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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