The Harmony of Obsession

Chapter 3

"The acuteness of this feeling would have been dampened, there would have been less burning agony, but at the same time it would also have forfeited its strength, poetry, and endurance."

——Tchaikovsky Through Others' Eyes
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After the semester officially started, Brett was insanely occupied with school work and practice. Having classes from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm every day then going to his orchestral rehearsal and preparing for his weekly student performance. Signing up for a music theory class in the same period as Eddy's to leave the older one in the back of his mind, Brett ceaselessly kept himself busy all day long almost to the edge of burning out. He was waiting for a chance to formally introduce himself to the older man.

Time flies and in no time at all Brett has already taken his midterm assessments. At the beginning of the week, receiving an email from his music theory professor who canceled their session on Tuesday, Brett came up with an idea of emailing Eddy, asking for his permission to sit in his class for once.

Dear Professor Chen,

My name is Brett Yang, and I am a first-year student from the violin program. I am really interested in the topics on music-making and cultural exchange. For this coming Tuesday, if it is not too much to ask, I am wondering if I may audit your MUY 200 for one time?
Thank you so much for your help!

Best,
Brett

Three hours later, when the email notification popped-up on his phone, Brett almost dropped his violin in the practice room.

Dear Brett,

Thank you for your interest in this class. Yes, you are more than welcome to come to my class on Tuesday. I have also attached the reading for this week below. Indeed, you don't have to read it, but it will give you an overarching idea of Tuesday's lecture.
See you on Tuesday!

Best,
Edward Chen

.
Brett arrived at the auditorium 20 minutes early and picked a seat in the front. He was subconsciously expecting to exchange greeting with Eddy at the beginning of the class. Five minutes before the class started, Eddy came in, setting up the equipment. Sitting in the front row, Brett had a chance to closely study Eddy's hands when he was passing down the lecture handouts and the attendance sheet. The sleeves of his charcoal-gray cardigan slightly went over the break of his wrist and covered the face of his steel watch.

His fingers were long and slender, and, as a professional, his fingernails were smoothly trimmed short with a flat cut straight across the tips. The younger one started fantasizing about them holding up their hands with palm touching to see the size difference. Brought back to reality by Eddy's sounding voice, Brett gazed at the person standing at the front of the auditorium. He looked around the lecture hall without settling his eyes on Brett and started his presentation.

"Hello everyone, welcome back to MUY200. Before we start on the lecture, I am still working on grading your first analysis and will hand it back to you no later than next week. In today's class, we will talk about the cultural interpretations of musical composition." He stopped a bit, "Let's begin with an anecdote about Natsume Soseki 夏目 漱石 who was a famous Japanese novelist, active during the second half of the nineteenth century, from the same period as Debussy." Eddy's voice was soft and soothing. The entire class was immersed in his story-telling.

"If he were not a musician nor a professor, he would be a great therapist," Brett thought to himself.

"Natsume Soseki once taught his students that one should translate 'I love you' into Japanese as 「月が綺麗ですね」which means 'the moon was shining clear and beautiful.' What Natsume aimed to articulate by using this example is that in order to express within the Japanese culture framework the same emotion conveyed through English language, one must paraphrase the literary texts regrading the rhetorical tradition in Japanese. Can someone tell the class how we should relate this anecdote to music composition?"