A/N: So, this is the competition, and I am allowed to have favourites, Kara's preferences on the pieces here are basically my preferences. It's pretty easy to tell which ones I like more than others.
The young man in the suit strutted over to the piano, bowing once at the audience and took his seat, adjusting it momentarily so it suited his stature. And, placing his hands on the keys of the Steinway concert grand, he started out with two low-C's an octave apart, and after holding it for a while, quickly moved up, which arrived at a chord which he held. Repeating that, he then played a series of higher notes.
She would recognise that opening anywhere.
"What song is this?" Nia whispered in her ear.
Quietly, as to not disturb the recording in front of them, she whispered back, "This composition is Rachmaninoff's Little Red Riding Hood, the more familiar will call it the Etude Tableau Op. 39 No. 6. You might want to read your copy of the programme."
Nia blushed, thank goodness it was dark enough that nobody saw them. She reached into her bag and took out the pamphlet. Indeed, the first competitor, an Italian, was playing Rachmaninoff.
She flipped through the programme lazily, and slowly, in contrast to the speed the pianist was striking the keys with, she began to nod off, slipping into Hypnos' realm.
"Rao, asleep already?" thought Kara, as she glanced over at Nia's slumped form. Sighing, she continued jotting down notes onto her reporter's pad, commenting on the Dutch contestant's rather rushed performance. She had to give him points for that, after all Little Red Riding Hood was already considered a fast piece of music. But this was a competition, not a recital.
Despite the emotion he put in, he was going way too fast to win.
The fourth one, also playing Rachmaninoff, was from France, and from what she remembered and noticed, this was the piece with a lot of crazy jumps in the left hand. As most people were right-handed, around ninety-percent of the world population, that usually posed as a challenge, and thus increased the difficulty of the music. This one seemed to follow the score much closer than the previous one, but she wasn't exactly too sure, as Rachmaninoff wasn't her favourite composer and she never really paid attention to his work.
She opened her copy of the programme and skimmed through the performers, the first seven out of the fifteen were playing the same piece. It seemed that most of them chose the shortest piece to play, and she would have to endure at least fifteen more minutes of "torture", as there were still three more renditions.
Giving a sigh, she slid down and leaned back in her seat, scribbling further stuff, comparing their performances, such as the audiences' reactions, she couldn't fall asleep, like Nia.
When the last of the seven people playing Rachmaninoff had finished, the speaker spoke, "We are now taking a half-hour intermission, please arrive promptly back for the second half. Thank you."
And the lights turned on.
She stood up, stretching her legs, having being cooped up in that tiny seat. Then sitting back down, she shook Nia's shoulder. She started stirring, groaning a little.
"Morning, sleepyhead," Kara smiled cheekily at her assistant for the day.
"Jesus, I fell asleep again," muttered Nia.
"You sure did, anyway, it's intermission now. I need to talk with the organizers. Might as well get a head start. We have twenty minutes"
The two women got up from their seat and walked out of the concert hall, where in the atrium where people were enjoying the refreshments, they spotted a few people dressed formally, their profiles matching the photographs of the organizers in the front of the programme booklet. They headed over to them.
There were a few more men in dark suits, they looked like event security, surrounding whom Kara recognised as some of the most prominent pianists of the modern age. Her gut was right, these were the judges and organisers. She and Nia flashed their press passes at the men, who let them through. One of them guided the two of them to their interviewees.
As the security officer approached the group, he greeted the pianists, "These are the reporters from CatCo, sirs, ma'ams."
"Thank you, we'll take it from here," one of them, a man with a deep voice and a slight European accent, said. And the security officer walked back to his post.
Turning to the journalists, "Good afternoon, my name is J'onn J'onzz, one of the judges on the panel. And you are…" it was then that it dawned on him, after that tug on the back of his mind that she looked familiar, "Kara Zor El, in a concert hall. Finally! It has been too long."
Kara choked, "Monsieur J'onn," she breathed, her French, despite not been used in years was still perfect and unaccented, "Çe fait, quoi, dix ans, déjà."
"Plus que ça, environ douze, ou treize ans maintenant," J'onn replied, reaching out to hug her.
Nia was looking at the exchange with a newfound curiosity, apparently her unofficial mentor knew various languages. Although it didn't actually surprise her, considering she had a faint, barely noticeable lilt when speaking English. Her speech seemed slightly too crisp, too careful. She just couldn't place it. Now she had an inkling. "Kara, what's going on?"
"J'onn J'onzz here is one of my family's oldest friends, he helped us during one of our most difficult times," she switched back to English, so Nia could join their conversation, "he is also one of the organizers of the event here today. Apologies, Monsieur J'onn, we're not exactly here to chat, we're actually here on business. We would like to interview a few select contestants of yours, the event organizers, and maybe even a few judges. Classical music does not get enough attention in mainstream media these days."
"Indeed it does not. If you do not mind, would it be possible if I could give you the list of names to interview, once we have finished evaluating the fifteen competitors who have gone to this third round? Then you can write the article and get it published when we reveal the finalists in about a week's time."
"That would be awesome!" Nia exclaimed, rather loudly.
"Rao!" Kara breathed, a little startled at the volume, after she took a deep breath continuing, "That would be wonderful, Monsieur J'onn, here's my contact details where you can call, text or email me," she rummaged through her handbag and took out her business card, handing it to J'onn.
"Thank you, I'll discuss with the others and inform you as soon as possible. Now, I hope you enjoy the next round of performances," J'onn smiled.
"Of course, anyway, it was a pleasure to see you again, we should catch up while you're still in town," Kara replied, then she and Nia started to walk away. The two of them headed towards the refreshments table, where the blonde picked up a bottle of water, glugging all of its contents down. Her throat instantly felt a lot more comfortable after the hydration, she sighed in relief. All that talking made her thirsty.
She fished her phone out of her bag and unlocked it, seeing a bright red dot right next to her messages, she tapped open the app. There were the usual messages from Alex reminding her of movie night, that she had to be the one paying for the food. Then, there was one from her father, reminding her that she had to RSVP on whether she was going over, or he was coming over for Thanksgiving. Lastly, there were the messages from Snapper reminding her of the assignment, not that she had forgotten, quickly she sent back a reply that indeed she had arrived and arranged a set of interviews already.
After a brief trip to the bathroom, she and Nia found themselves sitting in the exact same spot they had vacated a few moments ago, turning on the camera once again. Almost immediately after that, the speaker's voice welcomed them back, and introduced the next competitor, a Japanese. He sat down, and adjusted his seat, just like the many other competitors before him. Then, he placed his hands on the keyboard, playing two notes an octave apart at exactly the same time. She remembered playing this piece so many times at so many different occasions, some happy, some not.
"What piece is this?" Nia whispered to her.
"La Campanella, the composer, Franz Liszt, based this off Paganini, both of them allegedly sold their souls to the devil to achieve the level of virtuosity to play this," she answered back.
In her peripheral vision, she could see Nia gaping at her, but she would have to wait, for the beginning of the piece was unremarkable, once it got started though, the difficulty only went uphill, and there was no stopping.
The chords evolved into small, staccato leaps, then some slurs going up and down, and then the home run, the jackpot. The boatload of trills on the right hand using the ring finger and pinky. It seemed that the Hungarian had attracted Nia's attention better than the Russian, and she was focused intently on the pianist's fingers, as he moved at incredible speeds.
As soon as the last chord was played, Nia was aghast, Kara looked at her mentee's expression of wonder with certain fondness in her eyes. It was always something to remember when you first get into classical music, much like what happened to her as a child. It often happened with a specific piece of music, or performance. She knew that she had changed many people's lives for the better through that exact method, and it pained her that she wasn't able to do that any more. Just using Nia's reaction, this guy was definitely progressing to the next round.
Maybe, just looking at Nia's expression would be enough for an article of its own, How to Introduce Someone to Classical Music, Kara imagined the headlines jokingly. In fact, that sounded like an amazing headline for a feature article in the arts and culture supplement.
The next person came up on stage and took his seat at the large instrument. He began with the same few notes that the previous person had played, after all, it was the same piece of music. She hadn't realised it, but somehow, her fingers moved in sync with the music. Gradually, they started to mirror the Ukrainian onstage. Even after years lacking practice, it was like riding a bicycle, and her muscle memory kicked in. She started air-pianoing, running her fingers up and down the armrests as though they were an actual keyboard. It seemed, that it just took a little push.
She continued that way, tapping her fingers enthusiastically, throughout the next three renditions of Franz Liszt's etude. In fact, she could even pinpoint exactly where one of them slipped, and hit a wrong key. That took a chuckle out of her.
She was so caught up in the music that she forgot to jot down notes, now quickly doing so, she hadn't realized that a new person had began playing a different composition. In fact, if it wasn't for Nia asking her, "Is this Beethoven?" She would still be in her self-imposed trance.
It took a while to snap out of it, and to listen to a few bars to make sure, "Yes, indeed it is Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata, the third movement."
The third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was characterised by furious arpeggios, left hand melodies and frighteningly fast figures. And unlike the previous two pieces, this went on for seven whole minutes and more. She had read tweets on videos of people playing this piece, and there were things like "This is insane" and "Impossible!" Some people called it overrated, she called it a classic, pun intended.
It wasn't exactly that difficult with enough practice to increase dexterity and reflexes. Something that your professional concert pianist should possess.
Listening to their playing, and watching their hand movements, she could easily tell that this pianist from Canada was the very mechanical type. His every note felt like a machine was playing it, and despite it matching the sheet music with mathematical precision, it felt like all the emotion, the life that Beethoven had infused in the music when he composed it was sucked out. If she had to describe this man's playing with one word, it would have been robotic.
Any decent judge, especially an old-fashioned stubborn one who stuck to the rule books would definitely put this one forward to the next round, but would definitely be outvoted by other judges who sought a more pleasant listening experience as the winner.
Then it was a Brit, she was, for a lack of a better description, a sensual player. You could tell that, much like every single contestant, she had practiced day in and day out, but whenever she was sitting in front of the keyboard, her emotions would pour through, and play a prominent role in her performance. Sometimes, her feelings would just obscure the actual composition. It was because of that that her movements alternated between flamboyant and restrained, energetic and subdued. Listening to her performance felt like a rollercoaster ride, going through peaks and troughs without a moment's notice. It was exhausting to say the least.
She was the most grateful when the last competitor of the day, the homegrown American, started to play. He started with the easily recognisable chain of arpeggios. The chain that felt like it was going higher and higher and higher without end, which then suddenly culminated into two long notes. Riffs, as they're referred to in pop. It was then repeated.
His touch was delicate and classy, not the flashy, extravagant movement that plagued much of the classical music world. It was an epidemic that stemmed from the pop world, that had carried over to many other genres. It was like Beethoven himself was fingering the ivory keys. You could feel the melancholy, the anger, the passion coming out through the piano. That along with the fact that it followed the sheets to a tee, it was virtuosic. Not many people could do that, in fact, the last time she had heard a compliment like that, it was more than a decade ago, and that included the plethora of YouTube pianists that she listened to. She flipped through the programme. What was his name?
Michael Matthews, 25, from nearby Gateway City, studied at the Julliard, which included a period of training in Vienna. She recognised him from somewhere.
She had to interview him, she knew that his probability of winning was high. The judges would be foolish to think otherwise.
A/N: Hope you recognised the three members of the Legion at the end. Also, FYI, some of the pianists or their playing styles are based off real pianists, such as the Japanese is based of Seong-Jin Cho, who won the International Chopin Piano Competition. Imra's style is based off Lola Astanova, and Mike after Li Yundi, one of my favourites, and another International Chopin Piano Competition winner.