Pianoforte a quattro mani

At first glance, my new home away from home seems like my childhood home.  Fields, farmers, gardens, little sheds, gravel roads...all the stuff that makes the countryside the countryside.  What I don't remember about Ada, Michigan was art and music and theater.  Maybe I was too young.  Or maybe there was really nothing more than fields, farmers, and gardens.

Anyway, dotted throughout the fields in Veneto are lovely little towns.  And dotted
throughout the towns are galleries, performances and cafes. I went to a concert in Asolo
last week.  It was two pianists playing on one piano.  But that's not how you say it.  It's
pianoforte a quattro mani.  That's a piano with four hands.  I've never seen it before
(or should I say heard it?) but it was great! 

First we had pizza, of course.  And then we went for coffee (and I had tea, of course). And
then, the concert.  It was in the il museo civico.  You walk under a few arches and through
a few columns to the entrance.  Then it's up some well-worn stone stairs and into the
concert hall (one would think).  But, instead of an auditorium it was just a big, dusty,
beautiful room. On a little platform made from sheets of plywood sat a shiny, black grand
piano. Two ladies in sequined tops came out to play.  They're the same two ladies with no
sequins that sat at the table next to us in the cafe.  At the cafe they were just two
normal ladies.  Here they were shining stars.

All around the room the top of the walls were painted with shields and names and dates. Giant, dusty chandeliers missing some arms and crystals hung from the ceiling.  There were enough uncomfortable straight-backed chairs for about 60 people, but I think I only counted about 32.  I had a front row seat so I could see the four hands perfectly. One lady operated the pedal and the other turned the pages. 

In the front corner of the room, next to the plywood stage there were two big tables.  Big,
old, beat up wooden tables that would sell for thousands in an antique shop in Michigan. 
Here, they were just shoved in the corner covered with dust.  On one of them there was an
unplugged flat screen tv.  It's cord and other random cords were strewn across the stage
and every time the ladies got up to bow I was afraid they might trip.

Nothing about the place was in order.  And I'm sure nothing about it was beautiful to the
Italians.  They wouldn't notice the tables or painted walls or chandeliers.  But, did it
really matter?  These 32 people were only there to hear Brahms and Satie and Bach. Were
they the same people that spent the day in the fields?  I like to think they were.  And now
when I'm running through the fields in the morning, I like to think that they're the same
people that were at the concert.