The Musical
October 27. I am feeling the music, the generosity, the friendliness, that was offered to us by a kind, thoughtful, dedicated, awesome, companion in this journey. A day of thinking about music, listening to music, and reflecting on the musical experience. I wasn't able to read the tickets and locate the seats, but the theatre staff were wonderful and kind. Once I was installed at my seat, I felt the theatre as it had felt for many, many years, since I was very little. I used to get tickets for the season from the administration office at the university's music school were I was a student for 14 years. I had classes every day and spend my childhood and youth in the classrooms, practice rooms, corridors, steps, at the fountain, on the benches, and every few weeks at performance of the symphonic orchestra with my mother.
The concert hall was a very elegant and sacred environment for me. I had learned about Bach and others who composed music for God. I had written a paper on Paganini. At the theatre, I was transported by the sounds of Yuguslav-born pianist Nadia's hands gliding through Rachmaninoff's ideas, Grieg's expressive images, Tchaikovsky's sorrows, Mozart's perfection, Beethoven's dreams. I admit, I fell asleep every night. My mother just let me be; just like my friend Shuxian let me be when she took me for my birthday to hear Itzhak Perlman in Shenzhen as a surprise gift; just like at this musical. I had a good view of the orchestra pit and I took a delightful trip down experiences lane to relive rehearsals of Verdi's and Mascagni's masterworks, and the days of performance when the audience sounded just like they sounded at the musical before the start. I preferred the rehearsals, because I felt that music was being summoned from the archives of blessings that our souls can access. Performance day with an audience was more like being in automatic. Rehearsal day was for small experiments in expression, small variations in bowing, and markings on the page, often led by the front row musicians. The musical was a gift, thank you Nicole. Thank you for your blessings, prayers, and company through my journey.
As I reflect on my feelings at the musical, I want to write today about a particular experience that I have archived as my second most embarrassing moment in my files. I was rushing to a theatre in a city nearby, after morning rehearsal and a day of engineering classes. The attire for the day included a new white tailcoat that I had forgotten at home. Perhaps it is important to emphasize at this time that it was new. My mother brought it to the theatre, I lovingly and quickly retrieved it from her, and run backstage. The jacket was new; it is important to remember this annoying fact. We normally wore a black tailcoat for performances, so this was a new garment. The programs included Beethoven's Egmont for overture, and Brahms's violin jewel in D. I was so much into this piece, in particular, the recording by Milstein. I had discussed it with one of my teachers, and I had to follow the written music to better appreciate what Johannes had created and Nathan interpreted. If there had been a t-shirt and a cap, I would have worn them. The first few notes of Egmont's set the tone for prayer, for dreaming, for an emotional parade. The introduction to Brahms's violin oratorio ceased after a dramatic statement, and then God speaks through a scale, chords, silence, and more scales. The sound is majestic. It is a blessing to humanity through divinity. After three movements, the applause of the audience interrupted the silence after the last D chord of the full ensemble. At this time, I would like to mention that I was sitting on the first row facing the audience; with the audience to my right; on the third or fourth row of musicians, this detail is a bit fuzzy. The intermission began. I walked off the stage still visiting the realm of divine sounds, dripping from my forehead, consciously slowing down my breathing. I got to the dressing room, place my instrument in her case to rest, cleaned it and the bow, dried my forehead, removed my white tailcoat and placed it on the back of the chair, and it was then when I first saw it. It was there, on my right forearm, on the outside of the coat's sleeve, happily hanging on to the coat by the buttons at the edge of the sleeve, and firmly secured with various threads, smiling at me mischievously. The coat's label, brand, cleaning instructions, material specifications! They were neatly inscribed in what looked like a gigantic label. It looked larger than the door of the dressing room at that moment. I probably turned multiple colours of read, purple and their friends, and shrunk to the size of the rosin in the compartment of her case. The world instantly froze. Time seemed to have stopped, until the evil bell rang announcing the time to return to our seats on the stage for the second part. I reluctantly put on the coat, apologetically picked up my instrument. I searched once more my attire for labels, warning signs, extra props, or anything else on me. I checked quickly, as I slowly walked to my seat, fearing eye contact with the first few rows of audience, while pretending to be myopic, so that I can ignore the rest of the audience, because I thought that they were engaged a competition to see who had the funniest short of me. I fear that someone might still remember and wished that YouTube, Instagram and the like were available at the time, to make sure that they increase their views in the ever challenging world of funny and embarrassing postings that we now see everyday. I relived this moment as the ushers appeared at the musical reminding people to put away they evil little boxes with cameras, and I temporarily felt relived that if my second most embarrassing moment had happened today, most likely ushers would have been my allies, until, that is, someone snuck a little photo because it was just too funny and the content contributor had more than half an hour to plan how to best capture the moment of a musician playing with the price tag in the coat's sleeve to as many people as possible online. There were probably more than 50 musicians on stage and while normally, I would prefer to be as anonymous as possible, I was probably not. Back at the musical, I was in this conflicting trance of emotions when the musical director Mr. Higgins raised his baton, and I automatically held my breath to prepare for the first note.
Nicole, thank you. Your gift enriched my life. Blessings to you and yours.
