(no subject)
As the lights came into focus and began concentrating on the stage, they seemed to push out a blanket of darkness over the audience, muffling their chatter. The orchestra halted their brainless warming up and adjusted to the concertmaster while the audience adjusted in their seats. After an awkward pause of anticipation, the conductor rushed out on stage, taking cautious narrow steps, and began addressing the audience with a few words of welcome and introduction. The orchestra waited nervously, some of them staring blankly into space, some of them franticly trying to stretch. Before any of them were quite prepared, the conductor turned from the audience and stepped onto the podium. He commenced to give the beat, waving his wand acutely within a tiny box six inches away from his chest, and verbalized it with a threatening, scarcely audible voice. He paused, and then his face lit up-beads of sweat on his forehead-with a confident smile. His powerful figure, mounted upon the podium and suddenly faceless, stiffened; his arms assumed a half-raised position. The orchestra sat upright, assuming their own positions in one swift motion. The hot stage lights beaming down on them, they had beads of sweat on their own foreheads and their glistening fingers became slippery. They could smell the dry heat they all sat beneath, yet at the same time there was the faintest stench of sweat, camouflaged by ladies’ perfume. Their backs were already aching as they felt for the pulse within themselves which had just been murmured to them a moment before. For a brief instant they became intensely aware of the audience beyond the stage. The conductor delivered his two preparatory beats, each one creating a greater tenseness throughout the auditorium. Then he and the orchestra took a simultaneous deep breath, to which his arms exploded with the beats of the first measure.