the arrow of the logo "cuffie", press play, then start reading.
In Vienna there was a piano that, when no one looked at it, became a city.
He had had had had had had had had had had had had sex. octantotto doors.
Fifty-two were white, thirty-six black. Some led in bright rooms, others in deep cellars; some opened on corridors so acute that they seemed made of air, others on underground where the sound walked slowly and made the floor vibrate.
The two Hands of Paul Wittgenstein knew that city better than anyone else.
Right He liked to live in the upper quarters.
He claimed that the light was better up there.
— It is above all an artistic question — He explained.
Left, who spent a lot of time between bass, chords and harmonic foundations, teasing her.
— Sure. Even pigeons prefer to stay up.
— Are you comparing a melody to a pigeon?
— It depends on the melody.
Right was quick, brilliant and slightly convinced that the audience came to the concerts mainly for her.
Left was more robust, patient and had developed the typical irritation of those who support half the world while the other half receives flowers.
— Without my bass — he said, — You'd fall.
— Without my melodies — answer Right — No one would notice you fell.
Then they fought.
But as soon as Paul started playing, every discussion became useless.
The two Hands were running around the city.
Left opened a grave door, letting an agreement enter; Right responded from three octaves higher. One sentence passed from one to another, one staircase crossed the center of the keyboard, an arpeggio lit in succession windows that in the ear seemed to shine all together.
Piano was listening.
He was a methodical type and possessed a single mania.
Before each execution counted.
— One, two, three, four, five...
Left.
Then Right.
— Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Good. The city is complete.
Right was laughing.
— What if we're 11 tomorrow?
The Piano was soaking.
— Impossible.
Left insisted:
— Nine?
The old tool became very serious.
— Even more impossible.
— Why?
— Because you're ten.
For Piano it was a perfect answer.
Then came 1914.
And men again decided that the world needed a war.
Instruments have never understood wars well.
They know a march, of course. They know trumpets, drums, hymns and fanfare. But they never understood why human beings have spent centuries learning how to build orchestras — places where dozens of different voices must listen to each other in order to exist together — and then continue, with an impressive regularity, to forget the lesson just coming out of the theatre.
One morning Paul closed the piano.
There were luggage in the room.
Voices.
Greetings pronounced too quickly.
Right touched Left.
— When we get back, will we do that ladder again?
— What?
— The one in which you try unnecessarily to reach me on the last do.
Left offense.
— Needless?
— I'll give you five years of training.
— I'll wait for you down.
— I never get down like this.
— For fear?
Right laugh.
Then the two Hands touched one last time.
— Don't steal my melodies.
— You don't steal my bass.
— Promise?
— Promise.
Paul left.
The Piano was closed.
He spent a winter.
Then a spring.
The dust began to lay on the octantotto doors.
Sometimes someone lifted the lid to clean.
Piano used it.
It counted.
Octopus.
Always octantotto.
He comforted him.
If the city kept all its doors, he thought, sooner or later his inhabitants would return.
One day he finally heard steps.
He recognized them.
The door of the room opened.
Paul was back.
The Piano heard all its ropes stretching out of joy.
The lid lifted.
Paul sat down.
Left appeared on the keyboard.
The old tool began automatically:
— One, two, three, four, five...
He waited.
Then he smiled.
— Six?
Quiet.
— Seven?
Left doesn't move.
— Eight?
Piano looked at the place next to her.
For the first time you realized that there are numbers that do not come after.
Right wasn't back.
Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm after being wounded during the war.
In the city of the eighteen doors did not collapse any palace.
There's no light.
And yet everything suddenly seemed different.
For many days no one played.
Left remained on the threshold of the city and looked.
There were doors that had always opened with Right.
Others who belonged almost to her.
An acute reminded me perfectly of a trill.
A central do reminded how many times the two Hands had met right there.
Even some mistakes had kept memory.
One night left Left.
I'm gonna hit a button.
He stopped.
— I can't.
The piano didn't say «You can».
He said «You must be strong».
He did not say any of the things that human beings say when they are too afraid of the pain of others to simply sit next to it.
She stayed with her.
A few days later he arrived the Cartograph.
Nobody knew who called him.
It was a small brass compass dressed with great elegance, carrying a monocle and dragging behind it rolls of maps.
His job was to establish where people could get there.
— Five fingers — he said by observing Left.
He opened the compass.
He whispered.
He wrote.
He still whispered.
Then he removed a large keyboard plant.
He treated a black line.
Half the city remained on the other side.
He wrote:
TERRITORIES NOT RELATED
Left fixed him.
— What did you do?
— I fixed the map.
— But those doors exist.
— I didn't say otherwise.
— Then why did you track a line?
The Cartograph smiled sweetly.
— To protect you.
Left looked at him.
— From what?
— From useless hope.
Piano had a thrill.
The Cartograph continued:
— If you know in advance where you cannot go, you will avoid the suffering of trying.
It was hard to get mad at him.
It wasn't cruel.
He didn't want anyone's evil.
He was only convinced that prudence consisted of narrowing the world until it became proportionate to fear.
Left looked at the line.
He believed him for some time.
The doors beyond the border were closed.
The sharp keys remained in the dark.
A si bemolle protested.
— Excuse me?
The Cartograph continued to write.
— She's out of the area.
— I'm a key.
— Out zone.
— You didn't ask me anything.
— The maps do not question the territory.
— Maybe they should start.
A Do diesis continued to light its lamp every night.
The cartographer came back every morning to turn it off.
— I said closed.
— And I said I'm a key, not a sausage.
Left sometimes laughed.
But slowly began to get used to the halved city.
It's dangerous.
Human beings can even get used to the rooms in which they would never choose to live.
One night, however, Left heard something.
Tin.
He turned.
Sound came from beyond the line.
Tin.
— Who is it?
One voice answered:
— Me.
— Me who?
— Do.
— There's a lot of them.
— What you turned off.
Left approached the border.
On the other hand, a small Do acuto swiped his door.
— You shouldn't be awake.
— Shouldn't I?
— You're out of reach.
— Ah.
Break.
— Does that mean I'm not part of music anymore?
Left couldn't answer.
Little Do insisted:
— I'm not asking if you can press me.
— So?
— I'm asking if I have to stop being there just because you still don't know how to get here.
The question was suspended.
Left looked at the black line.
For the first time he didn't see a border.
He saw a phrase written by someone else about his life.
The next night he passed it.
He didn't get far.
After a few buttons she was already tired.
The Cartograph found it.
— See?
Left was struggling.
— See what?
— That I was right.
— I got past the line.
— And you're exhausted.
— It's two different things.
The Cartograph shook the compass.
— A hand must know its limits.
Left looked at him.
— Maybe.
Then he added:
— But I'd like to meet them.
From that day the exploration began.
The first to offer to help her was Old Pedal, who lived under the city and had been suffering for years because no one ever invited him in the photographs.
— Everyone talks about the keys — He'd be eating. — Always the keys. "That's a nice keyboard. " "What a wonderful touch. " "What elegant hands. " Then comes the time to hold up half harmony and suddenly someone remembers that I exist.
Left played a bass.
— I have to go up there now.
— Go.
— But I'll lose this note.
— Not necessarily.
Paul lowered the pedal.
Left left the bass and ran towards the center of the keyboard.
The note continued to vibrate.
He stopped.
— He's still here.
— Of course.
— But I left.
Old Pedal poked.
— Child, keeping what cannot remain physically in the same place is practically my job.
Left listened to that far-off bass.
For a moment he thought of Destra.
— So something can continue even when it's no longer where we left it?
Old Pedal looked at her.
For once he didn't joke.
— Sometimes.
The second passage was the Bridge of Arpeggi.
Left discovered that it was not necessary to possess all the notes of an agreement at the same time.
He could reach them in succession.
Quickly.
One after another.
And the ear would have kept the path together.
The Cartograph came indignant.
— It's not worth it.
— Why?
— You haven't been to all those points at once.
The Piano intervened:
— Not even a memory is still in the place from which it comes, yet it manages quietly to fill a room.
The Cartograph recalls the compass.
He didn't like to discuss with senior pianos.
They had too many examples.
Left learned more.
The thumb could bring out a melody while the other fingers built an accompaniment.
The pedal could tie distant areas.
A rapid succession could create the impression of more contemporary plans.
The big jumps allowed to cross logs that five fingers could never occupy at the same time.
Piano discovered that the technique was not meant to pretend that the limit did not exist.
Served invent a new relationship with it.
Left, however, made a mistake.
An inevitable mistake.
He began to believe that if he had trained enough, he could reopen every door exactly as before.
He wanted to prove that nothing had changed.
He was running.
He jumped.
Come on.
She tried impossible steps until her fingers hurt her.
One evening he tried once again to reach in one gesture what Destra and Sinistra once took together.
Do it.
He tried.
Do it.
Again.
The sound broke.
Left collapsed on the keyboard.
The Cartograph appears.
He didn't smile.
He gave her the old map.
— Let's go back.
Left had eyes full of tears.
— Maybe you were right.
He pointed the line.
— It's safer.
Left took the map.
He looked at her.
Above the closed territory there was written:
Impressive.
He took a pencil.
He canceled the word.
The Cartograph attacked the forehead.
Sinistra wrote:
— It's imprecise. — said the cartographer.
— Yes.
— It doesn't determine where you'll get there.
— That's right.
— You could fail.
Left nodded.
— That's right, too.
The Cartograph was disturbed.
The maps, according to him, should have eliminated surprises.
But that seemed meant to keep them.
Years passed.
Paul Wittgenstein returned to perform.
He studied the existing repertoire for the left hand and developed an extraordinarily sophisticated technique.
Left became capable of things that had never had to learn.
But he did not become Right.
And this was the point.
For a long time he believed that healing meant being able to replace it.
Then he realized that would not be healing.
It would have been canceled.
Right had a voice.
A story.
A place.
It should not have been replaced because life could continue.
Then he came Maurice Ravel.
He entered the city with a score under his arm and so precise elegance that even the Cartograph found it reassuring.
— Finally. — he said, — Some methodical.
Ravel looked at him.
— Who are you?
— The cartographer.
— About what?
— Possibilities.
Ravel raised a eyebrow.
— Ambitious profession.
The cartographer showed him the old map.
— The pianist owns only one hand.
— I'm informed.
— Five fingers.
— That too.
— I would therefore recommend proportional music.
Ravel looked at the eighty keys.
— The piano still has an octantotto.
The Cartograph stiffened the compass.
— You can't use them at once.
— Not even with two hands.
The Piano immediately provided sympathy for the French.
Ravel studied the possibilities of piano writing for the left hand alone.
He knew the previous repertoire.
He knew the problem wasn't just about distributing less notes.
The challenge was to create the impression of a polyphonic and harmonic wealth in which the listener could forget the physical limitation that produced it.
When Left saw the first pages of the Concert, he was happy.
Then he read them.
Happiness lasted very little.
— Monsieur Ravel.
— Yes?
— You wrote down here.
— Yes.
— Then the melody.
— Of course.
— Then deal.
— It would be sad to avoid them.
Left turned page.
—
Ravel nodded.
— I'm glad the score is legible.
— What hand should I play with?
— With yours.
— It's UNA!
— It is a fact that tends to repeat itself in this house.
Left punished him against five indignant fingers.
— You're trying to make me look like two hands.
Ravel became serious.
— No.
Quiet.
— If I wanted two hands, I would have written for two hands.
He pointed out the keyboard.
— I want to know how much music this can contain.
Left did not forget those words.
But it didn’t mean they always agreed.
On the contrary.
Paul Wittgenstein and Ravel had real differences in interpretation and changes to the solo part.
In our city this meant memorable discussions.
— This passage doesn't work.
— It has to work.
— I have to play it.
— And I wrote it.
— I have five fingers!
Ravel closed his eyes.
— This detail is becoming obsessive.
— You have to simplify.
Ravel looked at him.
— Why?
— Because it's hard.
— It's a concert.
— It's written for someone who lost a hand!
Ravel stopped joking.
He looked at Paul.
Then Left.
— Your loss has already narrowed enough your life. I don't see why it should restrict the music that I entrust to you.
The Cartograph stopped taking notes.
Right away.
No one's ever talked like that.
Don't pity.
Not consolation.
Not a smaller music for a wounded life.
A huge music.
Maybe even too much.
That's why she deserves to be tempted.
But before the concert there was a door.
Left has been avoiding her for years.
He was close to the city center.
It wasn't really different from the others.
And yet she was.
It was the door before which Right and Left often met when Paul was young.
Left called her, simply:
the door of Right.
One night came.
He supported his fingers.
— I'm back.
No answer.
He tried to open it.
The door was closed.
— I've crossed almost the whole city.
Quiet.
— I learned new ways.
Quiet.
— I can reach places I thought were lost.
The door didn't move.
Left began to cry.
— Why not?
Piano was behind her.
— Because some doors don't reopen.
Left turned.
— Then I failed.
— Why?
— Because she's still missing.
Piano looked at the door.
Then he looked at the other eighty-seven.
Some illuminated.
Some holes.
Some consumed by the passage.
— A city can continue to live even around an empty house.
Left closed his eyes.
— But it remains empty.
— Yes.
It was the hardest thing to accept.
And even the most true.
No technique would have reported Right.
No concert.
No applause.
No well-written morals.
That door would have been closed.
Left put a small lamp in front of you.
Not to pretend someone was inside.
To remember that someone had been there.
Then he left.
The 5 January 1932, in Vienna, Paul Wittgenstein sat in front of the piano for the first performance of the Concert for the left hand by Maurice Ravel.
The orchestra was waiting.
The cartographer sat in the audience.
He brought the map.
He couldn't help it.
The Concert began from the bottom.
Counterfeit.
Contrabands.
A dark, almost underground sound.
As if the music didn't want to pretend to start in a bright place.
The orchestra grew slowly.
Then came the piano.
Left entered.
He didn't apologize.
A bass.
The pedal held him.
Hand ran elsewhere.
Welcome.
A melody.
An arpeggio transformed the succession into a large sound surface.
The thumb brought out an internal voice while the other fingers built around harmony.
The Cartograph opened the compass.
He marked the point where his hand was.
Then he tried to score the point where the sound was.
They didn't match.
Corrugated the forehead.
Left jumped.
An MRI remained behind.
Another voice appeared later.
The Cartograph took a ruler.
Then another.
Then a team.
The gentleman sitting next to him began to worry.
— Are you building something?
— I'm measuring.
— What?
The cartographer did not answer.
The great cadence arrived.
The orchestra was silent.
Paul was alone.
A hand in front of a whole city.
For a moment Left was afraid.
Don't be wrong.
Again, for a moment, he saw everything through the old map.
Five.
Half.
Missing.
Then he looked at the keyboard.
Eighth doors.
One of those doors would have been locked forever.
The others don't.
He started.
The bass sounded.
Hand went up.
Harpeggi filled the space.
A melody emerged.
Then another seemed born from the resonance of the first.
The ear built simultaneity where the eye saw succession.
The Cartograph frenetically looked at the map.
— It can't be.
Piano heard it.
— What?
— Your hand is here.
— Yes.
— But music seems to be there.
— Yes.
— And over there.
— Apparently.
The Cartograph still opened the compass.
That wasn't enough.
The city had not become smaller.
He changed his way through it.
Finally the next man asked him:
— Did you find what you were looking for?
The Cartograph remained motionless.
He was looking at five fingers.
Good keys.
A room full of sound.
— No.
— What can't you find?
He slowly lowered his compass.
— The border.
The last note came.
Then silence.
Then applause them.
Left rested on the keyboard.
The Piano asked her:
— Are you feeling whole now?
Left was surprised.
— No.
— No?
He looked at the door of Right in the city that only they could see.
The little lamp was still on.
— I miss him.
— Again?
— Always.
The Piano lowered the voice.
— So all this didn't work?
Left smiled.
— It is served to understand that what is missing must not necessarily become all that remains.
Piano felt something vibrating in the ropes without anyone pressing a button.
The Cartograph arrived after the concert.
He rolled the old map.
— I have to do it again.
— Why?
— It's wrong.
Left looked at him.
— No.
He seemed confused.
— I traced a border that doesn't exist.
— The limit existed.
— So?
Left took the pencil.
— You got the name wrong.
She opened the map.
Cancelled:
IMPOSSIBLE
And he wrote:
The Cartograph studied the words.
— It's much less accurate.
— I know.
— It could change.
— That too.
— You might find that some roads are really closed.
Left looked at the door of Right.
— It happens.
The cartographer followed his gaze.
— How do I score it?
Left remained silent.
Then he answered,
— Don't call her empty. Write that it's part of the story.
The cartographer took the pencil.
He wrote.
That night, before he left, he bowed the compass.
For the first time in his life he left on the map a space he had not yet decided how to measure.
Many years later a child sat in front of an old Viennese piano.
He put his hands on the keys.
The piano felt the old habit back.
— One, two, three...
He stopped.
The child lifted his hands.
Of course he didn't hear anything.
— Is there something wrong?
Piano looked at those fingers.
He recalled Destra.
He remembered Left.
War.
The black line.
Old Pedal.
The little Do remained on over the border.
The cartographer.
Ravel.
The cadence.
The door that wouldn't open again.
And he finally understood what he had spent a life learning.
Counting needs to know how much we have.
You can't tell us how much space we can learn to live.
So I didn't count anymore.
He looked at the baby.
And he asked him the only question that seemed important to him:
— What do you have to say?
The child lowered his hands.
The first door was opened in the city.
Then the second.
Then another.
And the music started again.
There are times when life redesigns our map without asking for permission. Some roads really disappear. Some doors remain closed. And to start again does not mean to pretend that it did not happen, or to convince yourself that with enough will every limit can be erased. But there is a huge difference between know a limit and allow him to become the border of everything we are. Technique, intelligence, art and even love do not always return what we have lost. Sometimes they do something more humble and more precious: teach us new ways of living what has remained. Because a loss can change our map. It must not necessarily become the boundary of the world.
BOX HISTORY
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