Saga What Songs of the Heart--OC diary of an Imperial grad student--For the Dear Diary challenge

Title: What Songs of the Heart
Author: DarthIshtar
Timeframe: 3 months BBY onward
Characters: OCs, minor appearances by canon
Genre: Drama, humor, angst, romance
Summary: A grad student in composition is assigned to intern with a famous Imperial composer for a year.
Notes: Title comes from the hymn "Oh what songs of the heart". Wonderful song. This also includes characters that I introduced in Wife of Deceit--Vali and Michel. You'll see how later.

1/1

I got my internship placement today. It's about time, since the other three in my program all got their notifications last week. Apparently, my mentor took some convincing. She hasn't taken a graduate assistant in a decade and I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't now if her contract with the Antibes Symphony didn't require her to devote some of her time to teaching.

Mom and Dad weren't too happy. Yes, Lady Valeria Emien is one of the most famous Imperial composers and performers of all time. She wrote the music to the Imperial Anthem, but she's so well-established that she performed at Palpatine's third inauguration. Obviously, she stands for a lot in the Empire.

And, of course, my parents are hung up on the fact that she was rumored to be a Rebel sympathizer. These days, that's true of pretty much everyone, but I think she would have shown some definite signs of it by now.

Well, one drawback of the late notification is that I'm supposed to be ready to help at rehearsals tomorrow night and I still haven't gotten a chance to pack. Everyone else was assigned to Center-based musicians, but I get to go on-site to scenic Alderaan. I'm sure I'd be more excited if I didn't still have half my closet to pack, an apartment to sublet and a twelve-hour journey to make before then. Of course I'm voice-recording. Typing takes too much space.

 

Going to Alderaan, eh? Well, if this is three months BBY, then I hope they aren't having an extended stay... or else this diary won't last a whole year.

Great start.

 

Oh, I like this! Always fun to hear from an original character!

 

Very well written, DarthIshtar. You capture the reader's interest from the beginning. I would like to be PM:d.

 

Alexis_Wingstar--LOL, good catch. Not that extended, but that will be explained later. What do you mean I can't write from a dead person's POV? Thanks!

Thrawn1786--THanks, Thrawn! I have a lot of fun with OC's and the Lady Emien is one of my more memorable OC's or at least she will be. I haven't gotten very far in her story yet.

Darth_Bliss--Thanks, Bliss. I'm glad it captured your interest.
*****
1/2

Okay, so I?ve gone through my fair share of hazing over the years. You wouldn?t think that two thousand music nerds would be interested in that sort of thing, but we sometimes got bored and the student societies were highly interested in what they called ?rites of passage.?

I just never thought that I?d run into one on my first day on the job. I was told that I was supposed to help the assistant conductor of the Antibes Symphony and I assumed that she would just make me take notes and run errands on the first day. No one mentioned that when I would be introduced as the new graduate assistant to Lady Emien, the principal conductor would interrogate me about my credentials and then suggest that I prove myself by conducting the rehearsal personally.

I didn?t do too badly. Sure, I mixed up the kloos and the jhar-horns and asked the kloos to play six measures of silence during the Dizaur concerto grosso. I forgot the name of not only the principal conductor but Lady Emien and the High Princess of Alderaan. I?m sure Leia Organa will be thrilled to hear that we?re playing for ?the birthday celebration of um?whatsername.?

A few of the musicians made a point of reassuring me that I wasn?t that bad. One of the viol players mentioned that Dilra, the conductor, only does that when he has heard good things about the latest victim. A few of the men and one of the women tried to flirt with me and I can?t tell if they were interested because I?m nice, if it?s because I?m fresh blood or if it?s because I?m the only redhead I?ve seen since arriving.

Tomorrow, there are no rehearsals and Lady Emien, after congratulating me on surviving my first ambush, told me to be ready for work at 0700. Obviously, she doesn?t believe in lightyear lag.

 

1/3

I got up at 0500, showered and found the larder well-stocked. Lady Emien comes from the family of one of the provincial governors on Alderaan and married the Queen?s communications director, so they have a huge house near the Antibes Palace. I?m currently occupying the guest wing. It includes two bedrooms, one refresher, a private kitchen and my own veranda. For someone who could only afford to live in the dorms for all six years of school, this is a bit of a culture shock. My internship gives me a stipend and once I?ve been here a few days I should be able to work out some kind of budget.

I got to Lady Emien?s study at 0658 to find her already working. I immediately apologized for being late and she waved it off.

?I?ve been working for three hours. That is not your fault.?

I?m glad to hear that she doesn?t seem to expect me to keep the same hours as her.

?And don?t call me Lady Emien again,? she ordered. ?If we?re going to be working together for a year, I won?t have such formal nonsense. I?m Valeria.?

Well, when she?s not in the formal robes of the assistant conductor, but in casual slacks and an ink-stained blouse, it?s easier to think of her as Valeria.

Then she asked me to sit down at the keyboard and improvise something for her. I wasn?t sure that she was paying attention at all, but I did my best. I tried to make it have structure and melody and all of the other basics of good music without sounding too audacious. When I finished, she looked up from the old-fashioned manuscript that she still uses instead of a compositional tablet.

?Did you mean to do that??

I wasn?t sure whether to be stunned, humiliated or offended. I just stared at her and she shook her head.

?I thought not.?

According to her, I?ll be doing that every day of this year and ?I expect to hear something that isn?t trying so hard from now on.?

Trying so hard? Trying so hard? I?m 24 and in grad school. Sure, I didn?t compose for the Emperor when I was 22 like her, but trying so hard? Maybe this is punishment for how badly I did last night.

She spent the next three hours interrogating me about everything from my family background to my philosophies on the music of the third classical period of the Old Republic. She had a few nice things to say about Chandrila and mentioned that she?d requested me after hearing a performance of my ?Introspection #3.? Apparently that wasn?t trying too hard.

I?m going to try to stop harping on that. After all, it?s not the worst criticism I?ve ever gotten, but everyone else who has said something similar has known me for more than 12 hours.

According to her, we?re going to Chandrila in three months. She?s working on a commissioned piece and thinks that the Silver Sea will be appropriate for what she needs to accomplish. I?m not complaining. Of course, Antibes is pretty similar to Portown, but maybe she just needs to escape Alderaan itself.

I asked her what the commissioned work is about, but she said that I would have to decide for myself once I heard it.

For the rest of the day, she would hand me parts of the manuscript and I would play them on the keyboard while she wrote in another part. Whatever this is, it?s very military-sounding. Maybe it?s another project for the Imperial court.

 

Is it a Rebel symphony for when the Alliance finally breaks the galaxy free from the tyrany of Palpatine?

 

I really like the setting and I'm very interested in what will happen. Nice updates.

 

1/4

This morning, on a hunch, I did my improvisation as a theme and variations on her Symphony #3. It was the one originally dedicated to Palpatine and then re-dedicated "to the memory of a great man." A lot of people think that it was the start of her sympathies with the Rebellion. She hasn't spoken out too recently against the Empire, but everyone knows that she disapproved of what Palpatine did after the Republic fell.

It's a melancholy little tune for the first movement, based on the Alderaanian prayers for the dead.

When I was done, she sort of snapped out of it (I noticed around the third variation that she'd stopped writing and was staring into space) and sighed heavily.

"I knew that you would be the appropriate choice to work with me."

I wasn't quite sure what to make of it--did she mean I was a good composer after all or that I'd made a good choice in music? Either way, I turned a little red and said thanks.

Today, she sent me on a full day of errands, everything from delivering a manuscript to the guest conductor for tonight to finding a certain kind of flower at the East Markets.

When I got back, I expected we'd do more dictation, but she'd gone out with her husband. I kept my house-comm on all day in case she needed me, but she hadn't come back by the time I had to leave for the concert.

Valeria arranged for box seats for me, since this is the last concert that I will view from the audience. Tomorrow's concert is the same program, but I will be a glorified stagehand in case Valeria needs anything during the concert. They had a wonderful soloist.

 

1/5

I'm not sure I can do this much improvisation. Today, she didn't accuse me of trying too hard, but she sighed afterwards. If the woman said something instead of just making odd noises, it would help a lot.

We spent most of the day meeting with various sections of the orchestra for touch-up rehearsals and to dish out feedback from last night. Not surprisingly, Valeria had something to complain about with everyone--the soloist lost the quality of her breath control in the middle of the third movement, the third stand of viols forgot the repeat during the symphony and the kloos were not tuned right.

When we got back, she had me take more dictation, this time for a choir. What that will have to do with a symphony I don't know, but I'm going to have to pull out my Taiald-Basic dictionary to figure out what the words mean. She asked to be alone for a few hours when we were finished with that transcription and by the time she called me back to work, it was nearly time to leave for the concert. Tonight, it was better, but I spent most of the time hurrying up and waiting.

1/6

Valeria gave me the day off today--she says that there will be one of these per week, but the day will not be fixed--and I finally went sight-seeing. I took the public tour of the Palace at Antibes, spent half of my first month's stipend on a dress from Rmaina and had lunch at a small seafood restaurant near Symphony Hall that I enjoyed a lot.

I also found a public comm and left a message for Mom and Dad. I've gotten three letters transmitted from them since I left, but it feels better to talk to them face-to-face. The problem is that these calls tend to cost a fortune, so I probably won't make more than one or two per month.

When I got back to Valeria's, she was getting ready for the last concert of the weekend. By now, I can whistle the entire program and know the names of all the principals. T

he kloo-horner who was kind to me on my first day here asked me out to dinner sometime this week. His name is Maoir and he's a local, having grown up in Valeria's hometown of Crevasse City before moving to Antibes.

I think I'll take him up on the offer. It'll be something to liven things up.

 

Very nice updates, Ishtar. I really like the way you describe Valeria and her behaviour towards her student. I also like the calm tempo in the diary. Good work.

 

1/7

Valeria spent today with me in her Archive. Michel built her a private library where she keeps the original manuscripts of each of her works, including her unpublished ones. It was an amusing game of "Name that Tune" as she would start humming the bass viol part to something and I'd have to rush around, looking for the conductor's score of the Antis Overture or the third movement of her 2nd Symphony. I don't think she did it to torment me. She just did it because she is used to depending only on herself fo r this sort of project.

The more interesting parts were when she would hum something that I thought I recognized and it would turn out to be an early draft of something that turned out completely differently. The concerto with which she made her debut was one of those. The original second movement sounded more like a lullaby than the funeral song that it ended up as. I'd like to ask her what the change was, but that's a very personal question for someone I've only known a week.

I accepted the date with the kloo-horner on the condition that we go somewhere informal. We're going tomorrow night.

 

I'm really enjoying this. The subtle melancholy of the Emperor's favorite composer...

 

I love this. Your OC is wonderful, and different from most Star Wars characters. The Beethoven/Napoleon reference was great as well.