Chapter 293: A Master's Piano Playing

The touching melody revealed the complicated emotions and feelings in Lucien's mind perfectly: there was tenderness, melancholy, and lots of thoughts, just like a shimmering lake under moonlight, bringing the audience to a dream-like world filled with Lucien's sentiments.

People forgot the anxiety and agitation they were usually under most of the time and started to contemplate. Many had tears in their eyes...

The first movement ended, but the cheerful second movement immediately followed, as if it was comforting people's heart. The emotions changed perfectly.

Many musicians present exchanged a surprised look. They were more sensitive than those unprofessional nobles and common citizens. They had noticed that there was no pause at all between the two movements, but it brought people the excellent transition and the sense of fluency.

Those musicians did not dig into it but continued to listen to the playing carefully, because this was a great opportunity for them to listen to Mr. Lucien Evans' playing of Moonlight here on the stage. The only thing they wanted to do was to appreciate the beauty of music.

The cheerful second movement slowly became more restrained, but just when people were about to take a break to enjoy the following exciting movement, Lucien directly led them to the third movement.

The melody full of passion immediately seized people's heart, and they felt the great enthusiasm and tension, like picking flowers along the cliff.

They saw Lucien's hands jumping around and dancing on the keyboard, as if they were blessed by God with power, and therefore a touching and infectious passion flowed. His silhouette on the stage had great charm, and the passion he had now was totally different from the mood he was under when he played the first movement, which formed a sharp contrast.

The signature high notes ended the playing. As soon as people were relieved from the intensity of Lucien's playing, warm applause followed like tides.

Betty, with a short bow on her back, said to Joanna and Simon full of joy, "Compared to Mr. Evans' playing, the versions of Moonlight that we heard before were nothing. Only Mr. Evans could present the great passion, the sadness and the joy in the song!"

In the past three years, she had grown more professional in appreciating music.

"That's true. After all, Mr. Evans is a musician, not a common instrumentalist." Joanna looked at the crystal wall on the square and smiled, "Betty, I remembered that Mr. Evans once promised you that he would play a song for you. Is it right?"

Betty's face flushed, "Don't make fun of me. I know I still have a long way to go before awakening my Blessing, but I'll work very hard!"

Lucien once promised that he would play a song for Betty if she could awaken her Blessing and become a knight.

"The Duchy of Violet is a perfect place for us to awaken our Blessings. It's very close to the Dark Mountain Range," said Simon. In the past several years, he had made much progress in training himself as a high-level squire. Now, he was much closer to awakening his Blessing.

Betty first nodded, then she looked at the young musician on the stage who was taking a short break and said with a sweet smile, "I know that Mr. Evans was just trying to encourage me. I'm not really expecting him to play for me. Having a chance like this to be on his concert is already enough for me. But I'll still work hard and always keep this encouragement in my heart."

Glinton, while applauding, said to people beside him, "It's just awesome! Listening to Mr. Evans' playing Moonlight already made me more than satisfied with this concert. I believe no one can compare with Mr. Evans when it comes to playing Moonlight! This is how a master of music plays!"

In the noble balcony in the Psalm Hall.

"I see... So there should be no pause at all between each movement. Then the contrast of different moods can be more defined and the structure can be perfect," murmured Natasha. "No wonder when I was playing, I always felt that something was missing... He did not mention this in the letter..."

"Maybe he thought that Your Highness could figure this out," joked Christopher.

Since Lucien left Aalto and started his traveling, he only wrote letters to the princess. Even those letters to his family were all first sent to Natasha and then delivered by her. Although many would concede that this was the most convenient way, there were still lots of people who believed that there was something between the young musician and the princess, just like the rumors said.

Natasha did not mind the joke but continued to talk about how one's personal style mattered when playing music with Mr. Christopher.

Hearing their discussion, the grand duke was pulled out of his sweet and sad memory brought by the music. When the grand duke looked at Natasha, his eyebrows slightly frowned but he also had a relieved look on her face.

Those musicians and instrumentalists were comparing Lucien's playing with their own versions and trying to improve their own skills, but they were not going to just copy Lucien's version because Moonlight varied in everyone's mind.

...

After taking a short break, Lucien started to play Sonata Pathétique.

It felt very familiar, but compared to the first time Lucien played the sonata, the belief that one should never give up hope despite the many great difficulties in life was more prominent, and people now also had a better understanding to appreciate the theme.

When he finished playing Sonata Pathétique, Lucien coughed hard on the stage with his right hand covering his mouth. Franz, Grace, Fabbrini and many who knew about Lucien health condition suddenly felt rather worried.

Fortunately, Lucien stopped coughing soon. With flushed cheeks, he stood up as usual and thanked the audience. Then he sat back on the piano bench.

"What is Mr. Evans going to play to show his skills?" asked Fabbrini. Because this part was a solo playing, Fabbrini had no idea what this part would be like.

He thought Franz, as Lucien's assistant, and Grace, as his student, should at least know something about it.

Franz shook his head, "Mr. Evans never rehearsed this part in front of us. No one can ask a great musician like Mr. Evans to go through the whole repertoire for the concert. So neither of us know what he is going to play."

"That's true," agreed Grace. "But the teacher said that this part is for showing a pianist's skill, so I suppose it's going to be very challenging."

At this time, the whole Psalm Hall and the square quieted down, because they saw that Lucien had put his hands on the keyboard.

Then, Lucien started to play.

Immediately, they thought that they heard countless bumble bees flying and buzzing beside their ears.

Faster and faster, the sound of bumble bees flying around filled in the space. People were shocked to see how fast Lucien's hands could move — they were too fast to belong to a human being!

Faster and faster, people started to become crazy with the great passion for music.

Although Flight of the Bumblebee lasted for only a few minutes, when Lucien pressed down the last key, people took a couple of seconds to recover and then started to cheer aloud for this great young musician!

They had never heard something like this before, but they could feel the freedom underneath the playing skills.

Seeing Lucien's excellent playing skills, those musicians including Christopher, Victor, and Othello all nodded with satisfaction, but at the same time, they felt that this part was a bit too strange and creative for them to accept for now.

Natasha, however, spoke highly of it and whistled, "Awesome! I wonder if he could be even faster!"

She understood that being fast was not all that mattered. As a radiant knight, speed was not a problem. However, if one wanted to play very fast and still bring the audience the beauty of music, this was not easy, but a great test to a musician.

...

After the solo part, the audience started to talk to each other when taking a short break, because there were still two long pieces of symphony following.

Some of them were phrasing Lucien's outstanding conducting and playing skills; some were trying to recall how fast Lucien's hands moved; and others held great admiration toward Lucien's inspiration...

Fifteen minutes later, Lucien, in a black tuxedo, came back to the stage. He first bowed to the audience, then came to stand in front of the band.

Christopher stood straight and his mind was full of expectation just as other musicians and the audience. They wondered what kind of symphony New Country was.

For music in Aalto, symphony was the mainstream, the most shining and precious gem on the crown of music.

Lucien slightly closed his eyes, and the baton in his right hand started to stir. The band followed his instruction and started to play. The gentle but profound melody was like a long story gradually unfolded.

This was Lucien Evans' music! It seized people's heart immediately and made all the musicians present nod out of satisfaction.

The latter part of the introductory movement suddenly became intense and full of surges. The trumpets were indicating a more passionate theme of the symphony.

However, the following first movement made most musicians frown, as it was just so folk-music style and away from the traditional symphony structure.