cherry

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Yesterday I went to another recital. There is a wonderful lady in the building I am living in. She's in her 70s and was a ballet dancer at the radio city music hall in NY about 50 years ago or so. The radio city music hall is where The Rockettes are based. She once told us that "The Rockettes were famous, but the ballet was infamous." Apparently ballet was quite rare at the time in NY.

I like her because she likes me and all the "weird" things about me that many elderly people hate such as my dyed hair, my piercings and my tattoos. All rather visual and surface oriented, but it still means a lot to me. Over the summer she wore some rather unusual sun glasses and was apparently told by her peers and friends that they were far too young for her. I told her to keep on rocking them.

She's quite involved with the music arts scene here in Vancouver and so likes to offer us free tickets to all kinds of fun things we normally wouldn't be able to afford. This is the reason yesterday I was sitting in the second row of a piano recital by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. I was, in fact, so close I could hear him breathing.

The show was just phenomenal. He began with a recital of a group of works by Olivier Messiaen. These pieces were fairly emotional and were composed during a time of grieving for his mother. This set us up for the second half of the recital in which he performed some Bach which is powerfully charged in itself. But then it was followed by Beethoven and firstly one of his Sonatas.

Let me just say this, undoubtedly Beethoven is my favourite composer. His music speaks loudly to me and I find it wide open to the troubles and issues he tried to convey. I was, therefore, extremely excited about this recital. What I didn't expect was the raw, powerful and charged emotion that Aimard propelled into the pieces through his performance. It physically brought me to tears and caused my heart to pound so hard that I was afraid it'd be ruining the ambience for the stranger next to me.

I have never been moved by a musician's performance as I was yesterday. Not in all my years of going to see my favourite rock and folk musicians play had I experienced anything like I did yesterday afternoon. Sure, I've been moved to tears before but this is usually due to my over-familiarity with the music and the artists performing combined. I knew nothing of Aimard before yesterday and while Beethoven is my favourite composer I could only name one piece that I recognise instantly.

As I'm sure you can tell by now it was an enlightening experience for me. Aimard brought it home and made it all the more personal by introducing the work he was going to perform and explaining the ideas and the brief history behind the pieces. I think this is because first and foremost he seems to be a teacher of music; someone who yearns to share every aspect of the art with the audience and not merely a vessel to deliver the sounds of dead composers. (There is virtue in both, of course).

Apparently I was one of the first in the front rows to stand during the applause at the end of the recital and if you know me at all you would know that normally my painful self awareness would stop me from doing such a thing. However, I desperately wanted this man to know how much he had moved me. He was also humble and while taking his bows tried to look as many people in the eye as possible, going so far as returning my smile to me when he took me by surprise and looked directly into me.

This is not some ravings of a fanatical wannabe, either. It is not like I was at a huge rock concert and I am exclaiming how the rather attractive lead singer "looked at me!! He looked at ME!" I am simply trying to illustrate his humble humanity.

For the encore he performed some Gyrgy Ligeti and his performance was once again strong, powerful and downright physical. As he climbed and ended a high crescendo at the end of a piece he pounded the keys so hard that a cloud of dust from the strings exploded from the open grand piano. The dust moved and formed in such a way that it looked like smoke and that the piano was on fire. Instantly in reaction the audience ahhhhed in awe. It reminded me so vividly of how I think of old illusionist shows and how the audience must have reacted to those in the tiny back-street theatres.

Today, I return to my quiet, withdrawn and tired self as last night I again managed very little sleep. The memory of yesterday will stay fierce for a long time.