Grieg, the Pianist and the Listener
Troldhaugen, Norway
Her fingers lightly assertive,
she searches out meaning, concealed
on the stave, feeling his music’s contours, the way
a breeze explores the scribbled score
of a rock-strewn escarpment, a corrie’s edge
above the fjord, weather-hewn ledges breaking the tree line
the braille of every dip tip-read with care,
every rain-worn gully sight-read with air
more sensitive than skin,
seamlessly joining the world outwith, to the world
within.
He listens closely,
engaging the way the body engages
with changes in the quality of evening light.
No pre-conceptions, no checking to make sure
she’s playing it right, but open, freely participating,
occasionally nodding, as if in conversation,
as if he agrees
with that slight hesitation, where her hand became aware
hovered for a moment in the vibrating air
before committing.
He allows the sound to pour
through invisible canals inside his body,
outpacing dull analysis,
quickening cells, illuminating mind,
like blinds lit from within.
He’s with the hawk above the valley, riding high
on outstretched wings, side-soaring to the limit of lift,
playing tag with care-worn gravity, wheeling to drift
along the fjord, like a softly modulating chord,
till he sees the breeze hit the darkening tree-line
far below – and shatter.
Notes clatter down the stave
through half-lit branches, ricochet wildly,
trying to save themselves from disaster,
as forest floor comes fast to meet them
and there – impact’s sudden jolt.
Bass notes rear and bolt like horses
startled by a hammer blow’s
thud from a cavern deep below
the ground.
The echoes peal away to silence.
Her hands, lit by fading embers
of sun beyond the valley’s end, obey her breath,
suspended briefly – branches, charred to ebony
above the ashes of the keyboard.
Occasional licks of flame
still flicker around the piano lid
and as if someone softly called his name,
Grieg steps shyly from the quivering pause
in the darkening room,
to share the breaking wave of applause
with the pianist
and the listener.
Philip Rösel Baker is an Anglo-German poet, whose poetry is to be found in various magazines and anthologies here and in the US. He won the 2022 George Crabbe Prize in the UK and a finalist award in the US Fischer Prize last year.