Ballade No.1 in G minor, Op. 23 by Liubomyr Vovnianko

Silence. Intrigue. Sound!

[Do /doʊ/] —

Magical music filled the entire available space of the room.

No one dared to make a noise, no one dared to interrupt the divine sound of the tender pressure of each piano key. I looked flawless.

[Re /ɹeɪ/] —

I held my breath. No one forbade me to breathe, but I just couldn’t even make an attempt.

This moment took forever, and the sound poured on and on, never stopping, tearing through time and space.

[Mi /miː/] —

I breathed for the first time in about 30 seconds. All kinds of images of beauty flooded my mind.

The climax.

The slow tension from the beginning of the piece finally came to fruition in its full expression. Sadness and melancholy erupted in the loud notes of the dance.

[Fa /fɑː/] —

But wait a minute. Music is a joke, it is nothing! How can some vibrations in matter caused by the deformation of a string, by the impact of a hammer, cause such feelings? I don't believe in it. The whole world is conspiring, but I'm not that stupid.

[Sol /soʊ/] —

Ha-ha! I found out the truth! Finally. All these visits to the Philharmonic are formalities, elements of snobbery, of which I am a part. However, I'm above that.

Well, this performance will soon be over, so I won't disturb the other clowns during their ritual, I'll wait for the first intermission.

My ears did not stop following the plot of the melody, which did not care about my inner struggle. It was no longer the music's job to monitor my participation.

[La /lɑː/] —

I was wrong.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. A dark agony had captured my spirit, but now I felt relieved.

Experiences. It was as if I had lived a full life in a few minutes.

My heart swelled again. The anxiety was gone. It was as if I had been born again, performed an act of eternal Nietzschean return. I couldn't explain it.

[Ti /tiː/] —

The piece of music lasted for 9 minutes.

The pianist completed the last graceful movements with his hands.

For a moment, the hall again plunged into total silence, which is possible only in Heaven or Hell. Same thing.

The applause. A huge round of applause. The sound of clapping hands was stuck in my head, I couldn't help but be a tiny part of one majestic soundtrack of applause.

Ars longa, vita brevis. Art is truly amazing, and music is proof of that. It is not for nothing that art is called eternal, and it doesn't matter that Hippocrates used this phrase in relation to his medical skills – it conveys the meaning perfectly.

We are all going to die like ordinary mortals, but this masterpiece will exist forever, as it does today, almost 200 years after its creation, 175 years after the death of its author.

[Do /doʊ/] —

But art, art is immortal.