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MOUNTAIN
SOLO
 Mom, stop!" I said, as she smoothed my hair and
reminded me not to rush the opening bars of my solo. I took a deep breath
and walked quickly onto the stage.
And then I turned, and a spotlight came on so
bright that I took a step back from it. My whole body seemed to go numb,
and when the applause that had greeted me ended, my head felt squeezed by the
silence.
"Fräulein?" the conductor
whispered.
I nodded automatically. Yes, I am
ready.|
But I wasn't.
From the corner of my eye, I saw his baton's
upbeat set a tempo and then swoop low, and behind me the orchestra's strings
swept into the beginning measures of a Vivaldi concerto.
I raised my violin and fixed in my mind how
my first notes should sound. I would play them just the way I had when I'd
won the young artists competition that brought me here to Germany.
One more measure . . . there . . .Now!
I pulled my bow in a quick downstroke
and heard a discordant tone tear our raw and wrong.
That's what I keep remembering. How
once I'd played that note so badly, there was no way to get it back. And
how that one mistake led to another and another--a missed accent, a hurried rest
beat, an odd angle to my bow arm. One off note after another, after
another, after another. . .
(Text from MOUNTAIN SOLO, copyright © 2003 by Jeanette Ingold, used by
permission of Harcourt, Inc.)
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