King of Classical Music

The full title of 《Tzigane》 was 《Tzigane Rhapsody》, and it was created by famous French composer Maurice Ravel. This piano maestro of the last century wrote several musical pieces in his lifetime, and most of them were piano pieces. 《Tzigane》 was one of his rare violin concertos.

The first half of this piece was dominated by a slow beat, while the latter half was primarily in rich . The differing halves of this piece formed a sharp contrast with each other, and that brought a lot of praise.

When he told Tan Lao he was going to play this piece, Tan Lao thought for a while but agreed to it in the end.

This work required a skill level equal to that of Paganini's, which was quite tricky. But there were also Gypsy influences, and it had an unrestrained passion. It was suitable for an indoor concert's solo performance.

Tan Lao’s only worry was: “You’re sure. . . you can play well tomorrow?”

According to what he knew of Qi Mu, the youth had never touched Ravel’s works, but Tan Lao was also worried because the indoor concert would be held tomorrow. For a better effect, it was better to choose one of Paganini’s songs.

After thinking about it for a bit, Tan Lao said, “Or you can play Paganini’s Caprice No. 13. You are most familiar with Paganini so I can be at ease.” An elder’s thoughts were always based on stability. They wouldn’t take too much risk, and as long as it was stable, it was enough.

Paganini’s Caprice No. 13 was the thirteenth piece from his 24 Caprices for the solo violinist. It also had a very distinctive other name——《Devil’s Laughter》. Paganini’s works had always been highlighted by its high difficulty level. It was good enough if one could perform it well.

But Qi Mu shook his head. With a smile, he said, “Tan Lao, playing 《Devil’s Laughter》 in such an indoor concert is a bit too much, plus, I’m not the closing performer. I think 《Tzigane》 is good and don’t worry, I am familiar with this piece. There won’t be any problems.”

For the finale, Du Sheng would perform with several of his colleagues. They formed an ensemble of four people and would deliver a few songs, making it one of the most anticipated performances.

Tan Lao still hesitated but, after Qi Mu coaxed a bit more, he finally agreed.

The original might not be familiar with 《Tzigane》, but he had played this song many times. When he just started to learn how to play the violin, he played this song for his graduation. At that time, he wasn’t skilled enough. He could only say he played it, but he can never say that he played it well.

Later, when he entered college, he slowly familiarized himself with this song. And when he went to the audition for the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, this song was included in his playlist. Even though he didn’t perform a solo performance after that, this song was still one of his best.

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After Tan Lao agreed, he listened to Qi Mu play it through once. He could hardly find anything to point out, so he nodded with admiration. The two exchanged pointers for a while, and Tan Lao remembered something.

“Right, this time, other than a few B City insiders, Professor Karl, who was the judge of that competition last time will also be there. You have to be prepared.”

The image of a large foreigner with a thick beard and a big belly appeared in his mind, and Qi Mu nodded helplessly. Soon after, the lunch break ended and all the members of the orchestra were practicing over and over again with Du Sheng leading them because Tan Lao went out.

When he had just stepped out the door, Tan Lao seemed to have remembered another thing: “Oh right, didn’t Du Sheng send a few invitations to Bai Ai’s Daniel?” After thinking a bit, Tan Lao didn’t go back in to tell Qi Mu about this. He smiled and shook his head, “They must have returned to Berlin anyway.” After thinking such, he got into his car.

In the rehearsal room, Qi Mu, as assistant concertmaster, was sitting in Du Sheng’s seat and leading the orchestra.

Returned to Berlin?

Tan Lao, ah, you still think too much!

In November, the cold wind from Siberia swept across B City, making the temperature drop sharply, so several people started to wear thicker coats.

But tonight, many beautiful ladies were wearing slender dresses as they walked down the red carpet from their warm cars, as if they weren’t afraid of the cold at all. The goosebumps that emerged after they entered the warm hall were visible to the naked eye. These people were lovely but frozen.

Such an indoor concert wouldn’t have many invitations sent out. Although the invitations were few, the people here tonight were either famous music masters or renowned music professors. Even the worst of them were the chief editors of a national music magazine or newspaper. Like Zheng Wei Qiao, who received an invitation through the “backdoor.”

The stage was arranged to be at the center of the hall. It was a small round stage with soft sofa chairs placed at every angle. These seats surrounded the stage, forming a ring. After the audience greeted each other, they took their seats, ready to listen to this special concert.

Qi Mu sat in the second row, facing the east.

Unlike symphony concerts, the performers of an indoor concert could sit down and watch the others when they were not performing. So Qi Mu sat beside Tan Lao and Du Sheng, and he carefully listened to the other performances. These performers were all well-known classical musicians in Huaxia, and the first was a cellist.

The melodious and peaceful music resounded throughout the entire hall. Everyone in the audience wore a smile as they felt the mellow, heartfelt sound.

The musicians on the stage were performing slowly under the dazzling lights and, off the stage, a beautiful youth closed his eyes and listened carefully. Perhaps he heard something beautiful, for the young man couldn’t help but smile and applaud quietly in his heart.

This handsome young man was the most noticeable presence in the auditorium. Especially with the two elders by his side, many people couldn’t help but look at them a few more times. They felt as if their eyes were washed clean.

——Well, Tan Lao was a dignified and majestic old man, and Du Sheng could be called a handsome uncle.

But, compared to Xiao Qi, they were quite not so. . . worth looking at?

At the end of the song, everyone gave warm applause. They didn’t know why but the next performer waited for quite a while before he went up to the stage. He held a clarinet and soon, another melodious song was heard.

Seeing this, Tan Lao raised his eyebrows and said, “Wasn’t this one supposed to be a violinist? Du Sheng, go check what happened.”

Du Sheng nodded and quietly left in the direction of the preparation room.

Because everyone was sitting together, Du Sheng’s movement was quickly discovered by the others. Especially since. . . he was sitting next to Qi Mu. Naturally, it garnered a lot of attention.

In the auditorium, two positions were the most interesting.

One was Qi Mu. There were still many people who recognized him and, even if they didn’t, someone with such a good appearance would always make people want to look even more.

The other was on the opposite end——two empty seats in the west side.

Naturally, this indoor concert gave invitations to important people in the industry. How could there be people who were late or absent? So this was really surprising.

Qi Mu also looked at the two vacant seats for a while. He then whispered in Tan’s ear, “Tan Lao, those two seats. . .”

Tan Lao raised his head and looked across the stage at the two seats. He frowned and thought about it for a moment. He then shook his head and said, “The seats were arranged by Du Sheng, so I’m not sure. It’s probably someone from a magazine. They often travel, looking for news or interviews, so them being absent is normal.”

Qi Mu nodded in response.

He looked in that direction again. Those two seats were very eye-catching. He only looked for a while then looked away and continued to listen carefully to the performances.

Perhaps. . .

It really was only someone from a music magazine.

Translator(s): Kuro

Editor(s): Bet

Notes

From your editor:

Happy 2019, everyone! Do you have your new year's resolutions ready? Mine is to nab another machine translator and pick up another project!

In the meantime, to roll in the new year with style, Betwixted Butterfly has gone through a massive overhaul. We have added a glossary to King of Classical Music and removed other extraneous notes. This should help reduce the interruptions during your reading experience!

Adding AyN to our team has also spurred on my motivation for editing, so I have gone through and done a re-edit for all twenty-two chapters (remember that prologue way at the beginning?).

If you get the chance, do give things a try and reread things! Not much has changed, but I am embarrassed to say the reading experience will be much better now.

Once again, thank you all for your continued support!

(Is anyone else worried that our ML is going to miss Qi Mu's performance?! I don't read ahead, so I don't know. . . but I'm going to go with author's intuition and say he'll show up fashionably late!)