After the last house concert that I play with friends in Utrecht on a Wednesday evening, my hubby and Groningen are no longer in the way. On the morning of departure, I stuff my travel bag and try not to think about next week’s unprepared orchestral program. Once in the car, my husband asks for the second time if I won’t regret spending the weekend without the viola. No music for a while, I say firmly.
In Garnwerd, our holiday home is located on the narrowest street in the Netherlands, a stone’s throw from Café Hamming. While the husband calls to reserve a table, I pick up my cell phone and click on an email with the desk layout for the next week. Then I realize that I have the symphonic poem La Tragedie de Salome by Florent Schmitt.
“It worked, let’s go!” he exclaims happily. But a gentle shiver creeps up my spine and instead of rejoicing, I feel a knot in my stomach.
Too much wine in the evening makes my night restless. Slowly I come out of a dream about Salomé dancing with my colleagues while my cold fingers woodenly try to find the way between moles and crosses. The boisterous rhythms still ring in my ears when I realize I’ve never played the piece before. Unsteadily, I sneak out of the bedroom, gently descend the stairs and search for Spotify on my phone. With earphones I plop on the sofa in the dark. Already the first sounds color the night, Salomé’s dark instincts, which Schmitt translates into sensual rhythms, darken my viola part and the brutal musical landscapes attract my attention because I recognize what I cannot possibly know.
The next day we visit Groningen. When I walk out of a store I lose my husband. Where are you? I send him a text. He is waiting at the Waagplein. On the way I take a look in a bookshop. Stravinsky’s music Sacre du Printemps the background makes me petrify: the same sensual combination of Salomé’s brutality also sends Stravinsky’s rhythmic whipping! The great Russian wrote his Sacré six years after Schmitt composed his Salomé. One look at my mobile and I discover that ‘Sacré’ would be unthinkable without Schmitt.
In the distance I see my husband sitting on the pedestal of a work of art. He waves as soon as he sees me. Do you know what it’s called? He points to the life-size Flute Player. I shake my head. „Appuntamento con la musica.” He smiles. “It’s as if the music makes agreements with you everywhere.”
Ewa Maria Wagner is a violist and writer.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 3, 2022