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Today, I was playing the piano (indulging in the majestic opening chords of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto and some soundtrack pieces from The Phantom of the Opera) and as I also played other pieces I was familiar with, I reminisced about the past.

Specifically, I recalled how someone had written me a note when I was in my second year of junior college. I wonder how the writer of the note is doing now. Thinking about this prompted me to write this post. In fact, I had previously scanned an image of the small note she left me. I am confident that the person who wrote me this note is female as such gestures tend to be more associated with females; the penmanship and the note’s contents further lend credence to this assumption.

This was nearly 4.5 years ago. 12 October 2015 to be exact. I had scanned both sides of the note she left me because I had thought that it was something worth remembering. After all, it’s not every day that someone gives you a handwritten note which compliments your piano playing.

Here is the note she left me. I found it placed on top of my school bag that I had left on one of the seats in the front row of the auditorium.

I had also scanned the opposite side of the note (is this supposed to be some cartoon character?):

In junior college, I would arrive early in school on some days so that I could have the opportunity to play on the grand piano before morning assembly. At the time, my house didn’t have a grand piano, so the mornings were a rare opportunity to play on a grand. The “Audi” refers to one of the main auditoriums in Hwa Chong: Cheng Yi Auditorium.

Here are some images that show the interior of the auditorium:

I cannot remember the other pieces I was playing that morning on the Yamaha grand found backstage in the auditorium but what I do remember is playing Bach’s fugue in C major from the Well-tempered Clavier, Book I. The learning process for this four-voice fugue was tedious. I had to grind it out bar by bar. This wasn’t like the first movement of Sonata facile where you have a nice Alberti bass on the left hand while the right hand plays a charming melody. No. This fugue is enriched with interleaving harmonies. Such is the highly contrapuntal music of Bach.

This is a Gould’s recording of that fugue:

So, anonymous listener:

NL
20 April 2020