I will join others in congratulating you on the way in which you portray intimacy believably and easily. It’s one of the ways you open your readers to your characters. It’s a great gift you share with us.
It is hard, so very, very hard to read all the way through these. Yet I’m grateful to you, @Mikiesboy, for organizing this memorial. I’m reminded not only to remember and mourn, but also to stand with my brothers and sisters: to get up and do, not just be. Thank you.
The second movement truly made me think of a stage scene; this sounded so much like a dance, or characters circling each other and singing. But you’re right about the fourth, which exposes a side of Verdi we don’t always hear.
An excellent review of a powerful story. @Mikiesboy wrote a must-read tale of hope without fluff or sweet sap. You’ll find yourself reading it over and again.
I've been lucky enough to be backstage for a local music festival. Here's a piece played recently: Verdi's String Quartet in e minor. Apparently, he dashed it off while waiting to stage Aida.
Nate has utterly fallen for Tad, and admits it. He’s crumbling under the weight of Tad’s illness, and Chris is the only man to share it. It seems like dominoes, one holding up another. Will they all fall line that, too? And then there’s something to consider in Kent and Stanley. There must be plenty more to come...
Wow. So now we know how the Order operated, and the sources of their power and enmity. They have been through so much, yet there’s more to come, isn’t there? And there are more of the Order waiting for them... great chapter.