Chapter 50: Composing
Lucien kept playing. He could only press the keys one by one since the skills required in this symphony were far beyond his beginner level. Lott, Felicia and Herodotus felt there was a heavy hammer knocking on their heads. Their anxiety and anger were accumulating.
"Enough!" Herodotus and Lott cried out at the same time.
"What?" Lucien turned his head and looked at them innocently, "Mr. Victor asked us to practice. And I am practicing. Then what are you two doing here?"
"Lucien!" Gripping his fists, Herodotus's face flushed with anger. However, he was too short and thin for a fight. Lucien had been practicing fighting for a while and was half a head taller than him. A few seconds later, Herodotus shook his fist in the air, "I don't want to be punished by Mr. Victor for beating you up." Then he turned around and burst out of the practice room.
"Sorry about the noise." Lucien shrugged his shoulder but had no plan to stop. He grabbed his quill again and wrote more music notes down. The melody now only contained small pieces of the masterpiece but most of it were Lucien's stupid creation.
"Are you serious, Lucien?" Lott was looking at the ceiling of the room, rubbing his forehead.
"You wanna have a look?" Lucien was about to shove his piece of paper into Lott's hand but the latter directly rejected.
Lott looked at Felicia, "Let's go. Staying here for one more second will drive me crazy."
She nodded, "You're right. I need some fresh air..."
Finally, as he wished, Lucien was left alone in the practice room. After locking the door, Lucien went back to work. He started adding more pieces from Symphony No. 5 into the melody, hoping that he could come up with a degraded version of Symphony No. 5 with lots of imperfection, and thus Victor could improve it to restore it to a real symphony masterpiece.
In order to show the progress, Lucien had to provide many drafts. Also, Lucien needed to practice lots of times to make sure his poor playing wouldn't completely ruined the music, at least he had to show some of the value of the music in front of his teacher.
In the following several hours, the drafts of many versions piled up on the desk and the pile was growing taller and taller. Playing many parts of the music over and over again, Lucien was sweating all over.
............
When the sky became darker, Lucien stretched himself a bit and then left the practice room with a thick stack of paper in his hand.
Lott, Felicia and Herodotus were sitting in the hall, watching Mr. Victor conducting the orchestra. When Lucien came in, they rolled their eyes simultaneously with antipathy. However, Lucien in turn gave them a big smile. Felicia shook her head with a long sigh.
Sitting in the soft audience seat, Lucien closed his eyes and continued thinking about his work. Half an hour later, the rehearsal finished. Victor and Rhine came down from the stage and walked in front of them. Mr. Victor now looked much better.
"How was the practice this afternoon, everyone? Any problems?" asked Victor.
"Lucien is the biggest problem, Mr. Victor!" Herodotus answered instantly, "He... he was writing a symphony! A beginner! The noise was so horrible that all of us left the practice room in the end!"
Rejoicing in secret, Lucien almost couldn't hold his smile back anymore. He had to thank Herodotus for letting Mr. Victor know what he was doing.
"Is that true, Lucien?" Victor looked at Lucien with great surprise, "You're composing a symphony?"
Slightly raising one of his silver eyebrows, Rhine was looking at Lucien with great interest.
Lucien nodded seriously, "What I saw today and what I've experienced before brought me some inspiration, so I wanted to write it down."
Gentle and kind as Victor, he didn't immediately scold Lucien for being to arrogant. Instead, he asked his student, "Can I have a look at it?"
"Me, too." Rhine cut in with great curiosity, "If you don't mind, Lucien."
"No problem." Lucien handed Victor the whole stack of paper.
When Rhine was reading Lucien's work, his thin lips closed tightly as if he was going to burst into laughter at any time. While Victor looked pretty serious.
"Lucien," Victor gave the drafts back to him, "I know you're doing this for me and I appreciate your effort. But Lucien, writing a symphony requires much more solid knowledge foundation than you thought. As a beginner, I suggest you start from the most basic theories for at least a few years before you actually write anything."
Victor was gratified to see his student was trying to help him, at least the intention was good. Furthermore, the rest of the students just realized why Lucien did all of these. They suddenly felt Lucien was even more crafty and sophisticated than they thought.
"Well... although your work is still very... say, immature, there are a few highlights in it." Rhine was trying to comfort Lucien, "For example, this part." The exactly few bars that Rhine was pointing at came from Symphony No. 5.
"Thank you, Mr. Rhine." Lucien nodded to him with appreciation, then he turned to Victor, "Mr. Victor, I know you do not agree with what I'm doing, but I still want to finish it. No matter if it turns out to be good or bad, or even horrible, it is the first piece of music work in my life."
Similar situations had happened more than once before. Victor knew how stubborn Lucien could be, and at the same time, Victor was very tired with his own concert stuff. Finally, he made a compromise, "Don't let it affect your daily practice."
............
After having Victor's permission, Lucien started working on his composing task almost every day. Adding more and more parts of Symphony No. 5 into his work, Lucien's gradual progress was hidden in the disturbing noise.
In these days, Lott, Felicia and Herodotus were avoiding him as much as possible, while Mr. Victor was trapped in his office working on his last symphony. No one paid attention to Lucien.
By the last week before the concert, after countless times of practice, Lucien was able to completely play his version of Symphony No. 5, although it was not exactly the same as and was much easier than the original masterpiece.