Greg felt the sonority of Chopin’s Ballade No. 1, performed by Krystian Zimerman, ring through the air of his living room. He leaned back comfortably in his armchair as he appreciated the heavy, jarring starting notes fade into the softer, smaller notes at the end of the phrase. It was something his father had impressed upon him before.

“It starts suddenly,” he had told Greg. “The first few notes offer tension, dissonance… but then things resolve quickly, and it transitions into a peaceful melody.”

Greg, who was but a child at the time, had not fully understood this. So his father continued.

“It’s like when you have a nightmare,” he had remarked. “You wake up and you’re all scared, but then you realize it wasn’t real. And then you start thinking about the comfort of your bed, the weight of your sheets, and the softness of your pillow; and your mind drifts off to a happier, peaceful place.”

Greg smiled now at the memory. He looked over at his father’s still face, resting on the other armchair in the room.

The ballade had progressed through a long, peaceful theme, but now undertones of tension were beginning to creep in. Greg remembered his father’s comments on the part.

“Chopin builds a little bit of suspense, letting you know that something is coming. There are two melodies, one in the right hand and one in the left. At first they keep to themselves, but slowly -- listen -- slowly, you can hear them inch closer to each other.” He paused, waiting for the music to play and for Greg to hear. The volume of Greg’s father’s voice suddenly dropped and became much calmer. “But then inexplicably, the tension fades away and you transition to this nice, quiet part, which seems peaceful enough, right?”

Greg nodded. He had always tried his best to understand what his father was saying, and was deeply fascinated with classical music -- a passion learned from his father.

“Then Chopin puts in this innocent little run that takes you to the higher notes, offering something sweet and dormant; but it’s a ruse!”

“A ruse?” Greg had questioned. 

Greg’s father smiled. “This sense of security we get, when we reach the high notes -- we think things are peaceful again -- Chopin takes us up here only to set us up to come down. He starts with these four notes being repeated throughout the phrase, do you hear it?” Greg nodded. He felt the beauty and grace of the repeating theme, imagining the fingers of the pianist glide smoothly across the keys. “It starts quiet, but slowly it crescendos, and begins descending into a powerful range. And then you get this crazy sequence of excited notes which sound all dark and majestic: the climax.”

Now Greg felt the music wash over him, closing his eyes as Zimerman’s piano reverberated through him. It felt like a beating heart: tension, release; tension, release. Inadvertently, the music’s pain and dismay took him to more memories; he saw flashes of his father, grief-stricken; the old, small, apartment they used to live in; his mother, unmoving, on the floor; flashing red lights through the window; the white halls of a hospital with musky yellow lights. 

Slowly, the music transitioned into a new theme, another bright and beautiful arpeggiated sequence of notes with the promise of a new beginning. 

Greg had once asked his father what had happened to his mother. He was a little older, no longer the child who had confusedly accepted he would never see his mother again.

The music was light and graceful, the notes gliding easily through the air.

“She was sick,” said his father shortly.

The melody seemed to monologue, with a long, uninterrupted, graceful phrase.

“Why?” asked Greg impulsively. Then, after a moment, he realized how foolish the question was.

A call and response section began; the right hand speaking and the left hand answering. The two hands did not wait for each other to finish their sentences before responding, as if they were so interconnected they operated on a deeper level of understanding. 

His father understood the meaning behind the question, however, and elaborated. “She had heart issues for a long time. Then, one day…” he swallowed, unable to continue. “It was something that was never properly addressed, medically.”

Gradually, tension entered the music once again as it began to cascade into darker chords and build in volume. 

“But… why not?” asked Greg. “Why didn’t we just give her treatment?”

The ballade began to speed up, increasing in volume as the tension grew.

“I tried,” said Greg’s father, and Greg was surprised to hear a bitter tone in his voice. “But she knew, and I suppose I did too, that we wouldn’t have the money to pay for it all.”

Finally, the music broke into a triumphant chord, cutting the tension and signifying the climax. Following the grandiose chord was the same yearning melody after the first climax, yet even more opulent. 

“Music is my life, Greg. It was all I ever wanted to do.” He paused. “But when I… when I decided to make it my career, I never thought I would regret so greatly the modest life it led.”

Greg didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure if he really understood what his father was saying.

“Money never made me happy. It still doesn’t make me happy,” Greg’s father continued. “My true joy came from the art of what I did. But if only I had a better job…” he left the statement unfinished. 

He looked at Greg after a long pause. “I will support you no matter what you do, my son, but I don’t want you to become a musician. I have never given you the opportunity and resources needed to become one, because I went down this path myself. And if you do follow your passion… then you have to understand the sacrifices you will make.”

Now, as he reflected in his armchair, Greg realized what sacrifice his father believed he had made, what he had blamed himself for. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said softly to his father in the other armchair. Naturally, there was no reply.

The ending had always been difficult for Greg, especially as a child. “This is the coda,” explained Greg’s father. “There’s so much chaos, so much action, so much drama; this is the final battle, the ultimate climax… the most dramatic part of the entire piece. And now-” a lone, deep chord played with significant strength- “the left hand makes a statement, a last stand. There is no response this time, as we usually hear in music, only a long scale from the right hand that reaches the ends of the piano.”

Greg had been completely hooked, on the edge of his seat, pulled into the music. An glorious scale played, growing in volume, in intensity, then suddenly-

“Silence.”

Greg did not understand. “What happened?”

“This is the end,” said Greg’s father. “The battle is over.”

 “But the piece isn’t,” reasoned Greg, for a deep, mournful chord played three times.

“No, it isn’t,” said Greg’s father with the ghost of a smile. “Our character is beat, but not quite dead yet.” As he said the words, a melody played, a melody that Greg recognized as the same notes which had started the piece.

“We have the theme of our character! He gets up again, but then-” a grand and violent minor scale broke the melody- “it is disrupted by this callous scale! As if he has gone down again! And then we have silence, and those three, sorrowful chords.”

Greg’s mouth was dry as he followed the music closely, listening to his father’s words. For what seemed like eternity, a stillness followed, and Greg felt a touch of fear. Then, again, the first theme played. “He’s up again!” exclaimed the boy, riveted by the music. 

Only for the theme to be brutally broken by a scale of pure discord, with the right hand descending and the left hand ascending jaggedly. “The hands approach each other, getting closer and closer, until they meet and go down together in one last, climactic scale. And then it is finished.” 

The last note rang out, suspended in the air. 

Greg waited, but no more music played. The ballade was well and truly done. 

“But… does that mean…”

“He is dead.”

The idea was so appalling, so absurd, that Greg had gone through ten minutes of an epic piece only for the ending to be a somber one, that Greg could not comprehend it. “Why?” he cried. “What’s the point, then?”

“The point?” mused Greg’s father. “Why, it’s just a story. Does it have to have a point?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Greg, his voice swelling uncontrollably. “Why would we listen to this story if it was only going to be sad?”

Greg’s father paused for a second, slightly taken aback by his son’s reaction. “Well… not all stories are… happy! What would happiness mean if it were only ever present? What would you feel if all you ever knew was joy? How could goodness persist without hardship?”

There was a flash of recognition in the young child’s eyes that was soon replaced by a flood of emotion. “But… it was so beautiful! Why did this one have to be sad? Why would Chopin do that?”

Greg’s father took a moment to gather his thoughts, then responded in a gentler tone. “Because it was necessary. Grief is…” he hesitated as his eyes glazed over slightly in memory. “Grief is a terrible thing. But it was important for Chopin to write this, as it is important for us to listen to it. A… necessary sacrifice.” He looked down at his son. “It is only natural to experience sadness, Greg. What is important is to accept it and adapt to it.” 

The corners of his lips turned upwards in the slightest smile. “Which is why Chopin wrote this, as difficult as it is! And isn’t that beautiful?”

For many years Greg remembered that night, and his father’s words. He remembered his father’s eyes: the way they showed amusement at first, then reminiscence as he talked about grief, then at last a twinkle as he informed Greg of its necessity. 

He wasn’t sure what the words really meant, or what his father truly wanted from him. He did not know what sacrifice to make, what to grieve. In a choice it came down to music or money, and despite his father warning him against the former, Greg couldn’t help but think if that was the necessary sacrifice, the road of sadness, that his father truly wanted him to take, to experience, to accept. 

Greg was never certain of the choice he eventually made. He lived in regret for several years wondering if he was wrong in what he decided. A part of him wondered if there even was a right choice -- a right interpretation of his father’s words. 

Greg stayed in this confusion until one gentle spring morning, rife with the sound of hatching birds and the smell of blossoming flowers, in the hospital where his mother had died. But this time, his visit was not one for death, but for life. His daughter entered the world that morning, and with her came a spark of understanding -- a spark that would be fanned into a bright flame of enlightenment after slightly more than a year, when his daughter touched the smooth white keys of his piano for the first time. 

Greg sat in silence as the piece finished. After a moment, he got up from his armchair and walked over to his father, where he could almost imagine the old man had been listening. Then, he picked up the portrait, placed it on the shelf, and went to bed.