K310/300d

若言琴上有琴聲，
放在匣中何不鳴？
若言聲在指頭上，
何不於君指上聽？
- 蘇軾〈題沉君琴〉

Lately, I have become a one-handed pianist.

When Jonathan is sleeping, I have to keep quiet. When he is awake, Angela would not let me play. “Aren’t you going to take care of your son?”

So, I decided to carry Jonathan to the piano. My main difficulty, however, was that he wiggled a lot on my laps. To keep him from falling down, I had to hold him with at least one arm.

Today, I played Mozart’s piano sonata No. 8 in A minor. During the most symphonic passage, I could only choose to play either the quick notes by left hand, like the flow of oil as Mozart loved to describe, or the majestic chords by right hand. In the end, it really did not matter. Though I could only play a fragment of the great piece, music was complete in my heart.

I am never too fond of expensive hi-fis. My sweetest memory was from the days when I only had a rather primitive cassette player. Though the sound was just discernable at best, I played and played the same recording on Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, overwhelmed by the elegance and harmony.

If Liszt could insist on performing on an old piano in a small church and Beethoven could conduct his Symphony No. 9 without hearing a single note, the most beautiful music exists in our mind rather than any equipment after all.