. . . A man
entered the room. A very old man, it seemed to him at first, not very tall, white-haired, with
a fine, clear face and penetrating, light-blue eyes. The gaze of those eyes might have been
frightening, but they were serenely cheerful as well as penetrating, neither laughing nor
smiling, but filled with a calm, quietly radiant cheerfulness. He shook hands with the boy,
nodded, and sat down with deliberation on the stool in front of the old practice piano. "You
are Joseph Knecht?" he said. "Your teacher seems content with you. I think he is fond of
you. Come, let's make a little music together."
Knecht had already taken out his violin. The old man struck the A, and the boy
tuned. Then he looked inquiringly, anxiously, at the Music Master.
"What would you like to play?" the Master asked.
The boy could not say a word. He was filled to the brim with awe of the old man.
Never had he seen a person like this. Hesitantly, he picked up his exercise book and held it
out to the Master.
"No," the Master said, "I want you to play from memory, and not an exercise but
something easy that you know by heart. Perhaps a song you like."
Knecht was confused, and so enchanted by this face and those eyes that he could not
answer. He was deeply ashamed of his confusion, but unable to speak. The Master did not
insist. With one finger, he struck the first notes of a melody, and looked questioningly at the
boy. Joseph nodded and at once played the melody with pleasure. It was one of the old
songs which were often sung in school.
"Once more," the Master said.
Knecht repeated the melody, and the old man now played a second voice to go with
it. Now the old song rang through the small practice room in two parts.
"Once more."
Knecht played, and the Master played the second part, and a third part also. Now the
beautiful old song rang through the room in three parts.
"Once more." And the Master played three voices along with the melody.
"A lovely song," the Master said softly. "Play it again, in the alto this time."
The Master gave him the first note, and Knecht played, the Master accompanying
with the other three voices. Again and again the Master said, "Once more," and each time he
sounded merrier. Knecht played the melody in the tenor, each time accompanied by two or
three parts. They played the song many times, and with every repetition the song was
spontaneously enriched with embellishments and variations. The bare little room resounded
festively in the cheerful light of the forenoon.
After a while the old man stopped. "Is that enough?" he asked.
Knecht shook his head and began again. The Master chimed in gaily with his three voices, and the four parts
drew their thin, lucid lines, spoke to one another, mutually supported, crossed, and wove
around one another in delightful windings and figurations. The boy and the old man ceased
to think of anything else; they surrendered themselves to the lovely, congenial lines and
figurations they formed as their parts crisscrossed. Caught in the network their music was
creating, they swayed gently along with it, obeying an unseen conductor. Finally, when the
melody had come to an end once more, the Master turned his head and asked: "Did you like
that, Joseph?"
Gratefully, his face glowing, Knecht looked at him. He was radiant, but still
speechless.
"Do you happen to know what a fugue is?" the Master now asked.
Knecht looked dubious. He had already heard fugues, but had not yet studied them
in class.
"Very well," the Master said, "then I'll show you. You'll grasp it quicker if we make a
fugue ourselves. Now then, the first thing we need for a fugue is a theme, and we don't have
to look far for the theme. We'll take it from our song."
He played a brief phrase, a fragment of the song's melody. It sounded strange, cut
out in that way, without head or tail. He played the theme once more, and this time he went
on to the first entrance; the second entrance changed the interval of a fifth to a fourth; the
third repeated the first an octave higher, as did the fourth with the second. The exposition
concluded with a cadence in the key of the dominant. The second working-out modulated
more freely to other keys; the third, tending toward the subdominant, ended with a cadence
on the tonic.
The boy looked at the player's clever white fingers, saw the course of the
development faintly mirrored in his concentrated expression, while his eyes remained quiet
under half-closed lids. Joseph's heart swelled with veneration, with love for the Master. His
ear drank in the fugue; it seemed to him that he was hearing music for the first time in his
life. Behind the music being created in his presence he sensed the world of Mind, the joy-
giving harmony of law and freedom, of service and rule. He surrendered himself, and vowed
to serve that world and this Master. In those few minutes he saw himself and his life, saw the
whole cosmos guided, ordered, and interpreted by the spirit of music. And when the playing
had come to an end, he saw this magician and king for whom he felt so intense a reverence
pause for a little while longer, slightly bowed over the keys, with half-closed eyes, his face
softly glowing from within. Joseph did not know whether he ought to rejoice at the bliss of
this moment, or weep because it was over.
The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue
eyes piercingly and at the same time with unimaginable friendliness upon him, and said:
"Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. There is none
easier. That is a fine thing. I hope you and I shall remain friends. Perhaps you too will learn
how to make fugues, Joseph."
He shook hands with Joseph and took his leave. But in the doorway he turned once
more and gave Joseph a parting greeting, with a look and a ceremonious little inclination of
his head.
Many years later Knecht told his pupil that when he stepped out of the building, he
found the town and the world far more transformed and enchanted than if there had been
flags, garlands, and streamers, or displays of fireworks. He had experienced his vocation,
which may surely be spoken of as a sacrament. The ideal world, which hitherto his young
soul had known only by hearsay and in wild dreams, had suddenly taken on visible
lineaments for him. Its gates had opened invitingly. This world, he now saw, did not exist
only in some vague, remote past or future; it was here and was active; it glowed, sent
messengers, apostles, ambassadors, men like this old Magister (who by the way was not
nearly so old as he then seemed to Joseph). And through this venerable messenger an
admonition and a call had come from that world even to him, the insignificant Latin school
pupil.
Such was the meaning of the experience for him. It took weeks before he actually
realized, and was convinced, that the magical events of that sacramental hour corresponded
to a precise event in the real world, that the summons was not just a sense of happiness and
admonition in his own soul and his own conscience, but a show of favor and an exhortation
from the earthly powers.