Recitals

 A few months ago, there was a young man here, a cellist student, who performed for the residents at Saint John's. He had studied abroad, Spain I think. Some of his family and friends were in the audience. Saint John's often gives young musicians an opportunity to perform in front of an audience, a great use of our auditorium space.   

Our cellist began with a very difficult piece and, unfortunately, lost his way towards the end and abruptly stopped. He could have pretended he'd reached the end with a fake flurry. Instead of being embarrassed, he laughed and said, "Well, I knew that might happen and I'm glad I got my most difficult piece out of the way first. Now I can relax." Impressive.

I can offer the flip side of that. When I was a little girl, I started taking piano lessons when I was about ten years old, something I had been begging my mother to allow me to do for nearly a year. She was reluctant to give me lessons because my older sister had quit after a few months and she expected me to do the same so why start? It took a long time for me to wear her down. I took the public bus, every Saturday morning, to the teacher's home. In 1953, a ten year old could safely take a the public bus everywhere. At least that's my memory of those years.

Once a year, my teacher gave a recital for all of her students in a school auditorium. In retrospect, I think it was her chance to show off what a capable teacher she was rather than an opportunity for the students to shine. Parents and grandparents filled the place. Beforehand, I was excited to perform. My piece was Flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky Korsakov which I had been practicing for a relatively short time.  I wore my party dress with a velvet panel my mother inserted to lengthen it when it had become too short as I grew taller. I'd practiced every day for weeks, but the piece is a flurry of notes that go on forever. And we were to perform without music sheets. Repetition, an octave change, repetition. Maddening. Of course I lost my place two minutes in. So I started again. Lost my place. Started again. It was the most painful experience of my childhood up to that point.

I finally got to the end, or perhaps I simply ended it in the middle and ran off the stage in tears. I never saw the teacher again. When my daughter Sarah decided she wanted to take piano lessons, I thought perhaps I could try again. And I did, but it took nearly forty years for me to recover my distress enough to sit down at the piano and practice. Alone. 

I admire that young cellist's sense of self, his talent, his self confidence. I expect we will see him on a more public stage one day soon, celebrated as he was at Saint John's.

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