I hear the phone ringing. I pick it up. A Low Voice with characteristic, metallic luster offers me to take part in a solo piano recording in Holland as soon as possible. – I am really good at it – the Voice tries to convince me. I can’t manage to get the number for more than a week. I’ll call and give it to you tomorrow, I hear the invariable Voice. I follow the instructions.

A coach to Rotterdam. Crumpled and hesitant, I get off on a floodedsquare  in the afternoon sun where a man going white, with a somewhat demonic face is waiting for me. His narrow eyes look throughme. We get in the car. So far, I only know that we are recording in a chapel of a monastery. It looks it’s going to be interesting. After a short essential talk, silence falls. I calm down, as I get tired by superficial talks, and the silence soothes me. I like silent people, which is probably why I instantly took to Leszek Blach Siewerski.

We reach our destination. High, solid walls made of dark red brick. At the front a large font, in the middle of the chapel, in the place of the atelier – a shiny Steinway. I sit at the keyboard to strike the first chord – a fine, full tone sinking in the echo, which had been soakedby people’s prayers for hundreds of years, instantly raises my mood. I run my fingers on the keyboard – each key perfectly balanced, the keyboard even, not too deep, still rather heavy. I like them that way best.

I took some pencils and rubbers from Poland. I scatter them all on the strings curious if they sound the same as at home. They sound better. Seeing that there is something in the air, my new partner immediately suggests using rubber tuning wedges. That’s just it! Smiling, observing black unfamiliar rubbers jumping on the strings. I warm up quietly. Meanwhile, Leszek begins the ritual of searching the sound.

–  I have to arrange the microphones in such a way that the right one and the left one are karmic. Then a central spiritual channel is formed – he informs me in a convincing way, at the same time lugging a wooden table. He turns it to the side and covers it with a sheet. He props up the whole structure with a broomstick.

– I have to eliminate the reverberations – he says, his eyes glittering, and he comes back to the vestry, where a digital Nagra recorder registers the whole event impassively.

I have no idea what it is all about; the table or the channels. More and more stupefied with the situation, I come back to my rubbers and pencils. Still, I learn even more, that the cables are made of linear carbon structures, the plugs are rhodium – plates, because the gold – plated “roughen the sound”, and using a mixing desk is a mortal sin.
The sound goes straight to the tape. After an hour the sound is adjusted.

I have to take a walk. I go out. Dust, stone arches above, stained glass. I begin to be afraid of this place. Through the window I can see a farm, where a herd of goats graze carefree. At the end of a corridor two figures appear, the one on the left with twisted hands, stiff leg and drooling, the other with a deformed face, also not fully controlling his body, which shudders with each step with a terrifying shiver. I think I had better come back to the chapel with the microphones.

– Who are those creepy people walking round here? – I ask the physical – spiritual – karmic sound director.

– Oh… those are the patients. You see, it used to bea monastery, and now it is a centre for the mentally disabled. Everything is ready, we can start recording.