He cocked his head. "I understand," he murmured, turning to the keys. He scanned the sheet music before playing, his movements precise and skillful as he shut his eyes a moment, imagining the sound in front of him.
She sat next to him on the stool, reading the music with a furrowed brow. Her head was cocked slightly, but she eventually settled it on his shoulder, listening to him play.
He sighed slightly, but it didn't deter his playing. The slow and easy movements were easy to do, but expressing the emotion was harder.
At the bottom of the page, in the same, small cursive, it read in large letters, "Turn page here." Poppy flipped the page for him when he got there with a practiced hand, as if she had done it thousands of times before.
He glanced at her for a moment, but luckily didn't slip up. He murmured quick thanks before going silent again.
He continued to play until the song came to an end, where he played the last few keys before stopping.
Poppy was really quiet, her eyes looking at the score thoughtfully. "Do you know anything about this piece?" she asked eventually, turning her head on his shoulder to look up at him.
"Supposedly it's the last thing that Bach ever wrote," she said. "That's why it ends so abruptly. He wrote it on his deathbed." She paused, cocking her head before continuing. "Bach was also really, really religious. In each of his pieces, he included a phrase. 'Soli Deo Gloria' or 'to the glory of God alone.' He was incredibly humble his whole life; he believed that every bit of talent he had was given to him by God and had nothing to do with his own genius." She smiled slightly, reaching out to trace a small phrase on the paper. "But in this last one, he included his own name. See? B-A-C-H. Some historians say that this piece was a moment where Bach realized that he was a genius. He gave himself the credit that had been due his whole life. He realized just how good he was."
