Tom French
Sundays at Noon
1. Sonata no. 5, Op. 24, ‘Spring’
We entered the gallery in our winter coats,
the first violin in a strapless ensemble.
Her shoulders, I remember thinking, will be cold.
2.
Where the instrument touched her throat
showed in the intermezzo between the scherzo
and the adagio, when she hung her bow
arm down just once to let the blood flow.
3. Goldberg Variations
The harpsichord looked like nothing
so much as a cross between a coffin
and a boat – planked, prowed, wooden,
the propped-up lid of it doubled as a sail.
When the quodlibet ended we poured
over it, as though it were a heat source
or a corpse. The virtuoso, for an encore,
thanked us in advance for leaving it alone.
4. Fantasia für harfe, c moll, Op. 35
The glass of water left in case of thirst
that the harpist missed and accidentally kicked
ended up in bits. Even if a splinter had reached
the gods she wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.
The interval between the touch of her stiletto
and the splinters floating was sul, sul tasto.
She smashed that goblet like an impresario.
5.
It took two curators to lift into position
the instrument she leaned against herself;
until lunchtime, for the motif reminiscent,
from the seats we’d secured, of a recent burn,
to fade from her skin, for feeling to return.
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