Moonlight

 
Decent people can be divided into two categories: those who love the *Moonlight Sonata*, and those who have already grown out of it. Love for the *Moonlight Sonata* decreases in inverse proportion to the growth of snobbery, while snobbery increases in direct proportion to the growth of professionalism.
Our friend and colleague, Andrey Batalov, did not love the *Moonlight Sonata*. He was a snob because he held a degree in classical piano, and a professional because he worked at a restaurant in the city of Vladivostok.
Every evening he would briskly belt out "Murka" (the quintessential Russian criminal underworld tune), yet he was well aware that among the patrons of his joint, lovers of the *Moonlight Sonata* might very well lurk, and any moment now, some clueless customer would order Beethoven.
"Edik, grab the sheet music for the *Moonlight* from the library, I beg you," he kept badgering his partner, a fellow graduate from the exact same nest.
"I’ll bring it, I’ll bring it," Edik would promise, but never did.
And then, it sneaked up on him. A plump, mature lady, whose cultural education had been shaped back in the day by Soviet factory-hour radio programs, placed a crisp green bill onto the glossy black surface of the grand piano and bashfully asked him to play her favorite, the *Moonlight Sonata*. Andrey went pale but managed a squeezed smile.
"Edik, you bastard," he hissed to the young man as the woman walked back to her table. "How many times did I ask you! What do we do now? A hundred bucks doesn't just grow on trees..."
Edik was practically weeping with frustration. Yet, despite everything, it never even crossed Andrey’s mind to turn down the gig.
"Alright, alright... I remember the beginning, those triplets in C-sharp minor... The bass line moving down. Then the melody kicks in: G-sharp, G-G, G, G-G... and after that—hell if I know, it modulates somewhere. How long does it actually last? About two and a half minutes, right? Timing it now. Just gotta hold the fort... Let’s fake some Beethoven."
And with an unbothered, deadpan face worthy of a stoic maestro, Andrey began to play the introduction with deep pathos and expression. He successfully finished the first period, glancing at his watch... Twenty seconds in—all systems go. He played the melody once more, improvised over the chords of "Murka" using a triplet texture, got lost, found his way back, and repeated this a few times. Finally, he struck the final chord and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
The delighted lady applauded.
"Oh, thank you, young man," she said, approaching the instrument. "I was almost moved to tears."
Two minutes of shame—and a hundred bucks in the pocket.
I heard this story from Andrey a long time ago, in the previous millennium.
A couple of years ago, Sasha and I were invited to teach at a music school in Thailand. Having given up hope of finding a job in our field back home, we suddenly proved useful on a tropical island.
"Wait till you see this! You’ll die laughing," Sasha promised the moment he walked through the door. "Look what I dug up in a pile of sheet music." He handed me a photocopy. "I just had to copy it."
I scanned the page—the familiar triplets, the bass line moving down...
"The *Moonlight*? Sheet music custom-made for Batalov? Oh look, it says *Moonlight Sonata*."
"Look at the key signature."
"E minor... Oh my god! No way! I don’t believe my eyes!"
"I couldn't believe it at first either. Apparently, someone decided that C-sharp minor had too many accidentals—too many sharp signs to worry about."
"But why is it suspiciously short?" I questioned. "There should be twice as much text."
"Exactly!" Sasha chuckled. "The publisher decided Beethoven was being too wordy and threw out the entire middle section. Why drag it out, right? The 'Lite' version."
"How wonderful!" I laughed. "So Andrey’s free interpretation of the text wasn't even the limit."
"What can you do, the world is still full of *Moonlight* lovers."
"By the way, remember how we learned in conservatory that Lenin supposedly said: *'I know of nothing better than the Appassionata. Amazing, superhuman music'*? Word has it he was actually talking about the *Moonlight*, not the *Appassionata*."
"And even meaner tongues say he never said anything of the sort at all. It's all Maxim Gorky's fault. He decided to flatter Lenin in such a sophisticated manner by attributing those words to him, and managed to mix up the sonatas in the process."
Sasha’s student, Polina, is thirty. She is from Moscow and runs a business in Thailand. Despite her busy schedule, she is learning to play the piano from scratch. She’s only been studying with Sasha for four months, but she charges ahead like a tank. She has already bought a digital piano for her villa.
The moment she mastered playing with both hands, she immediately demanded the *Moonlight*.
"She says, 'It’s the dream of my life to play the *Moonlight Sonata*.' It’s 'amazing, superhuman music,' she says," Sasha explained.
"Well, of course then. The customer is always right. By the way, what sheet music are you using, the Thai version?"
"As if!" Sasha scoffed, offended. "Everything is fair and square, she's learning it in C-sharp minor."
The experiment intrigued me.
"How is the *Moonlight* coming along?"
"Surprisingly, she’s making progress. Polina must be practicing a lot at home," Sasha praised her. "I think she could even perform it at the school concert."
"Are you sure?" I doubted.
"There’s still a whole week left. She’s coming on Thursday—we’ll see."
He came out of that lesson cracking up.
"You won't believe what Polina pulled today! She learned it by heart and said she wants to play it at the concert. She sat down, started, the triplets went fine, the melody came in, and suddenly I hear something’s off... Stop! What’s the matter? Why is the melody going 'B, B' instead of 'B, C'?"
"And she goes: 'Because I can’t reach the C with my pinky.'"
"Haha! Well, that’s her personal problem. Tell her to practice."
"Yes, but do you know what she told me? 'I calculated how many people will attend the concert, and how many of them will actually know that there's supposed to be a C there. It came out to about three percent, so I decided it wasn't worth the extra effort just for them.' Can you imagine?"
"She is literally following in Andrey’s footsteps!" I laughed. "She belongs in a piano bar."
"For now, I explained to her that people are divided into two categories—those who love the *Moonlight*, and those who have grown out of it, but both groups know exactly how it sounds by heart. That convinced her. She went back to practicing."
After all, having even three percent of snobs in the audience is a massive risk for a novice pianist’s reputation—even on a tropical island.