Meaning Coming from the Listener

Yesterday I had the rare privilege of playing Schubert's B-flat Piano Sonata, his last work for the instrument, for a small audience of former students, one visiting from Stockholm, another a friend for over fifty years who had participated in my singing group for over half of that time.  I had decided not to treat the event as a performance but rather as a conversation between friends.

In the course of the first movement I heard loud and clear that Schubert was pronouncing the B-flat scale for the last time in his life.  It was as if he was pronouncing it through me.