Brian Larney: I never get tired of it

All the possibilities of the world, sitting there on eighty-eight white and black keys. One person evoking all the sounds of a full-scale symphonic orchestra, the bassoons in the bass clef with staccato, the clarinets in the treble with their sing-song voices, the flutes in the upper registers with their trills and tremolos, and the cellos in the bass seducing listeners with a pensive legato. With only ten fingers I can do all of this, all at the same time, without a single jolt of electricity or help from anyone else.

When I drag myself out of bed at ten in the morning, I go straight to the studio for thirty minutes of scales and arpeggios. I’ll have a stiff cup of black coffee and look in the mirror at the bleary-eyed middle-aged Irishman, groan, and head for a shower. I’ll answer the door at 11:30 in the morning for my first student, little Johnny Callahan from 12th and Pine. A steady stream of children will enter and then exit thirty minutes later. Tommy Conaghy at 1:30, he’s practicing the Minute Waltz. Katie O’Mara at 3:00, she’s working on Beethoven’s Sonata Facile. Agnes Limerick at 4:30, my final student of the day, she’s finishing up the Moonlight Sonata. After Agnes leaves, I’ll pour myself a glass of red wine to celebrate another day of students, one day in thirty-five years. Prohibition can’t take that away from me.

After dinner, I light candles in the music room and I sit at the instrument, admiring the eighty-eight white and black. These days, I’m preparing the “Appassionata” for a New York performance, the killer sonata, the only one I haven’t figured out yet. If I have to stay up until midnight, going over the demonic first movement and back over it, again and again, I will. I’ll do the same thing tomorrow, if I’m not satisfied, and the day after that, yet again, until it’s ready for an audience.