Tonight was one of those nights where I was intimately reconnected with why I became a performer in the first place. It’s about people. The person the composer, who in their genius rendered their innermost thoughts into sublime music. The person the performer, who studied for years to be able to recreate and interpret that sublime music. And the person the listener, without whom there would be no point to the other two – without the energy of a rapt audience, an indifferent audience, or even a hostile audience, there would be no reason to perform, other than a selfish one.
I got to hear some of my dearest friends perform music by Mozart, Palaschko, and a world premiere by Dell Wade, at the first evening of faculty performances at the Max Aronoff Viola Institute. All performed with feeling and fluency. After intermission came the great Brahms Clarinet Trio, with viola instead of clarinet. My wife, Heather, played the cello, and our dear friend and wonderful pianist Sandra Bleiweiss rounded out the trio. It was, quite simply, and remarkable experience, perhaps one of my most amazing performance experiences ever. Our rehearsals had been somewhat rocky affairs – none of us was particularly happy with how we were playing our parts. But we didn’t agonize over it, we just covered what we needed to and moved on to other things (like drinking wine overlooking Puget Sound). Our dress rehearsal Sunday morning was quite simply awful. Nothing felt right, the hall seemed alien and strange to us, and we ended on a dejected note. But the performance was something special. Everything clicked – the viola and the cello married their sounds together, we played well in-tune. Sandra felt our nuances of phrasing as if she were a long-lost triplet – it was uncanny! And Brahms, he gave us some of his most jealously guarded secrets that evening. His “Ich liebe dich” statements in the slow movement. The calm, autumnal, haunting stillness of the endings of the first three movements.
And the energy of the audience was something truly special. They hung on every note, not disturbing the intervals between movements, and feed us every step of the way. And gave us a wonderful ovation at the end of the performance.
It was a night that every performer hopes for, but rarely gets to experience.