Angelo’s Song

Once upon a time in a kingdom on the other side of the high, jagged mountains, there lived a princess who loved music.

Her ears were very sensitive and she only hired the very best musicians in the kingdom for her orchestra that played at the balls she held every Saturday night at the royal palace.

One dark and restless night, the best violinist in the orchestra died.  His name was Fyodoro and it is said that he learned to play from the faerie queen herself.  People came from far and wide to attend his funeral and he was laid to rest in a specially-made coffin that allowed him to be buried with his violin tucked under his chin, ready to play wherever he might arrive next.

The princess was despondent.  She feared that she would never again hear the sweet tones and screeching arias that used to flow from Fyodoro’s fiddle.  

The second violinist, fat tears rolling down his face, got up to play for the assembled crowd as best he could, but it just wasn’t the same.  They mourned not the loss of Fyodoro so much as the loss of his music.

On the far side of the kingdom, in the foothills of the high, jagged mountains, there lived a young sheep-herder named Angelo.  His mother had died in childbirth and his father had died of a broken heart before Angelo’s first birthday.

A neighboring shepherd let Angelo suckle from the teat of a mother sheep and he was raised among them, a strange-looking brother to the other lambs.

One spring day a whip-poor-will was blowing his song in a tree above the field and Angelo found it enchanting.  He moved his lips around until he was able to make the same sounds as the bird by blowing through them. Every day thereafter he would listen carefully for hours as the bird sang joyfully, then he would whistle it back, listening to the song he produced echoing down the valley.

Angelo was sixteen years old when Fyodoro the violinist died, but because he lived so far out in the country, he knew nothing about it.  He only knew what the sheep knew – about grass and sun and clover. And he only feared what the sheep feared – wolves.

Meanwhile, the princess was very unhappy.  She could not find another musician anywhere who could please her discerning ear the way that Fyodoro could.  The finest musicians from the kingdom came to audition, but none could match the sensitivity of the princess’s ear.

One day the king’s cattleman came to Angelo’s province to purchase some sheep to add to the king’s flock.  Once the money had been exchanged and it came time to drive the sheep towards the king’s fields, neither the dogs nor the drovers on horseback could persuade them to budge.  The chief shepherd of the province, not wanting to lose his new profits, summoned Angelo from the field where he was watching his sheep.

Angelo surveyed the situation quietly while the king’s drovers scoffed at the notion that this ragged little boy of a shepherd could best their efforts.  He asked, through a series of grunts and shrugs, which direction they wished the flock to pursue. The king’s drovers laughed and pointed Westward toward the capital where the king and the princess dwelled in the palace.

Angelo raised his head and began to whistle.  All of the dogs in the vicinity immediately turned on their heels and pointed their ears towards him, whining expectantly.  Angelo issued a series of trills and blasts and the dogs instantly responded, as did the sheep.

The strongest ram and the most valiant dog took the lead, with sheep/dog pairings on the flanks and at the rear as well.  They started West at a healthy clip and all of the king’s men stood with their mouths agape. The king’s drover insisted that Angelo accompany them on their journey and so he left the province of his birth for the very first time.

Upon his arrival in the capital city, Angelo marveled at all of the wondrous offerings in the marketplace.  The king’s drovers had paid him a small stipend so, for the first time in his life, he had money to spend.

He was captivated by the song of a bird that he had never heard before.  It was sweet and pure and rended his heart. When he followed the magical sound to its source, it turned out to be a very strange bird indeed.

In every way it resembled a woman, except it had a long tubular beak that it tapped with its fingers in time with the tune it was whistling.  A moment’s further examination revealed that it was a woman, but she was holding this wooden beak tube up to her mouth and whistling through it.  This piqued Angelo’s curiosity and he stood staring open-mouthed at the flute-playing merchant for hours, noting every breath and every finger tap.

When she finished, she lowered her flute with her right hand while she lifted her veil with the other, revealing a pair of rheumy white eyes with indistinct pupils.  She looked right at Angelo and beckoned him towards her. Equally transfixed by her unearthly gaze and the wooden flute she held, he approached her and she bade him to kneel.

She took the flute and kissed the mouth of it, giving it a playful blow.  A high sonorous tone emanated, accompanied by an ethereal light that permeated the entire instrument.  A whitish glow issued from every hole. She kissed it again and sucked the glow back inside herself.

She touched his right shoulder with the flute, touched his left shoulder with the flute, then pulled him to his feet.

She put the flute in his hand, pulled his head toward her and kissed him.  There was a bright flash and then Angelo found himself staring open-mouthed at passersby who counted him either a drunkard or a fool.

He looked at the piece of wood he held in his hand, examining its carved surface.  One of the king’s shepherds came to check on him and asked him where he had gotten it.  He pointed to the spot where the woman had been standing, but she was now gone, as if she had never been there at all.

“Come along then,” said the shepherd, “If you like music, we’re all going down to the plaza in front of the royal palace where the finest musicians from across the land are auditioning for the princess.”

Angelo followed the group to the aforementioned place where a line of a dozen or so people stood with a variety of different instruments in their hands, waiting for their chance to perform.  They held trumpets, guitars, cellos, clarinets, harps and mandolins. Some were clutching sheafs of sheet music.

Angelo stood near the front with the king’s shepherds and was deeply moved by each and every one of the performances.  Apart from the songs that birds sing and the flute player at the market, Angelo had never heard music played before. Some of the songs lifted his heart with joy while others brought tears of sweet sorrow to his eyes.

When the last performer had finished, he could hardly stand the silence.  He brought the wooden flute to his lips and he began to play.

The princess, once again disappointed that none of the musicians met the high standard that had been set by Fyodoro, prepared to return to the palace.  As her ladies-in-waiting led her away she suddenly stopped, frozen in her tracks by a sound that seemed to be coming from the crowd. She silenced her servants so that she could hear it clearly.

It was the most beautiful tune that she had ever heard, every bit as good as Fyodoro.  She sent two of her guards to part the crowd and bring her the musician responsible for this remarkable song.  When they presented her with the ragged young shepherd boy, she thought there must have been some kind of mistake.

“What is your name?” she demanded.  Angelo simply stared at her. He had never seen anyone so beautiful nor dressed in such finery.

“Are you deaf, boy?” shouted one of the guards while cuffing him on the back of the neck.  “Identify yourself to the princess.” Angelo finally managed to cough out his name in a hoarse whisper.

“Play for me,” the princess commanded in a firm, but sonorous, voice.

Angelo lifted the flute to his lips and began to play as the woman in the marketplace had shown him earlier.  He blended the birdsongs that he had learned and all of the other sounds that had filled his ears in the fields of home.  The wind, the babbling brook, the braying of the sheep. It was like he was there.

When he finished, sweat dripping from his brow, he thought he was in trouble.  Tears had washed meandering trails down the princess’s cheeks and her mouth was parted in an expression of rapture.  The guards were astonished. They had never seen the princess outside of her normally regal state of stoic composure.  They were moved as well. The song brought to mind their various homes in villages and hamlets across the kingdom where their forgotten childhoods lay.

The princess declared the contest over and Angelo joined her chamber orchestra as the star performer.  Every time the princess held a ball, people would come from far and wide to hear the new flute player. The audience was always happy, but Angelo became sad.  He didn’t like being indoors because even the beautifully painted ceilings of the palace paled in comparison to the star-studded night sky. He was very uncomfortable with the crowds of people who came to see him, preferring the company of sheep.

He got out his flute and began to play, pouring out his longing and loneliness into long luscious notes that hung in the air, then dropped slowly like tears of sound.  As the music touched them, the crowd was moved. They too felt a deep longing to move away from cold palace walls and back into the warm, loving arms of nature.

Angelo caught sight of the woman from the marketplace, but she was dressed in a gown of gossamer and eiderdown and she seemed to float above the parquet dance floor as she swayed back and forth to the music.  She started to move towards the great arched doorway and Angelo followed her.

Nobody remembered seeing her, but they all recalled Angelo leading the members of the orchestra and all of the revelers at the ball in a long line out of the palace and down to the moonlit fields three furlongs away.

The people danced in the field as if they were leaves blown by the wind of the music.  The stars rose above them and so did Angelo. He stepped upon the stars as if they were a staircase made of light and when the last note from his flute disappeared, so did he.