Reset Life with Infinite Talents - Chapter 60
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Infinite Talent Reset Life Episode 60
”Would you like to try playing these… hmm?”
The Old Man who brought three violins follows Johann’s gaze that is fixed on one spot.
‘That thing?’
How did he discover something that high up?
“Hehe. Would you like to try playing it once?”
“Would that be alright?”
It clearly looks old at first glance.
He couldn’t help but be cautious.
“It’s fine.”
He wouldn’t be able to play it properly anyway.
A family heirloom of the Old Man’s Donati family, and the prototype and textbook of all violins made by Donati. It’s said to be a collection of only the best qualities of violins, but for that very reason, it’s a white elephant, a rag that no performer has ever played properly.
“Musical instruments exist to be played, after all. Just a moment.”
The Old Man brings a small ladder and carefully opens the Glass Case to take out the violin.
“I maintain it regularly, so there shouldn’t be any need for tuning.”
“Thank you.”
Johann receives the violin with both hands and carefully strokes the front plate while closing his eyes.
The resistance and firmness felt at his fingertips as he gently presses, the cool warmth. The smell and texture of Varnish touching his nose.
‘As expected, this belongs to that person.’
It was definitely from ‘the Great Master, Nicolao Amati’, the great craftsman of the Amati family who raised numerous masters like Guarneri, Stradivari, and Steiner.
Even without the distinctive paintings or patterns carved on instruments he made.
‘The name is definitely…’
Desiderio (wish). It’s a work he gave to a beloved disciple.
‘Why is it here… wait, Donati…?’
He realizes. He remembers that ‘the Great Master, Nicolao Amati’ is one of the names of this Music Instrument Shop and the surname Donati.
‘Donati. Don… Donafel Amati?’
A commoner Young Girl who loved and respected Amati so much she wanted to become Amati. A woman whom ‘the Great Master, Nicolao Amati’ loved so dearly but couldn’t officially accept as an apprentice because she was female.
His lover, Donafel, whom he could only watch marry into a distant branch family.
‘It was you.’
A gift he could only give as a teacher, not as a lover, has returned to these hands across distant years.
His eyes grow hot.
‘The Great Master, Nicolao Amati’ shakes his body.
‘Where are you going!’
“No.”
Johann firmly suppresses him and accesses the Library to summon Josef II.
Then the emotions change instantly.
Deep sadness, longing, and regret disappear as if washed away, replaced by the joy of holding a fine instrument.
He cries out to play quickly.
Johann nods knowingly, places his chin on the body, grips the neck, and holds the Bow.
Ziiing!
“Ah…”
“Oh.”
“Wow.”
A distinctly different resonance from the previous violin – powerful, dignified, and weighty.
The Old Man’s eyes tremble.
‘So this is why it’s called Desiderio.’
Johann understands instantly.
Encouragement to achieve your dreams proudly without being discouraged, wherever you are, whoever you’re with.
The wish of both the lover and ‘the Great Master, Nicolao Amati’.
There happens to be a piece that suits this sound.
‘Emperor Waltz.’
A piece that ‘the Waltz King, Johann Baptist Strauss II’ created for Joseph Franz I, the 3rd Emperor of the Austrian Empire, the 1st Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his employer, but couldn’t dedicate to him as he was grief-stricken after losing the crown prince at the time.
A piece that ultimately never reached its master.
Johann drew down the Bow held in his right hand.
“My, my goodness…”
The Old Man’s eyes widen.
The rag that twenty violinists challenged during his lifetime alone, but not a single one ever played properly, is producing the right sound.
The rag that collected only the best qualities of violins, only the supreme elements that could never harmonize, which no performer had ever played properly.
The rag that follows the Grand Amati pattern, which Nicolao Amati supposedly created imagining that stages would become bigger and wider in the future.
It was pouring out beautiful sounds from that small Boy’s hands.
After some four hundred years.
The Old Man couldn’t come to his senses at this unbelievable sight.
* * *
Ziiing!
Silence descends upon the Music Instrument Shop that had been filled with joy, passion, and astonishment.
Johann looks at the violin Desiderio with shining eyes.
‘This one’s interesting?’
The initial powerful, dignified, and weighty resonance.
That was only a part of the violin Desiderio.
Majestic and delicate.
Sharp yet soft.
Noble like an aristocratic lady, yet rough like a farmer.
Like a chameleon, it expresses the speaker’s emotions as they are, like a collection of all sounds in the world.
‘I suppose it has to be that way?’
Desiderio was crafted with the wish to be able to express all sounds like this.
A textbook that ‘the Great Master, Nicolao Amati’ sent to his beloved disciple and lover Donafel.
The essence of Grand Amati, created hoping that even when stages become bigger and wider as years pass, the sound and the craftsman’s intention would properly reach the Audience.
‘That’s why it’s difficult to play, but…’
He likes it.
That’s why it’s regrettable. Having to end after playing just one piece with such a masterpiece.
Johann brought the Bow to the violin again at Josef II’s request.
‘Please Don’t Cry.’
An unpublished piece that ‘the Waltz King, Johann Strauss II’ composed for the grief-stricken Joseph Franz I but never delivered.
Ziiing!
Sad comfort soothed by only one violin began to ravage the Music Instrument Shop.
* * *
Larry and the Old Man breathe heavily.
The silence that descended was wonder, praise, and lingering resonance.
After a long time, they finally compose their emotions and raise both hands, then hold their breath at Johann’s action of gripping the Bow again.
Tears well up at the warm comfort of someone urgently opening the door, coming in to cry together, and patting their back.
I’m sorry. For not being with you.
I apologize. For coming only now.
The speaker’s emotions are felt deeply.
The parting and comfort that all people must inevitably experience.
As buried memories surfaced, they couldn’t help but cry.
“…Bravo!”
Larry gives unstinting praise to the piece that stopped only after making them cry for a long while.
Astonishment bursts from the Old Man’s throat.
“How….”
Johann and Larry are surprised to see the Old Man’s lips trembling.
The Old Man’s tears still flowing.
It was astonishment, relief, joy, and regret.
“Could you tell me how you played that violin?”
‘Ah, right.’
Desiderio was a violin that could never be played by conventional methods.
‘It must have been troublesome all this time.’
As the Old Man said just before, instruments exist to be played.
But since he hadn’t told anyone how to play it, no musician could have played it properly.
Of course, just the instruction manual alone, just being the prototype for the violins here according to the intentions of ‘Great Master Nicolao Amati’ was valuable enough, but it must have remained as a kind of lingering regret since proper performance wasn’t possible.
‘This person Nicolao Amati, he always has such oversights.’
“Um. Just naturally?”
He had simply followed what the violin told him to do.
“The violin spoke?”
“It’s not that it actually made vocal sounds, but how should I put it… bow like this to make this note, hold like this to make that note, draw like this, that’s how it felt. That’s all.”
“Dear God….”
Absurd occult-like words.
But having seen it with his own eyes, he had no choice but to believe.
‘A great musician has been born!’
A genius of a different caliber who would shake the world like Mozart or Beethoven of old.
A genius who could hear the voice of instruments.
The Old Man’s face flushed red as he asked for a moment’s patience and ran inside to bring out a violin.
“W-would you try playing this too?”
“This is…?”
“This is a violin made in her later years by Donafel Donati, the ancestor of the Donati family, which is both the name of this shop and my lineage.”
According to family legend, Donafel Donati was said to be a woman, but given the social conditions of that era, this was considered impossible and thought to be a mistakenly passed down folk tale.
“Ah!”
‘As expected, she walked the path of a craftsman… Hmm. I shouldn’t absorb Nicolao.’
He might end up crying.
Johann carefully took the violin and drew the bow.
Woooong!
“…Wow.”
Big. Intense.
A cannon-like sound that opened up the chest.
‘It seems like it wouldn’t lose even compared to Guarneri!’
The violin Cannon made by Guarneri, a disciple of ‘Great Master Nicolao Amati’ and one of the world’s most famous craftsmen.
It was like seeing that very instrument.
‘If it’s this one, then that piece!’
Napoleon’s March composed by ‘The Waltz King, Johann Baptist Strauss II’.
Johann’s fingers and bow began to dance across the violin.
“Hahahaha!”
Johann stops his hands and looks at the Old Man bursting into laughter.
The Old Man roughly wipes away the tears flowing down again with his palm, nods as if making some resolution, and holds out two violin cases.
“Please take them.”
The two artworks, Donati’s lingering attachments, had finally found their owner.
The tattered piece that no one could play properly, and Donafel Donati’s last violin whose name wasn’t even passed down.
“…What?!”
“S-sir!”
It was absurd.
Even Larry, who didn’t know much about violins, could see these were extraordinary pieces. They were masterpieces worth at least tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
“Hehe. It’s fine. I was planning to close the shop anyway.”
“What?!”
Larry, who had been shocked, soon realized something and his expression hardened.
“Perhaps….”
“Yes. It’s getting a bit overwhelming now.”
While sales had been gradually declining due to electric violins and cheap factory-made violins flooding the market, the subprime mortgage crisis hit America, completely closing people’s wallets.
Regular customers stopped coming entirely, and even regulars became infrequent.
‘The decisive factor was that the family’s secret techniques were gradually lost over time, lowering the quality of products….’
The quality was inevitably inferior compared to renowned craftsmen and brands from Cremona, Italy and Germany.
For similar prices, it was wise to choose instruments from those places.
“But still….”
“Wouldn’t there be merit just in recommending violins suited to customers like this?”
The Old Man and Larry’s gazes turned to Johann.
The Old Man smiled warmly.
“That’s what everyone does.”
Even places that sell factory-made instruments do this.
There are people who love instruments everywhere, and such people recommend suitable instruments to customers.
‘There’s no stopping it.’
The Old Man had already made up his mind.
“…Would it be okay if I came to learn how to maintain instruments?”
He already knew how to maintain instruments.
With ‘Great Master Nicolao Amati’, he could maintain current quality even hundreds of years from now.
Still, there was one reason he wanted to visit the Old Man.
‘People who lose meaning in life die quickly.’
He couldn’t just watch someone who readily gave away such masterpieces, a descendant of Donafel, pass away so meaninglessly.
‘Great Master Nicolao Amati’ wouldn’t allow it.
“Hehe!”
The young genius’s thoughtfulness was truly appreciated.
“If you have any questions, please contact me at this number anytime.”
“May I do that too?”
Gasp!
Everyone turned their heads in surprise.
The Old Man smiled brightly.
“Oh, Mr. Salonen!”
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor of the LA Philharmonic.
He smiled back at the Old Man, then looked at Johann with trembling eyelids.
* * *
Pam, pa-ba-bam, pa-ba-bam!
The spring brought by various instruments grandly fills the small room.
An SP record spinning in the gramophone, pouring out dynamic and cheerful excitement.
Esa-Pekka Salonen sits in a chair, clenching his fists and breaking into a cold sweat. In his mind, the violin solo he just heard overlaps with the Spring Sounds Waltz flowing from the gramophone.
‘My God.’
Once again he is shocked.
As expected.
It wasn’t for nothing that he thought of Johann Strauss II earlier.
The Voices of Spring Waltz, which has various theories about the background of its composition, such as being inspired by a popular soprano of the time, or inspired by a young lover.
The waltz and violin performance flowing from the gramophone now are identical.
The parts that should be emphasized and the parts that should be subdued, even the resting parts.
Interpreting without a single error, pouring out the same emotions.
‘No, it’s slightly younger.’
Subtly more dynamic.
As if Johann Strauss II had become young again in his thirties.
“Has the Waltz King been reincarnated…?”
If not, this situation cannot be explained.
Because in music originally, in art, nothing completely identical exists.
Only the person who created it can fully express the emotions felt when making a work.
People of later generations merely guess and study, trying to imitate it and add their own color.
Therefore, nothing completely identical can exist.
But this is identical except for being slightly more dynamic.
Pouring out the same emotions, evoking the same imagery.
“America indeed.”
There are so many hidden geniuses.
He would like to invite them as first violin player, concertmaster, to announce the return of the Waltz King to the General Public, but unfortunately he doesn’t know who it is.
Because he sent a message to the user who uploaded to YouTube, but there’s no reply.
Growl!
“Tsk. I must have concentrated too much.”
For him, meals are nothing more than eating to avoid death, but today he should probably visit a restaurant that serves food from his homeland Finland.
He should recover the mental energy he consumed while enjoying a Freshwater Bass Dish with a glass of Vodka.
It was the moment he stood up thinking that.
Crack!
“Oh no.”
Looking at his right hand, he makes a troubled expression.
Because the Conductor’s Baton he habitually held whenever he was lost in thought had broken in half.
A Conductor’s Baton with quite a deep story for him.
When he first came to LA Philharmonic in 1992, he got lost, and to make matters worse, after being pickpocketed, he happened to meet an Old Man and received taxi fare and this Conductor’s Baton.
The warmth and luck he felt when first coming to LA.
Perhaps because of that, whenever he held this, things always went smoothly, but now it had broken.
“Hmm… come to think of it, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that person.”
Thinking it would be nice to take that person to a Finnish Restaurant together, he got up and headed to a certain Music Instrument Shop in LA, Donati & Michelle.
Ding-a-ling!
The bell sound that always greets him first whenever he comes.
He was entering with a smile when he stops at the Violin Performance coming from inside.
His ears and feet are forcibly held, and the powerful, confident melody makes his heart beat violently.
“Emperor Waltz…?”
Johann Strauss II’s Emperor Waltz (Kaiser-Waltzer Op. 437), which is said to have been created to celebrate Franz Joseph I’s 40 years of reign.
‘The Waltz King here too.’
Moving into the shop as if enchanted, he was soon shocked.
“Ch-Child.”
Esa-Pekka Salonen, desperately holding his trembling heart, barely parts his lips. A completely different appearance from how he looked just before.
“The second piece… is it perhaps your own composition?”
A piece he’s hearing for the first time, even though he prides himself on memorizing almost all the countless classics from past to present.
A piece with Johann Strauss II’s colors intensely embedded.
‘Well… it could be a piece I don’t know.’
He’s memorized almost all classics, but not all of them.
Johann looks at Esa-Pekka Salonen with narrowed eyes.
‘A musician.’
Successful musicians have that distinctive aura.
Like Esa-Pekka Salonen before his eyes.
“Um… no.”
He just performed something he heard somewhere.
“I’m not sure if it was in a dream or where.”
“My God!”
Goosebumps rise.
Awe and shock run through his entire body.
‘Certain!’
His guess was right.
This Child was definitely the reincarnated Johann Strauss II.
‘Oh! Waltz King!’
He knelt on one knee toward the Waltz King revived in modern times and extended his hand.
“Child, if you don’t have a teacher, would you become my disciple?”
“…Who are you?”
‘Who are you?’
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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