Where Were the Angels?
I went to a concert last night, the first of the season. A violnist and pianist, world-renowned, thought not among the first rank, were playing mostly 20th century music, including the Ravel Sonata and Enescu Third Sonata. I went to hear the latter, a favorite piece, deeply spiritually moving.
The audience was small, maybe eighty people. As we waited for the program to begin, I noticed an odd atmosphere in the performance hall. It felt empty of something. I couldn't put my finger on it. Strangely, I kept wondering whether the performers were even there. Could they have been held up in traffic?
They did eventually come out and play. The Ravel was first on the program. No shape, no line, no intelligence, no beauty. Only show. technical perfection. Quite the opposite of an Anne-Sophie Mutter live performance I heard some years ago that was enchanting, full of wit and grace.
The last movement is a perpetual motion machine. Impressive, of course. Lots of applause when it was over.
But during the performance I kept checking on the psychic vibe of the audience. They could have been auto crash dummies, all facing the stage with blank expressions. No one was moved.
I dodged out just after the performers turned to exit the stage between numbers. Clearly, there was nothing here for me.
Now, the question. I've been reading about devas, angelic beings who guide the process of bringing anything into form, including music. Presumably, there would be a deva of the concert hall, a deva of the Ravel, perhaps also devas of the piano and violin, all participating to create a live performance of this piece.
But the hall felt cold and empty, despite the people in the audience. The only thing I could figure was that the devas didn't show up. Something about the attitude of the performers scared them off.
When I hear the Borromeo Quartet play in the same hall, there's a very different atmosphere: warm, congenial, engaging--even when they play challenging music like Schoenberg. The audience is uplifted and melts into a unified presence. I guess the music devas show up for such performances. The lines, shape, intelligence of the music always comes through clearly.
I had no preconceptions about the performance I attended last night. I went to hear the Enescu, which I've never heard live. Only later did I realize that I once owned an unsatisfactory recording of Bartok by the same violinist. But the atmosphere in the hall told me there would be nothing in the performance for me about 15 minutes before it began. I don't have another way to explain it than that the music angels stayed away.
What scared them off? And what can performers do to invite them in?
The audience was small, maybe eighty people. As we waited for the program to begin, I noticed an odd atmosphere in the performance hall. It felt empty of something. I couldn't put my finger on it. Strangely, I kept wondering whether the performers were even there. Could they have been held up in traffic?
They did eventually come out and play. The Ravel was first on the program. No shape, no line, no intelligence, no beauty. Only show. technical perfection. Quite the opposite of an Anne-Sophie Mutter live performance I heard some years ago that was enchanting, full of wit and grace.
The last movement is a perpetual motion machine. Impressive, of course. Lots of applause when it was over.
But during the performance I kept checking on the psychic vibe of the audience. They could have been auto crash dummies, all facing the stage with blank expressions. No one was moved.
I dodged out just after the performers turned to exit the stage between numbers. Clearly, there was nothing here for me.
Now, the question. I've been reading about devas, angelic beings who guide the process of bringing anything into form, including music. Presumably, there would be a deva of the concert hall, a deva of the Ravel, perhaps also devas of the piano and violin, all participating to create a live performance of this piece.
But the hall felt cold and empty, despite the people in the audience. The only thing I could figure was that the devas didn't show up. Something about the attitude of the performers scared them off.
When I hear the Borromeo Quartet play in the same hall, there's a very different atmosphere: warm, congenial, engaging--even when they play challenging music like Schoenberg. The audience is uplifted and melts into a unified presence. I guess the music devas show up for such performances. The lines, shape, intelligence of the music always comes through clearly.
I had no preconceptions about the performance I attended last night. I went to hear the Enescu, which I've never heard live. Only later did I realize that I once owned an unsatisfactory recording of Bartok by the same violinist. But the atmosphere in the hall told me there would be nothing in the performance for me about 15 minutes before it began. I don't have another way to explain it than that the music angels stayed away.
What scared them off? And what can performers do to invite them in?
