Chapter 112: The Art of Conducting
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
What was out of expectation was that the music did not start as soon as Lucien waved his baton. Standing in the front of the stage, he raised both of his arms up high. His whole body was shaking slightly, as if there was a great momentum of power coming out of his body.
Before the audience realized what happened, Lucien quickly swung his arms backwards and lifted the baton again. Here came Serenade for strings in G major.
Short and direct, the music notes impacted every listener’s mind. The confusion and nervousness of the audience suddenly disappeared, and they were now immersed in the joy brought by the serenade.
Lucien was smiling. His whole body was rocking in a pleasant way together with the music. The happiness that was being delivered to the audience was so infectious that many of them started to nod and shake their bodies, synchronizing with the development of the music.
Christopher and Natasha never watched Lucien’s rehearsal before. Now, they were both very surprised by Lucien’s new way of conducting, which was totally different from the traditional style.
Usually the simple function of conducting in the past, due to the conservative style of music, was only to direct a musical performance to ensure correct entries by various members of the ensemble, thus, neither the emotion of the composer of a music piece nor that of the conductor was conveyed. For example, although both Victor’s and Christopher’s range of movement when they were conducting was wide, they never really tried to show their own feelings to relate to the orchestra members, or to provoke the audience’s emotion.
Following the development of theme music, Lucien also changed his way of conducting to fit in the trend of moving from classicism to romanticism. Lucien spent a lot of time on learning from the great conductors in his original world, such as Arturo Toscanini and Herbert von Karajan, in order to form his own style of conducting.
Under Lucien’s direction, the orchestra perfectly captured the joyful, lively spirit of the first movement of the serenade.
Then, Lucien’s waving of the baton became more gentle when the serenade entered the second movement. The melody was like a piece of veil-like, rosy dream, floating in the air and then slowly falling on everyone’s mind.
The dream was about love and romance, about beautiful girls and handsome boys, about the endless wild flower field and the cool breeze in summer, about one’s youth, the most sweet years in one’s life.
Transiting smoothly, the rondo form of the third movement made many of the listeners feel like dancing. They even wished it was an evening party, instead of a formal concert.
In its ending part, the music returned to the lively, youthful and pleasant style again. When Lucien finished his conducting and turned around, the audience pause a bit and broke into a sudden, warm applause during the short break, as they just realized that the serenade was over.
“A serenade in the Psalm Hall!” Piola exclaimed to his friends, greatly surprised.
In the past, serenade, as an informal music genre, was usually not qualified to be played on an elegant and decent music stage. Very rarely was serenade put on this kind of occasion in the past, and people never really liked it. Today, Lucien broke the stereotype and made a piece of serenade as impressive as a symphony.
“Graceful and gorgeous, exquisite and balanced,” Sharon commented. Even the aftertaste of the serenade was fascinating.
In the box, Christopher smiled and said to the grand duke and the Saint Cardinal, “Again, a surprise from Lucien.”
The grand duke nodded, “His conducting’s definitely a bonus for the serenade.”
Before the concert started, although Natasha looked very confident, she was still a bit worried about Lucien. Now, she was totally relaxed, leaning against the back of the seat and listening to her father and the Saint Cardinal talking about Lucien’s new style of conducting. She was curious about what would be the next surprise from Lucien, and so were all of the other listeners.
…
After the short break, when Lucien came back to the stage and passed by the concert members, Rhine smiled and said to him in a low voice, “It seems that your conducting received a pretty good feedback, and I believe Symphony of Fate will just shock them.”
Lucien smiled and nodded to Rhine, looking rather confident. Then, he stood in front of the orchestra and closed his eyes.
The entire Psalm Hall and the whole square quieted down.
Slightly lowering his head, Lucien raised up his arms again, but he did not immediately wave his hands.
The audience held their breath, waiting.
Standing there still like a statue and with his eyes closed, Lucien thought about his parents’ faces, so familiar but also very far away from him. The plain days in his original world came back to him, but, unfortunately, Lucien did not realize how valuable these days were and thus he never cherished them.
Now, he was here, in this strange world, all by himself. He had to live in great risk almost everyday. He could die easily because of his dream of learning magic. The faces of gangsters, the night watchers and the heretics showed up in Lucien’s mind, mocking him, threatening him, telling him that everything was the arrangement of fate.
Was he supposed to accept his fate?
Was he supposed to give up fighting?
Was he supposed to abandon his goals and yield to all the difficulties?
No! Never!
He would fight against the so-called fate with his last breath!
Lucien’s face was twisted with his great determination. Gnashing his teeth, he fiercely dropped both of his arms downward.
The familiar opening of Symphony of Fate again seized every listener’s heart.
It looked like Lucien’s body almost lost balance from his wild waving. Every piece of muscle in Lucien’s body was shivering from his great excitement!
As if their hearts were gripped by a powerful, big hand, many of the listeners felt out of breath.
Even Sard opened his eyes. He was looking at Lucien, who was conducting the orchestra in an almost crazy manner.
With the baton in his right hand, Lucien’s left hand sometimes clenched into a fist, and sometimes tightened like the claw of eagle. His arms sometimes stretched wide out and sometimes stayed tightly close to his body.
Lucien’s face was twisted with hatred and anger, as if he was biting off a piece of flesh from his enemy alive. Occasionally, the muscles in his face relaxed a bit, but soon his face looked even crazier, as if he would be struck by a heart attack at any moment.
Compared with Victor’s conducting of Symphony of Fate, Lucien’s version was even more striking and intensive. Every member in the orchestra was influenced and motivated by Lucien, and the whole orchestra seemed to be crazier and crazier!
The power and the momentum of the symphony was unprecedented!
Grabbing the arms of her seat, Natasha’s back was tightly straightened up, while some of the other elder nobles seemed to be about to pass out at any moment due to the great intensity of the playing.
Finally, with all his power, both physical and mental, Lucien brought out the last movement of Symphony of Fate. The great joy of victory and triumphant return suddenly bursted out and immediately inspired everyone!
When the symphony ended, even with his Blessing power, Lucien still felt quite tired.
The whole Psalm Hall was very quiet.
Then Lucien turned around and bowed to the audience. By the time he straightened up his back, Lucien heard the warmest applause ever in his life.
The whole city was applauding him for Symphony of Fate, for Lucien’s art of conducting!
