String Quartet in D Minor "Death and the Maiden"

The five people at the entrance to the chamber music hall visibly stiffened when Lu cursed, "Idiots."

Lu was tall and powerfully built. He had also been quite courteous to Fan Ning in the earlier dream, but that did not mean the group leader was a rough, careless man, nor did it mean he had a good temper.

On the contrary, he had been born into the family of the Empire's railway magnates. Raised in comfort and luxury, he was well-traveled and highly knowledgeable, with an exceptionally delicate mind.

He also knew exactly when he needed to manage his own emotions, and when he needed to use emotions to manage others.

His expression was extremely grim. The Empire's newly risen major business families were locked in fierce open and covert struggles, and this time, after much difficulty, he had finally managed to establish a connection with someone who was at least a high-rank Knower...

Even if there would be no cooperation involving the mysterious realm in the short term, Fan Ning's future musical talent alone was enough to make him worth befriending on behalf of the Lineage.

An artist and a Knower together—no one would doubt how powerful his future Inspiration would be!

Yet at their very first formal meeting, this utterly meaningless farce had broken out! And all the people who had caused the conflict were from his own second group!

From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Fan Ning.

He doesn't look angry, but he can hardly be said to look pleased either... Knowers have all sorts of personalities, so it's hard to tell anything from their expressions... Why is he carrying a violin case? He seems to be carrying it for the young girl beside him... These two girls look somewhat familiar. That's right, I think they were the two people sitting in the front row at the funeral. They should be Professor Anton's daughter and her friend? Mr. Fan Ning specifically chose these two to play violin in his work. Their relationship must be extraordinary...

As countless thoughts flashed through Lu's mind, he also considered how to handle this awkward first meeting with Fan Ning.

"Group leader, please come inside. We're truly sorry. We didn't know in advance that you were going to rehearse a work."

The horn player at the front came to his senses, looking terrified.

"It isn't my work. It's Mr. Fan Ning's," Lu said coldly.

Fan Ning suddenly thought of a question. "Group Leader Adair, will we have a chance to use the chamber music halls in the teaching area?"

Small chamber music halls 1, 2, and 3 were in the teaching area, while halls 4, 5, and 6 were open-use facilities.

Seeing Fan Ning ask him, Lu was visibly relieved.

"Of course, Mr. Fan Ning. Which hall would you like to use? Also, you really can just call me Lu."

"Number 1." Fan Ning nodded. "Let them have number 4."

"It seems you have your own views on the acoustic requirements. Please wait a moment. I'll go downstairs to the duty room."

The mouths of those people fell open. They had never expected their group leader to be so courteous to Fan Ning, let alone to personally take part in rehearsing Fan Ning's new work.

A new-work rehearsal was like a pyramid. At the top were famous composers, whom performers scrambled to obtain rehearsal opportunities with—especially opportunities to premiere their new works.

For ordinary composers, it was the other way around: they begged others to rehearse their works, both to hear how their writing sounded in reality and to promote themselves.

Even if they sweet-talked people into rehearsing for them, others might not agree. The masterpieces of serious music were as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. Why spend so much time practicing the notes you had written? The works of artistic masters were performed frequently, while those watered-down pieces of yours would basically be ignored afterward.

Fan Ning's image in the eyes of those people from Group Two suddenly became mysterious and imposing.

After asking Fan Ning to wait, Lu walked toward the stairwell on the other side.

As he passed those people, he shot them a fierce look.

They immediately understood. They hurriedly thanked Fan Ning and Qiong, then entered Hall 4, too embarrassed to pull the door shut behind them.

"Caloen, is this Lu your year-group leader? Why is he so polite to you?" Qiong was astonished by what she had witnessed.

"He's the leader of Group Two. I'm in Group Three." Fan Ning casually explained, "We have a pretty good relationship normally."

"I've seen him before," Hiran said. "I think he's the timpanist of the Saint Leniya Symphony Orchestra."

"That's right. He's also studying viola." Fan Ning said, "I'll introduce everyone to one another later."

The door to Chamber Music Hall 1 was ajar, and the room was brightly lit.

The grand piano onstage had been shifted slightly to the side by the staff, while four chairs and music stands had been placed in the center.

Hiran, Qiong, and Lu took out their violins and wiped rosin onto their bows. Fan Ning, meanwhile, fine-tuned the relative positions of the musicians' chairs.

"Sorry, everyone. Something came up, so I'm a little late today." A graceful, sweet female voice filled with apology came from the doorway. "You actually managed to get Hall 1. I like this place quite a lot."

Roy walked in with measured steps. She wore a close-fitting purple-red wool dress, its lower half ending in a carefully tailored train. A silk sash around her waist made her tall figure look even more elegant.

Two well-dressed female attendants carried a cello case to the center of the stage. They opened it, set the cello in place, bowed to everyone, and left, closing the music hall door behind them.

Lu greeted the girl in the purple dress. "Miss Roy, your outfits always lead the fashion trends of the Theolan Empire."

Fan Ning smiled at Roy.

Who is this...? She changed into another outfit in the time it took to attend the next class?

He then guided the four of them through introductions before handing out the scores.

"At present, I've only written the full score, so everyone will have to find their own part among the four staves. We may have to turn the pages a little more frequently, so please bear with me."

"D Minor String Quartet... dedicated to Marquis Paul MacAdam." Roy murmured the title. "Subtitle—'Death and the Maiden'?"

"What a striking name. Mysterious and alluring, yet carrying a certain danger," Lu praised.

"It's a key that's very friendly to strings. I like it." Qiong giggled.

Hiran looked at the score, then at Fan Ning, back and forth.

"That's right. I'll also use it for the second-round test of the Works Selection Competition." Fan Ning smiled as he responded to everyone.

This piece had been written in his previous life by the Romantic master Schubert. It was his Fourteenth String Quartet, catalogued as D.810.

Fan Ning had initially intended to change the name slightly, but he discovered that people in both worlds had folk vocabulary for "death gods," with essentially the same meaning. Thus, he had preserved the original flavor.

This was one of Schubert's highly dramatic masterpieces of chamber music, possessing a unique mysterious atmosphere and philosophical quality. The desire for life ran through the opening and closing movements; the central second movement was like a desolate, anguished cry, while the contradictory conflict at the conclusion was resolved only to end in the death god's victory.

For Fan Ning, writing from memory a piece that was not a piano solo was an enormous challenge. Although its sound was extremely familiar to him, he could not play any other instruments.

Thanks to his musical foundation from two lifetimes and the intensity of a Knower's Inspiration, his ability to recall and extract things from his subconscious far surpassed that of ordinary people.

For a work lasting more than half an hour, he used auditory memory combined with harmonic deduction to clearly present the movement of all four parts. The accuracy of the notes should have exceeded ninety-nine percent. The remaining one percent consisted mainly of entrances and departures in secondary parts during certain complicated passages.

In his previous life, he had read some transmigration novels with musical elements. Their protagonists would casually recall and write an entire symphony, perfectly reproducing its enormous form, its twenty or thirty independent moving parts, and its dozen or so types of orchestration.

After transmigrating himself, he discovered that with the Inspiration of a Third-Rank Knower, recalling a string quartet had already pushed him to his limits.

Perhaps his musical foundation and Inspiration were still insufficient. He might need to advance further in the extraordinary realm before this could improve.

"Mr. Fan Ning, would you like to give us some guidance first?" Lu asked.

"Hmm... Let me think." Lu's words reminded Fan Ning of something.

"Chamber music generally assumes that there won't be a conductor, but since this is everyone's first time sight-reading it, I'll simply guide the beat for now. As for the tempo, we'll go about twenty or thirty percent slower than what's written on the score. Let's first try to work our way through it. For now, ignore the expressive markings on the score and don't add too much individual interpretation. When turning pages, rest for one measure. If you hit a wrong note, don't go back—keep up."

Fan Ning gave all four of them a concise yet comprehensive set of instructions.

He then walked to the piano and pressed the G below middle C.

The open strings of four instruments rang out through the music hall as everyone began checking their tuning.

Fan Ning stepped onto the conductor's podium and picked up the old communal baton from its slot.

He called out clearly, "Everyone, are you ready?"

"I have no problem." Hiran, the first violinist, held her bow and fixed her eyes on the young man's hand atop the podium. Her voice was soft but confident.

"Caloen, I-I-I-I'm a little nervous." The second violinist Qiong's voice was soft and trembling.

"No problem." The violist Lu watched Fan Ning's gestures seriously as well.

"We can begin." The cellist Roy smiled sweetly, her voice equally confident.

Fan Ning smiled faintly and gave them an encouraging look.

Then he raised his arm and lifted the baton. After raising his hand in the preparatory beat, he swung it down with force!