Great Performances

I could not sleep last night, for replaying the Bach in my mind. Tim Cuffman's performance of the Partita has changed the way in which I hear the piece and will probably improve my own playing of Bach. We musicians are a fellowship, and we must constantly learn from one another -- and more, I think, from those who play instruments different from ours.

Last night's recital put me in mind of other performances that have changed me. It is not a long list.

- a piano recital by Elaine Pao, a fellow student at the Choir College in the early 1980's. I do not now recall exactly what she played; Chopin, perhaps one of the Scherzos or Ballades. What I do remember is the exuberant joy of her playing.

- a series of performances by the Johnson City Symphony Orchestra in the later 1980's, directed in those days by Antonia Joy Wilson. She had the notion of taking this mostly-amateur community orchestra through the Beethoven Symphonies. I think that they made it through the first eight; the Ninth was beyond them, in part because of insufficient choral resources.

- a performance of the B Minor Mass by a choral society in Mobile, Alabama at an AGO regional convention, probably in the 1990's. I believe that John Gearhart was the director.

- later in the 1990's, a girls' choir from our city's sister community in Siberia visited through the good work of the local Rotary Club. They performed in our church, which had a good acoustic for them. I will never forget that night: these girls, none of whom had ever been out of Siberia and were more than a little intimidated by what they saw of the U.S., their clothes shabby (and probably the best that they had), not a scrap of printed music available to them -- I learned that they sang from mimeographs prepared by their conductor -- sang for almost two hours, all of it Znamenny Chant and folksong.

- more recently, Sam Stapleton and three graduate student colleagues performed the Quartet for the End of Time, our parish church lit by candlelight and their four music stand lights. I later heard a faculty quartet play the same work in the same room; it was excellent, but did not have the hair-raising electricity of Stapleton and his friends.

- about the same time, there was a D.M.A. piano recital that included an incandescent performance of the Liszt Sonata. The artist was an Asian woman whom I had not met and never saw again. I do not recall her name, but I will never forget her Liszt. Playing our dear old Steinway (years before its renovation, in the condition the rebuilder labelled "not suitable for serious work"), she made it sound like ten or twenty pianos, pouring forth a torrent of sound -- then whispering at the edge of audibility, as that piano did so well. Many who played the piano in those days did not understand how to draw Music from it; she did. The audience consisted of the following: a boyfriend (spouse?), her teacher and faculty committee, me.

- a few years ago, Carrie Beissler played the Franck Violin Sonata. She, like Tim Cuffman, was in the studio of Scott Conklin. Her playing left me speechless, in tears, and I will never approach the Franck organ music in quite the same way as before.

None of these people were famous, though Ms. Pao and Ms. Wilson have gone on to distinguished - though not "super-star" - careers. Elaine heads a music school in her native Malaysia and concertizes in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Antonia directs an orchestra on the West Coast and has a long list of accolades and awards for her work. Mr. Stapleton now directs his own chamber orchestra and is prospering. Ms. Beissler is, I think, still a graduate student somewhere.

For many of these musicians, especially the players from the JCSO and the singers in Mobile -- and perhaps the girls from Siberia -- there was a sense that they would never again have an opportunity to perform as they were that night (or in that series, with the Beethoven). They sang and played from the heart in a manner that jaded professionals rarely achieve. I recall, for example, the end of the Beethoven Third, the Eroica. As the horns (who, I gather, had struggled mightily) played the fanfares in the final bars - nailing it, flawlessly - there was a palpable sense from the orchestra that "WE MADE IT!!!!!" One would never hear this in the work of, say, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the players going through the motions as they play the Erioca for the umpteenth time.

And none of these musicians who have changed my life with their performances were Organists.
I have ideas as to why that is so, but I will leave it there for now.

I omit from this list all the music that I have experienced as part of the Sacred Liturgy. Such music differs in so many ways that comparison is impossible, and sacred music properly draws much of its strength from its role and placement in the Liturgy. I cannot list the scores, probably hundreds, of times that the hymn singing of our parish church, or Hymn Society conferences, has changed me every bit as much as the performances I have listed. Nor can I describe the choral music I have experienced as singer or conductor -- Choral Evensongs at the RSCM Courses and in our own parish church, some of the music from our Advent Lessons and Carols services, some of the occasions when our combined youth and adult choirs have sung together, the plain ordinary week-to-week Psalmody that we sing. Even last night, before Mr. Cuffman's recital, we had sung Choral Evensong. There were some rough edges, but there were moments that were transcendent -- parts of the Smith Responses, the Howells "St. John's" Magnificat -- sung by the nine singers that we had on hand. It was amazing.

Nor can I assess my own playing. I think that I have played well at times; I hope that it has had a positive effect on some of the listeners. I keep trying, and I continue to learn.