pianist in the zoo

January 7th, 2007 pianist

I begin interested in the zoo after a tuesday afternoon in 1998. I was trying to get to the front of the enclosure. The crowd was just not moving off, in fact, it got bigger and bigger. I could hear a piano playing from within the cage. ( I only found out recently it was actually Moonlight sonata ). I gave up trying to squeeze my way through. I stood where I was and listened to the piece that was being played live from the cage. I could hear now, that there was actually 2 pianos playing. It was a compassionate duet, where obviously one pianist was more skilled then the either.

The pianist which played more like an accompaniment did not sound inferior. In fact, I felt I needed to hear the somewhat fancy notes he was adding to the piece. Although he only plays as an accompaniment, he completes the piece in his little way. There was to be no climax to this piece. The piece followed a same, serious tone throughout. Near the end, both pianos played in unison, branching off to a different melody, but keeping within the same key through out. Although both were playing their fare bit towards the end, there was an uneasy tension in the blend. It ended with one of the pianist striking the keys rather gently, as if the shrug of the performance.

The piece ended with a feeble applause. As the crowd cleared, I saw a young boy and a little monkey in the cage, each with their own little piano. Both pianos adored a huge red ribbon. That was to be the last show of the day, and the only time I ever heard that haunting piece. I cannot tell for sure who completed who in that piece.

Moving on to the next cage, there were a small group of school children. They were throwing scraps of bread into the cage of another monkey. The monkey refused to react. He refused to begged. That angered the little children which started throwing instead, stones at the monkey. The monkey refused to be provoked as well. Frustrated, the school kids left

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