Project Stella (my contribution to Stella’s Secret Sonata Music Folio 2)

Stella’s Secret Sonata Music Folio 2

Here is the premise for the story: In his will, composer Dudley Donegal O’Day left his entire library (including originals of his finished and unfinished orchestral works) to the University of Vermont. While cataloguing O’Day’s collection in January 2022, University of Vermont volunteer music historian Mirabella Reid discovered, stuffed inside many pages of ‘The Life of Mendelssohn’ by Peter Mercer-Taylor, an unpublished and previously unaccounted for sonata. On folded yellowing paper, the undated work is titled ‘Violin Sonata’ and is dedicated ‘To Stella’. Research has revealed no links or mentions of the work as it was being composed (or later), or to Stella, though the work contains many of the composer’s musical signatures. There is no question as to its authorship: the sonata is definitely Dudley Donegal O’Day’s own work. There are three movements to O’Day’s sonata: Allegro, Adagietto, and Molto Allegro. No one knows who Stella is … so, who was (or is) Stella? So the question is … are the accounts of 38 writers detailing just who Stella is, telling the truth?

Art and science are sometimes said to be two sides of the same coin. Both need curiosity, creativity and hard work to flourish.

Both Dudley Donegal O’Day and Jose Crick, lifelong friends, understood this better than most. Although it is rare that artists create something that could wipe out the entire population, but more on that in a moment.

Dudley was the artist, a composer, and Jose was a molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. The former dedicated himself to moving people through music, the latter hoped to find the cure for cancer. One spent his days in concert halls, the other in laboratories.

And every now and then the two of them would meet a local pub to compare notes. Each inspiring the other.

Jose Crick believed that the cure for cancer lurked somewhere in the DNA of sharks. Sharks do not get cancer. People do. More and more of them every day. 300 million years ago a primitive fish named Acanthodes bronni was the common ancestor of all jawed vertebrates on Earth, including humans. To this day Great white sharks share approximately 65 percent of our mitochondrial DNA. So why do we get cancer and sharks don’t?

It was a question that tormented Jose night and day.

And fascinated Dudley. He would sit and listen to his friend explain his various techniques to cracking this mystery, the aspirations and angst behind each, and he would hear a symphony. He felt his blood coursing through his veins in a way that can only be defined as allegro.

After a prolonged period of not seeing his friend Jose, Dudley finally sat down with him only to find him looking tired and gaunt. “We had a breakthrough” explained Jose, “We were able to give sharks cancer.”

This was not the breakthrough that he had intended. In fact, due to some careless mistakes, these sharks almost escaped back into the ocean. If that would have happened they could have passed on their modified DNA and potentially decimated shark populations around the globe.

Jose was discouraged and it was only when Dudley began talking about his latest composition, and the time and effort it required, that the color began to return to Jose’s face. He realized that to create anything wonderful there would be setbacks. After hours of conversation and strong drinks he returned to his lab reenergized.

Some months later the two men met again at their familiar watering hole. This time Jose looked even worse.

“Did the sharks escape?” asked his old friend, half kidding.

“If only that were the case” said Jose. It was a few minutes before he could bring himself to continue. Eventually he offered up the following; “We created shark-people.”

“Shark-people?” Dudley asked.

Apparently the first human trials did not go well. The volunteers, all of which had various terminal cancer diagnoses, ended up attacking and eating the doctors and nursing staff. Details of which would turn flash fiction into fiction, so I’ll let you imagine the gory details.

“To make matters worse, due to some carelessness on our part, some of the shark-people almost escaped. It would have been some real apocalyptic shit, let me tell you” Dudley continued.

The drinking continued.

Until near closing time an inebriated Jose suddenly burst out with “I just wanted to cure cancer for fuck’s sake.”

The way he said it reminded Dudley of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, wailing away for Stella. The scene played uninvited in his head; “Eunice! I’ll keep on ringin’ until I talk with my baby! Stellahhhhh! I want my baby down here. Stella, Stella!”

Prestissimo in a ritardando world. Beethoven’s Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Op 27, No. 2 ‘Moonlight’ slowly dissolving into the theme from Jaws. What soars and what lurks in the depths.

“Don’t worry mate” consoled Dudley, “I’ve written some pretty bad stuff myself.” He wanted to comfort his old friend… without actually encouraging him to continue. Perhaps in this case three movements were more than enough.

Passion is greater than existence,

the meaning of life is of more worth than life itself.

— Stefan Zweig