Craquelure.

All his life he had been where he had to be, he had attended and been punctual and beaten out the precise note at the precise moment at the precise pitch. The whole glorious edifice of the Messiah was crumbling behind him, cracking and leaning forward and falling like a building in a bomb raid. His two drums silent amidst the consternation. Silent on stage under their head protectors and leatherette covers, like two pools. His drums silent. Silent the tympani. Silent even where they sounded out in the solo, singing deeply in his mind's ear as he kept on walking through the hammering of his real heart, his membrane of ordinary flesh. Silent the tympani. Silent.

At last they would know him. At last they would know who he really was, in the roar of their consternation.

[ Adam Thorpe: "The Concert Interval." Is This the Way You Said? ]