I have never heard this kind of music before There are tones of Rachmaninov, and also Bach, and Beethoven, and something a bit like Philip Glass. She is very intently focussed on her playing. There is no music sheet and surely she must be improvising. Sometimes the music flows like a delicate stream, then a rushing mighty torrent, then like a calm sea, then suddenly the fury of a typhoon, and she seems completely lost in what she is playing as she pours out all the contents of her heart, her soul, of all her sixty-five years of existence on this sorry and unforgiving earth. Sorrow meets joy, and death is suddenly subsumed in the brilliant light of heaven and then sorrow again, and death and disappointment and despair then suddenly, like a thrush singing just after a thunder storm, the faintest but most exquisite thrill of hope.
Carl and I alone are present to hear her play, and we stand there, stupid and rapt and thoroughly transported into other places and realms on each note that flies and sings from the keyboard. Now she is looking up, staring straight ahead, but not seeing us, now her eyes are closed, and the playing continues as her head lowers and her shoulders begin to quiver, and soon the room is silent but for Carol's soft and agonized weeping...
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