Meeting my Outer Critic

Well, I said I’d do it, and so I did. And yes, I wish it had been easier, but let’s be real. I hadn’t played in public for five years at least, and like María João Pires, I’ve never been that comfortable on stage. Some people love it—remember Pavarotti? But it’s never been easy for me.

And there’s also the thing about being alone on the stage—if you’ve got even one other person, you have support. But alone? That’s a lot of eyes on you. Two of which, as well, were Ilia’s, my mother-in-law, who had come with her daughter Nydia. So that was a bit of pressure.

But let’s be honest: I have choked every time I played an audition, and the fear of doing it again was and is almost as bad as doing it. And so would I fall flat on my face?

Nor am I talking about a performance that I wasn’t particularly happy with—I’m talking about playing as badly as I did a year after I first took up the instrument. The bow was shaking on the strings, the fingerboard was awash in sweat, the tone was feeble and tight—do I have to go on? When the disembodied voice of—presumably—the conductor finally said “gracias,” is was an act of charity, for me as much as anyone else.

‘I can’t do this,’ I thought, and strongly considered just putting the cello in the case and going away. I know, think mechanistically: there’s no way I could be a graphic artist, much as I’d like to. And so if I can’t play in public, it’s fine. Some things you can do, others not. Nothing personal—nor is it a moral failure, as somehow I had gotten it into my head it was.

It seemed easier—all right, less embarrassing—just to keep playing. And then, it started, very slowly, to get better. I relaxed; rather, I got into focus. Which meant that I could stop with all the voices in my head which were saying, “you can’t do this are you messing up why can’t you get a decent tone this is nothing like the way you sounded you can do better,” and finally just look at the musician making music.

And then that guy came in.

I had met him before—Félix, who had studied classical guitar at the New England Conservatory of Music. Right, after Juilliard, it’s probably the best school of music in the country. And I had met him before, when he had interrupted my practicing with the question: “why aren’t you playing with the music?”

He had also insisted on talking about himself, about the Bach that he plays, about…

Who knows? I tuned him out, finding him mildly irritating.

And so he appeared, just as the music was beginning to sound good, and where did he sit? Of course, three feet to my right, and the criticism began. Didn’t I know that the courante should be faster? And what about the articulation….

OK—this was as café, not a concert hall, and thus more informal. Still I was in the middle of a Bach suite, and I wasn’t in the mood to be interrupted. The guy wouldn’t stop talking, so what did I do? Right—I just started playing.

And he kept talking.

That’s when I got pissed. And that, of course was the best thing that could have happened.

‘I no longer talk to myself that way,’ I remember thinking, ‘and I don’t like anyone else talking to me that way….’

And then, at the end, came the final criticism: “when are you going to play at tempo? Is the gigue going to be so slow too?”

I played the first bars as slowly as I could. And the rest of the piece? Whirlwind!

“Are you satisfied,” asked Nydia.

The guy said nothing.

“Well, that’s his answer,” said I.

Of course he wasn’t satisfied—the critics never are. But I was happy: I had moved my critic from inside to outside, I had met him and given him the musical bird. Raf had joined us, we had counted the money to be donated to charity, Ilia and Nydia went up the hill. Raf and I went down the hill, home to the cats dozing on the rugs, home to dinner that would get put on the table. I had met my critic…

…and left him behind.

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