We decided on a theme. And better yet, a theme that kept Yheta from speaking to me at all. Our guests arrived to find the ballroom prepared with rows of seating, with a clear central aisleway, all facing towards a raised stage. Ideally, the seats would be raked to get better acoustics, but rebuilding the ballroom for one birthday was just not feasible. I should have never mentioned it. Though, it did lead to a rather funny week-long running joke with Father speculating which wing of the manor we would need rebuilt just for his darling son and daughter.
As the esteemed guests entered, they were directed through a social receiving line, and also a page making sure that every guest checked off their preference for beef, pork or chicken, pairing wines, and soup courses. As the hosts my family and I would hold positions near the entrance and shake hands, kiss knuckles, bow or curtsey as appropriate to our various stations and relations. Some folk put the whole receiving in one line so that each guest would meet each of the hosts in order. We broke into two lines, not just to move the line faster but because Nathan and my social circle did not overlap much with Mother and Father's so this was just less awkward all around. The crowd mingled for a while, getting settled, and then a small orchestra came out to the stage and began tuning up. This was not unusual, but usually as a muted chamber piece not a stage-mounted orchestra. This really resembled a concert more than it did a social function, so the general will of the crowd just sort of moved as if it were a concert. People drifted to the chairs and found comfortable arrangements, and one by one the porters brought out low trestle-tables to rest in front of each row of guests.
And then, it was time for me to take the stage.
"Good afternoon, to our friends, our families, our treasured guests and honored neighbors," I began. "It is our pleasure today to bring you a different experience. Our production this day is a musical sampling; music never or rarely heard before. Every selection penned from my hand, and found nowhere else. Our talented cast of musicians have been practicing dutifully for weeks, and I myself have not been permitted to hear their rehearsals. So I will join you all in hearing these songs with my own ears that I have not heard played aloud in full in all my eleven years. Periodically, to give these fine folk a respite from their work, my brother will come up and introduce the next course, to tell you a little about what to expect and what it means from us."
And I walked to the side, and took the seat for the third-position flute. Our conductor had listened to my playing, and told me I should be placed no higher than third. I think he meant that I should be last, least, and preferably not on the stage at all. I overruled him: composer's privilege. Yes, I should have been rehearsing with everyone else, to make sure it sounded right. But I was way too busy. I was not putting my schooling on hold for a month to rehearse music. I would trust in my skills, and the skills of these very talented musicians, and the dozen assistants the conductor brought in to turn my pages into something everyone else could use.
I looked across, taking in all the arrayed music stands. All the books opened, sheet music. All of them copied from my memories. I was publicly taking credit for writing all of this. I felt guilty about this. But I had a good reason! I really missed the music of Earth. And this was the only way to hear any of it. I checked, and there is no spell or essence or magical hat that will let me play music straight out of my memories. If I was ever going to hear a variety of music, I would need to provide it.
No shade to the creators of Harigold Glitter, but they hired one team to handle all the music in the game, and it had kind of a distinctive sound to it. So by extension all the music in Hearstwhile all fell into some pretty narrow guidelines. It's fine for playing a video game, even after a dozen replays. The game had plenty of replay value, and the music was part of that! But not for years. Decades. I need to get some new ideas out there.
The orchestra my father had hired was the equal of any from Earth. And they did a spectacular job. We started with Pachelbel's Canon in D, with that iconic four-chord progression. People look for recurring themes in an overture piece, and a lot of songs I relied on use four-chord progression, so the music-lovers could feel very smart by assuming that I had a coherent theme to my writing and not just "anything I remembered well enough to write out parts for". Not all of it was really written out, some of it I had sort of sketched, and left room for the professionals to find the best way through. And it was an overstatement that all of them came from my hand- for a large amount towards the end I would just hum something out and one of our musicians would transcribe.
After Canon, we moved to Jurassic Park. C'mon, it's absolutely iconic! It had great parts for everyone. Which, honestly, made it far more work for me. Turns out, normal music composition is almost entirely about a showcase melody. Write down what the piano or strings or winds are going to play, and the rest is usually just "here's a few bars for you to repeat". Sorry oboes, cellos and bassoons, that's just what people do. So to have a song where the motif and theme are handed off from winds to strings to brass and back again, with variations for each section, where the percussion responds differently to each? I was in Challenge Mode for sure. My high school band teacher brought it to us because it was fun, but also because it balanced the emphasis across more of the students. That was nice of him. But, writing out all the parts kicked my ass for half a year. There was not a single instrument that I could just wave off with four repeating bars.
After that, Holst's Jupiter. I can't remember the full title, but I remember enough of the music to make it work. I thought about trying to put the Ode to Joy here, but I got three days into that project, and realized how intimidating it would be to even try to re-create that piece- even just the finale. Maybe someday when I've got years to devote to this I'll try to write out all of the Ode. But Holst? Holst is fun. And I wanted this to be fun. It's a party! My party! Well, not just mine.
Then Nathan got up, made a short speech, and instantly captivated the audience. I know damn well that it was his first time speaking this publicly but he took to it like a natural orator.
"My whole family shares in our elation that you have chosen to join us for this. My sister's very hard work, and her vast creative talent on display. My well-loved parents, once again opening their hearts and hearth for all of you who make up our family apart from family in this home away from your homes. And of course I had the most difficult task: I had to arrange today's courses and I was not allowed to have any seconds at all. Now, our dedicated and dazzling service staff will be bringing the first course, so you can all appreciate how my sacrifice was worth it. And while we eat, my lovely sister and all of her melodic friends will be serenading us with some more of her original works."
A dozen kitchen staff came out of the sides with rolling carts and steaming silver cloches, moving quickly down the rows to dish out the plates, and then they convened at the far side, linked up in a train and zipped to the back of the room and back towards the kitchen. They got everyone served in under five minutes, kind of amazing. It took a lot of coordination and rehearsal for them to get that good, but they pulled it off and made it look easy. So that got everyone started on the appetizers, alternating saucers of stuffed mushrooms and Harigold fries with ramekins of a variety of sauces to try with. There's no France here, I can't blame them for the fries so we just use the family name.
So yeah one day I had a craving for fries and I went to the kitchen and requested a russet potato cut into soldiers and twice-fried, once at a soothing crackle and again at an aggressive snap. The chef figured out what I meant, and I was moved nearly to tears. She tried some, and reacted nearly as strongly. Since then she's been perfecting the recipe, and it's a cruel taste of home that I enjoy from time to time.
Particularly poignant, since most of what I'm accomplishing today is just to bring the flavors of my first home here to my new world.
While we were playing, waiters came by with water, wine, and cider to offer. Meanwhile, I focused on Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, Africa by Toto, and then Peter and the Wolf. From where I sat, I could see Yheta's continuous stare at me. Every year he seemed to get more obsessed. I've tried ignoring him, appeasing him, rebuffing him, I've tried flat unvarnished honesty and carefully tactful euphemism. I can't seem to win with this guy. I played my flute and tried not to spend too much time looking in his direction.
Even without lyrics, Cohen's work holds up so well. I liked the way it swoops from one side of the orchestra to the other, back and forth. I'm happy to say that I saw people dabbing their eyes with napkins for that song.
Not so much Africa. There's no way to make that song anything but fun. The thin thematic intro, and then all the harmony hits at once! The way each verse swells over the one before, themes intact but reinforced each time.
We used Peter and the Wolf to bring things back down a bit. I wouldn't mind staging a full-on rock concert but this was not the day or the place. High energy is fine for a peak, but then wind down. Good baroque, too. And it was a nice piece to lead into my brother's next turn on stage.
Nathan was back to talk about soup courses. We had three choices, and the gourds and vegetables used in each one were related to different local festivals and folklore, meaning each recipe had a sort of theming and story to them. Then our cart racers came back out, and the course was delivered. Because each guest had signed their preferences individually, and then sat wherever they liked, there was a bit of a system to this. Waiters had discreetly marked down who was seated in which position on which row, and then brought that back to the expediter, who arranged each cart in a specific order with specific plates lined up in the order they'd be grabbed in. So that the twelve of them ran out, and apparently just grabbed plates at random, whatever's closest, and yet still got everyone exactly what they ordered, as if by miracle or accident.
This is Nathan's contribution. I took care of music, he wanted to get fun and fancy with the serving itself. We organized carefully, and coordinated. It takes careful attention and good communication to work well together, and we have it. Then, he went and taught it to the serving staff. I liked the balance we struck: I had more time on stage, by a long shot, but most of it was back a bit. Nathan spent only a dozen minutes on stage but he was central and vocal for all of it.
We played the Carol of the Bells next, and then William Tell. High-energy pieces, but not very complex in arrangement. Nice for a soup course. Then Nathan introduced dinner. Yheta gazed at me. I could not read his expression at all. That creep was keeping me from enjoying my own birthday, even after I went out of my way to make sure I wouldn't be alone with him at all. I could barely hear my own twin speaking before the crowd, barely even smell the aromatic savory dishes that came out one after another. I just sat there, and tried to breathe. I was barely aware of playing the music. It was just... gone.
This was supposed to be my big day. Hey guys, check out all this music I've been meticulously composing for my entire life! Masterworks, brilliant writing! But now I was just a third-chair flute with a rumbling stomach, and nervous acid bubbling as I tried to avoid looking at the guy who's a little more of a stalker every year. I've still got two years before he leaves for Academy.
The only thing brightening my mood is 1812.
The first song after entrees are presented is that thing by Enya that I can never remember the title of. It's soft, lilting, and restful. So, all of her stuff honestly. It's real easy stuff to hum and transcribe. Of all this work, that's the thing I'm most likely to follow up on- just remembering all the Enya that I can, and transcribing it for others. And then we switched up. Time for The Mountain King. This was great: the other musicians were enjoying themselves. The conductor was enjoying himself. The audience was enjoying it. I was over the moon. Nathan looked starstruck. I don't think he'd ever heard a piece with that much bombast. The conductor was having a great time picking the rhythm, and the very playful nature of his role. The way that the timing change just sneaks in there, you could hear the murmur of the crowd as they recognized it.
Now then. The notes I'd given for 1812 were period-accurate, up to a point. There was a listing for "a loud noise" with no specific instrument indicated. I told the conductor I'd take care of that part. Also, because I didn't rehearse with them, they had not rehearsed it properly with me. So all their sheet music also included the note: "Don't flinch". We played this big, brassy, over-the-top piece with lots of pomp and energy, and everyone was very impressed already. Our longest piece of this concert, but the buildup was worth it. We came to the end, the big show. And I let the cannons fire.
One of the first things I'd found when I crafted void, was that it pulled a lot of air into a central point. And when I released that void, as if dispelling conjured matter, all that air came back at once, in the same microscopic point it was drawn in. It is very percussive, a shockwave. It was tamed thunder, rolling and booming through our ballroom while the band blasted merrily along. I took my hand and face from the flute, cast my spell, and sent the booms reverberating through the hall.
Faces stared in naked wonder. As they should. I love that piece. It took me a year to transcribe the parts from memory. 1812 is hard, but so worth it.
Nathan introduced dessert, and apologized for the unseasonable thunderstorms. That got a laugh, and I know he had not rehearsed that laugh line because he did not even know I could do that. Then we played out for dessert, the minute waltz, Orpheus in the Underworld, and the porters took the tables away as we started up Land Down Under.
The guests recognized this one at least! Ah, the song that the Duke and Duchess danced to! That got people out and dancing, especially the ones that did not know what they were doing, which is the best way I think. And that was how we wrapped up for the night. I left by the performer's door, and never went anywhere near Yheta. That was Nathan's present to me this year. Happy eleven years.
