house concert

When he arrived, just before noon, the house – on a quiet corner of a 55+ community – was quiet. The caregiver had gone out to run errands and check on another client. Several long minutes after his knocking, tentative steps to the front door could be heard. “Is that my son?” exclaimed pop. The son entered, gave pop a big hug, and looked across the living room at his mom. She was in her customary spot of these past several months. The large easy chair – now the new lift back variety – nearly swallowed her now tiny frame, making her look like a child. So weak. Mentally sharp at times – though well below her fearsomely acute senses of her prime – but often fading in and out of conversations. Always wondering where the dog had gone to. The dog was usually behind her chair, or behind pop’s. He said “Last time I was here, in May, I promised you a little concert, so I brought my instrument with me”. “That’s nice,” said mom. “It’s going to be a work of Bach – his first cello Suite, but for viola” he replied. He got out the instrument, tuned it, and began to play. As he did, he caught glimpses of the expressions on his parents’ faces. Mom, rapt, with a childlike expression. Pop, with his eyes closed, his foot moving not at all in time to the music. The interpretation suited the occasion. He’d been working on playing the suites in slower, more contemplative tempos. Little vibrato, but becoming more expressive with the left hand as the phrases rose to their high points. Not a lot of rubato. The G major Suite is one of the happiest of the six – functioning sort of as an overall Prelude to the huge meta-Suite of all six, if one subscribes to that view. Even the Sarabande is happy, if perhaps just a bit wistful in character. He felt happy, being able to share this with them – they hadn’t been to hear him play since his first years in the orchestra, fading vision and the three hour drive being major deterrents – if it weren’t for their support, he may never have made it to the point where he could even decide that he wanted to try to make a living in music. It felt like giving back a little – a minuscule amount, really – compared to what they had given him. The Menuetts – I and II – so beautifully and artfully given over to their, respectively, major and minor modes, in spite of their melodic similarities (pure genius, this!) go by, and he decided to honor the full repeats (unlike the previous movements, sensing that mom’s attention might wander). Finally, the Gigue – not too fast, he decided, the tempo has to ride the line between jaunty and ländler, to hit the sweet spot. This was a suite played for two lives lived long – for 65 years of marriage, and a combined 173 years on the planet – and on he played, to its conclusion. The last G sounded, open and resonant. “That was nice” mom said. “Thank you for the concert” pop said. “You’re welcome” the son said, “and I love you”.