Schubirdt

It was another Lunch Hour Concert. Pliny was there with her mum. The Benaud Trio were going to play Schubert's Piano Trio No 2 in E flat major. Pliny doesn't know if she knows it.

I like Schubert, she had confidently said to her mum, while they were eating lunch.

Pliny likes Schubert because she likes Death and the Maiden, The Miller's Beautiful Daughter, A Winter Journey, and the Trout Quintet. And because she knows something of the tragic life of Schubert, who died of syphilis quite young. So that except for the Trout Quintet, which is funny, she thinks all Schubert's other music is quite passionate and sad.

So she is sitting in the seventh row in the Elder Hall, expecting to hear something passionate and sad.

She wonders idly whether Schubert would have composed the same music had he not had syphilis, and known that he was soon to die young.

She wonders if that is a legitimate question. She thinks that it probably is. Only humans can ask 'what if ' questions, she thinks. Animals and birds can't.

The music, which has begun, is tinkly like birds. What questions do birds ask, she asks herself. She listens to the music a little, and thinks of birdy questions.

Is this an enemy? Shall I peck out its eyes?

Yes, these are birdy questions, but not complex conditional questions like,

If this man has syphilis, should I peck out his eyes?

At this stage Pliny realises that the music is not passionate and sad at all, but quite triumphal..