In Concert
Last Friday evening I attended a concert at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, where I live, and as I occasionally am wont to do. It was an old favorite, a Romantic paen, the ultimate Classical performance piece: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. The guest conductor was a young Spaniard, Pablo Heras-Casado, and the performer was an Englishman, multi-award winner, named Stephen Hough. It was a perfect performance, and as always, powerful experience. But I am not a music critic, per se, other than at my own personal level. But I come from a musical family, have grown up with and lived with music all of my life, been a musician of sorts myself, and music remains my first love.
As an author, I am best gifted, for better or worse, at composing with words. Words are a wonderful tool and thing, however often disparaged by the linguistically challenged (George W. Bush and Sarah Palin come to mind),and the English language is the compendium of all languages. But the spoken language still cannot stand up to music as a form of expression, which has no equal. My proof for this assertion to any who might doubt it? In an audience of several thousand persons, in a city consisting of possibly two hundred nationalities and a hundred language speakers, and listeners composing possibly the entire socio-economic and political spectrum (granted hip hop gang bangers were under-represented), the one thing everyone had in common in the room, perhaps apart from breathing the same air, wearing some form of clothing and being homo sapiens, was that they loved this music (well, excepting a couple of dozing kids). Like thousands of previous such audiences worldwide, culture wide, and irrespective of language have done for the past one hundred and thirty five years, and will continue to do, if the human race survives, for hundreds or thousands of years to come, we listend, rapt, as one, and understood every note. Music at this level is that great a communication medium. And it's that universal, at least for our planet.
But there was something else going on as well. I was reminded, in the program notes, of an historic incident that took place prior to the premiere of this concerto, back in 1875. Tchaikovsky, like most artists in history other than maybe Picasso and Dali, being insecure and lacking in confidence in his work, turned to an 'expert' in the field for an opinion, prior to submission for publication. Tchaikovsky was already well known for prior works, but still insecure, mind you. So he turned to the pre-eminent pianist in Russia at the time, scion of a renowned musical family that remains prominent to this day, Nikolai Rubenstein. Rubenstein must have been in a really, really bad mood that day. Who knows, or will ever know what chemical or cultural substance had ticked him off, but after the first few notes, as performed by the composer, he lit into poor Piotr with a string of invective that would have made a Bolshevik's ears burn, until the poor composer fled in tears, literally (granted he was gay, and thus already hyper-sensitive, I suppose, to such artistic criticism). In any case, luckly for the rest of humanity, Piotr had the recuperative strength and resourcefulness, and remaining confidence, I must add, to turn elsewhere for affirmation, and found it, in German pianist (founder of another perhaps less beneficial dynasty) named Hans von Bulow. Von Bulow was thrilled to be offered the chance to premiere the piece, which took place in Boston, history should note, to instant world acclaim, and of course, the rest is history.
But justice, being my preferred topic as a mystery writer, is sometimes attained in unexpected ways. People can be unfairly judged, and denounced, and dismissed, for a host of reasons, almost always unjust. Rubenstein recovered, in time, for his outburst, made amends with Tchaikovsky, and became this concerto's principle supporter and player for the rest of his life. And this is more than a small thing, in the way of penance. We can only hope for this kind of justice in our own works, and lives, and situations, ourselves, because even this apology-founded form of restitution happens all too rarely in our world.
As an author, I am best gifted, for better or worse, at composing with words. Words are a wonderful tool and thing, however often disparaged by the linguistically challenged (George W. Bush and Sarah Palin come to mind),and the English language is the compendium of all languages. But the spoken language still cannot stand up to music as a form of expression, which has no equal. My proof for this assertion to any who might doubt it? In an audience of several thousand persons, in a city consisting of possibly two hundred nationalities and a hundred language speakers, and listeners composing possibly the entire socio-economic and political spectrum (granted hip hop gang bangers were under-represented), the one thing everyone had in common in the room, perhaps apart from breathing the same air, wearing some form of clothing and being homo sapiens, was that they loved this music (well, excepting a couple of dozing kids). Like thousands of previous such audiences worldwide, culture wide, and irrespective of language have done for the past one hundred and thirty five years, and will continue to do, if the human race survives, for hundreds or thousands of years to come, we listend, rapt, as one, and understood every note. Music at this level is that great a communication medium. And it's that universal, at least for our planet.
But there was something else going on as well. I was reminded, in the program notes, of an historic incident that took place prior to the premiere of this concerto, back in 1875. Tchaikovsky, like most artists in history other than maybe Picasso and Dali, being insecure and lacking in confidence in his work, turned to an 'expert' in the field for an opinion, prior to submission for publication. Tchaikovsky was already well known for prior works, but still insecure, mind you. So he turned to the pre-eminent pianist in Russia at the time, scion of a renowned musical family that remains prominent to this day, Nikolai Rubenstein. Rubenstein must have been in a really, really bad mood that day. Who knows, or will ever know what chemical or cultural substance had ticked him off, but after the first few notes, as performed by the composer, he lit into poor Piotr with a string of invective that would have made a Bolshevik's ears burn, until the poor composer fled in tears, literally (granted he was gay, and thus already hyper-sensitive, I suppose, to such artistic criticism). In any case, luckly for the rest of humanity, Piotr had the recuperative strength and resourcefulness, and remaining confidence, I must add, to turn elsewhere for affirmation, and found it, in German pianist (founder of another perhaps less beneficial dynasty) named Hans von Bulow. Von Bulow was thrilled to be offered the chance to premiere the piece, which took place in Boston, history should note, to instant world acclaim, and of course, the rest is history.
But justice, being my preferred topic as a mystery writer, is sometimes attained in unexpected ways. People can be unfairly judged, and denounced, and dismissed, for a host of reasons, almost always unjust. Rubenstein recovered, in time, for his outburst, made amends with Tchaikovsky, and became this concerto's principle supporter and player for the rest of his life. And this is more than a small thing, in the way of penance. We can only hope for this kind of justice in our own works, and lives, and situations, ourselves, because even this apology-founded form of restitution happens all too rarely in our world.
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