To be moved

Last night we played a recital at a friend and mentor's home.  We've played there before, a beautiful apartment on Central Park West, with a view of the park and a large piano.  It's very gracious of her to open her home to us and allow us to invite whoever we want.  She and her husband supply wine and desserts and cheeses.  It's always a lovely relaxed evening and great way to share music that we've been working on.

The program made no sense.  We called it, unofficially, "Pieces We Play,"  because there was really nothing else holding all the works together, no theme or planning to it.  The order was difficult to decided, but in the end we decided to open with Andrew's solo Beethoven sonata, followed by two songs composed by our host to Robert Frost poems, my Britten solo suite, and closing (after more wine and desserts) with Brahms's second sonata for cello and piano.

I love both of the pieces that I got to play on this program.  Hearing the Britten when I was in early high school was one of those moments that brought me closer to loving music and marveling at the incredible expression the cello is capable of divulging.  It is such a challenging piece, though, part of its allure.  I've flirted with it for years, and even performed, but never without the music.  In the past, performing from memory has been a huge challenge and point of anxiety so that I came to the point of simply not doing it.  And the Britten is an incredibly complicated piece.  The Brahms is rich, touching, heartbreaking, ethereal, swashbuckling, and similarly elusive in its own particular challenges.

And both were such a pleasure to perform.  It's fun to play with Andrew, and not just in the sense of playing our instruments but in the childlike sense of playing with the music as we perform it.  It's fun to discover with him and hear the things that he hears.  And somehow I've learned to play the Britten for memory; it is inside of me and very reliably so, to a point of little anxiety.  This performance was the beginning of trusting that, and knowing that I can be as sharing with an audience in this vulnerable state was when I have a protective stand in front of me.

For me, this was in part, also a growing opportunity, one that I undergo for the sake of my students.  If I am to ask them to go outside there comfort zones, then I must do so as well.  I need to constantly refresh the details of the technique and mindset required to play complicated pieces of music, so that I am honest in my teaching.

And I had two students there.  It was an adult-oriented evening with wine and going late into the night, but in addition to my one older student, one of my younger one's came with her father.  She is only 8, I believe, but stayed alert for the whole program and talked with other adults during the break.  Afterwards her father came to me, and told me how wonderful it was for her to see and hear this.  He said she thought that she was moved by parts of the concert.  I replied in a stock "I'm glad she was able to enjoy it,"  and he answered in his Polish accent, "Enjoyed is not the thing, she was moved, and I think this is the really important thing for her young mind."

So much of life is taking care of things.  Having money for things, getting to things, etc.  And for parents, making sure their kids eat well, stressing about school and grades and test scores.  I'm sure the list is much longer than I can conjure.  To have a parent put this in my mind, that the value for him for his child is that she is moved, that she learns to be moved, was perhaps the most touching part of the evening.  What greater reason is there for us to be doing this in the face of all the brashness of modern living?  That we maintain our inherent love and sensitivity, and that we give this to our children.

No Sitting....

In the elevator, on my final ascent home this evening, Charlie's owner was trying to get him to sit.  "Sit, Charlie, come sweetie, sit."  But Charlie didn't sit, not at all.  "I think there's something wrong with his hips, he's not old, only three and a half, but I think his hips are bothering him.  Hey Charlie, can you sit?"  But still, Charlie wouldn't sit.

"Can you put your bow on the D string?  Please put your bow on the string.....ok and now can you put your bow on the string please, to get ready to start....thank you."

I wonder if my students have bad hips sometimes, or more likely something else.  Why do any of us do or not do the things we are asked, whether by others or ourselves?  There must be some reason, and even though we can use words to explain so many things, it does not mean that it is within our comprehension to grasp, let alone explain what is really going on.  And there's a lot going.

That being said,  I'm always so impressed when students are right with me.  It can be a really pleasure.