Thursday, June 20, 2019

The Protege - Part 11

Aunt: are you free tonight at 7:30?
Me: yes
Aunt: I’m trying to get a ticket for you for yuja’s concert tonight
Me: cool. If there’s an extra ticket, I can write about HKC's student for my next chapter.

5 minutes later....
Aunt: meet me at the restaurant trattoria dell’arte across the street from Carnegie hall. Be sure to dress up. We’ll get you backstage
Me: I’ll see you


the hall was packed. i sat in upper balcony left in anticipation. my aunt and uncle were sitting on the stage behind the piano. before the concert began, the lights went dim. then an unexpected voice came over the speaker system. "This is Yuja. for tonight's performance we will not be following the program. I believe that every program is a living organism, so it should be in sync with how I’m feeling in that moment, so it is truly alive. I want the music to surprise me and to surprise the audience. this concert is for all the senses. keep an open mind. enjoy the ride."  
in setting up previous recital setlists, Yuja revealed, "It’s actually quite excruciating because you’re kind of like a director—for a movie, an opera, whatever—and you want to tell a story. You want to bring people on a journey. At the same time, there’s a balance between what actually interests me and what would be interesting for the audience. And there’s also a balance between quality and curiosity." switching the playlist right before the concert reminded me of the story when Renoir and Matisse once got together to paint a bouquet of flowers. Renoir was 40 years Matisse’s senior. Matisse arranged the flowers and started to paint. Renoir said “You’re doing it all wrong”. Matisse replied” What’s wrong” “whenever I arrange a bouquet, I set it down on the table and right before I’m about to paint it, I turn the vase ½ way around. That way my view is not biased by my act of arrangement. The painter and object have no connection, he just paints an unfamiliar object and can paint with startling reality without prejudging his subject."
like the rest of the audience, i surrendered to yuja’s musical voyage. I didn’t know what to expect. In news articles, critics often commented on her attire “She looked like a dominatrix... She had come to tame the beast of a piece, this half-naked woman in sadistic high heels.” from the upper reaches of the balcony 137 steps up from the entry foyer, yuja appeared to be the size of a postage stamp. i could tell she was wearing a white gown for the first half and then a green gown for the second half, but that's it. luckily, the acoustics in the hall make audio far more legible than visual. in his efforts to optimize acoustic performance, carnegie hall’s architect and amateur cellist, william burnett tuthill, surveyed european concert halls famous for their acoustics and consulted louis sullivan's firm. with his findings, he eliminated the usual heavy curtains, frescoed walls, and chandeliers that could impair good sound distribution. the interior is smooth and elliptical in shape, with a frontal arch and domed ceiling specifically designed to project soft and loud tones to the balcony where i was sitting.
whether intentional or not, the first half of the concert was an interesting transect in classical music slicing through space and time. yuja circled geographically from Italy-> Russia-> France -> Spain -> Russia -> Germany while fast forwarding chronologically from 1706 to 1987 before rewinding back to 1685: 1. GALUPPI Andante from Keyboard Sonata in C Major 2. SCRIABIN Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53 3. RAVEL "Une barque sur l'océan" from Miroirs 4. MOMPOU "Secreto" from Impresiones intimas 5. SCRIABIN Piano Sonata No. 4, Op. 30 6. BACH Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911. delving deeper into the composers' lives, i found their real life journeys connected them in time and space. galuppi was invited from venice to russia by catherine the great for 3 years. scriabin went from russia to paris. ravel composed his miroirs in paris. mompou left barcelona for paris to study under faure and the impressionists. and scriabin left paris and traveled extensively through bach's homeland, germany, before returning to russia.
yuja introduced me to pieces i never heard of with interpretations that were so fresh and exciting i wanted to hear these pieces again. i hate when people try to write about classical music in some flowery manner. so i'll limit my recount of her first 6 songs with 6 observations:
1. she played galuppi's simple melody very delicately and lightly thereby forcing the audience to pay attention... her white dress pairing nicely with the music.
2. any sense of tranquility ended abruptly with scriabin's thunderous entry in sonata 5         which sounded volatile and moody like his poem which he appended to his score: "I call you to life, O mysterious forces! Drowned in the obscure depths Of the creative spirit, timid, Shadows of life, to you I bring audacity"
3. yuja then painted ravel's soundscape of a boat floating and gently rocking on ocean waves with effortless sweeping arpeggios  
4. in secreto, which was composed by mompou who described himself as “a man of few words and composer of few notes… music is written for the inexpressible, it should seem to come out of the shadow in order to move back in to the shadow" yuja offered a zen-like minimalist poem treasuring silence as much as sound
5. scriabin's no. 4 sonata provided the fireworks and spirit for the finale again encapsulated by a poem he penned on the score, "In a light mist, transparent  vapor  Lost afar and yet distinct A star gleams softly. How beautiful! The bluish mystery Of her glow Beckons me, cradles me. O bring me to thee, far distant star!
6. bach's tocata was played with a possessed rhythmic drive, as if played by scriabin in a modern manner.  just as precedents influence and inspire new music, new music influences how we view and interpret precedents.

after a series of encores, i descended from my perch and went to meet my aunt and uncle. my aunt had placed my name on the backstage access list. in the back of carnegie hall are steps. you give your name to a guy holding a list. once confirmed, you take stairs down to an elevator that gives access to dressing rooms above. exiting the elevator you see posters of beatles concert 2/12/1964 and photographs of gershwin lining the halls. since its opening in 1891 with tchaikovsky conducting his own pieces in his first and only trip to america, the hall has been host to classical music performances by greats such as horowitz, heifetz, and bernstein. today's celebrity in a sparkly green dress stood before me surrounded by dozens of people vying for pictures. yuja wang. 
while i waited with my aunt to have our picture taken with yuja, i asked my aunt some very basic questions. "wait, how did you meet her again?" "she came to calgary for a music festival when she was 12, and then stayed with us 3 years during summers and easter breaks." "how can you tell if a kid is talented at that age?" "we knew when we first heard her" "how can you play piano and express a range of emotions when you don't have life experiences at 12 years old?" "she had an 'old soul'. she's so smart. i showed her book by feynman about physics and told her to ask me questions. she wrote down questions and asked me. she's very bright!"
when i was finally introduced, i was taken aback by yuja's cackling laughter and uncontrolled energy. in my mind i think of classical music players as stuffy conservative people, yuja was anything but. she was flamboyant and restless... which in retrospect was fitting for a pianist who has the power to breathe fresh life into songs. she must have to deal with annoying questions over and over. ‘Are you single?’ ‘How do you memorize your pieces?’ ‘How do you pedal with your high heels?’ ‘Who do you buy your dresses from?’ ‘Why do you wear short dresses?’ ‘Why do you wear long dresses?’ ‘Why do you have short hair?’ ‘Do you like travelling?’ ‘Why don’t you play more Prokofiev?’ and so on.... i didn't ask anything. as a guy with absolutely little knowledge of classical music, i followed mark twain's advice all night long, "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
sitting in her dressing room were gary graffman, my aunt and uncle, and another piano teacher from curtis. i probably looked like a quite an odd fool. my aunt and i were making busy by scavenging left over fruit and vegetable platters and chocolate bars. "you played the bach tocatta faster than anyone in the universe" my aunt complimented while chomping on a carrot stick. "i just thought to play it that way cause there was a broken string," yuja replied. i remember she walked to the back of the piano after intermission, but didn't know she was pushing  piano string back into position. "why did you have your hand up during the intro?" my aunt asked. i thought yuja was showboating by playing the whole intro with her left hand and raising her right theatrically. yuja replied, "it's the beginning of the theme and someone is snoring! i put my hand up and thought... please don't let me mess up."
while yuja was talking to others, my aunt reminisced about yuja's time in calgary... i could tell she was like a daughter to my aunt. "she loved when HKC was away. she would sleep in my bed cause she was scared of the dark. and now she's a fearless pianist, can you believe that?" later it was fun to see the two giggling like girls and lighting up forbidden cigarettes and laughing as we walked down 57th street.
"when i  changed from a white dress to a green glittering dress someone told me you look like a peacock." yuja joked. she then changed out of her green gown into tight fitting black dress. heading out of the concert hall on our way to eat, we pass a dozen people who had waited an hour in the cold for autographs and a chance to catch a brief glimpse of yuja on her way out.
at trattoria dell arte, graffman sat next to his prized student and ordered twin margaritas with salt for the two. she ordered a filet minon rare while he ordered a vegetable plate. she is 33 entering the prime of her career selling out carnegie hall, and he is 90 looking so happy for her success. i am a fly on the wall, meeting people at the top of their fields. an architect amongst a group of some of the finest pianists in the world. it becomes clear to me, cultivating piano talent depends on mentorship, guidance, and personal relationships: insights and wisdom passed from one generation to another. tracing pianist lineages the next day, i would find yuja studied under graffman who studied with isabelle vengerova who studied with thedor leschetizky who studed with carl czerny who was one of beethoven's pupils. from these lineages come interesting branching connections. in an interview, graffman recounted, “Horowitz was a friend of Vengerova. In those days many orchestras had broadcasts of their concerts. He had heard me on the radio and said he’d be delighted to hear me play. So she gave me his phone number.” “What was that experience like?” “It worked out that I played for him about once a week for a year, and then about once a month for three or four years after that. But although I only saw him once a week, or later, once a month, I was supposed to call him every day at 6:05 PM. He didn’t want to miss the five minute news broadcast at 6 on WQXR. I now realize that Horowitz influenced the way I still teach today. He would sometimes tell me when he thought I was on the wrong track. But mostly, he would criticize me on the basis of what he thought I was aiming for, but not completely achieving; how I could make it better, but MY WAY, not his. He didn’t want to be copied. He would ask me, for example, with the second theme of the Chopin G Minor Ballade, ‘If you were a singer, where would you breathe?’ Or ‘Where would a stringed instrument change bows?"
the talk at the table centered around competitions. graffman talked of competitions and how excellent pianists like lang lang and yuja didn't need them. they were better off partnering with conductors to procure gigs. preparations for competitions often stunt the growth of pianists as they must focus on mastering singular pieces rather than broadening their repertoire and trying new approaches. my aunt replied she was going with my uncle to the rubinstein competition in israel in may. graffman talked of scheduled trips to far flung places like the 'top of the world' competition in tromso norway. he accepted that competition because he wanted to see the arctic circle. next year, he hopes to judge a competition in malta.
after we drop off graffman at his apartment across from carnegie hall, we head to yuja's apartment down the street on the 53rd floor. there's an open suitcase on the floor with 2 pianos filling half the living room. an impromptu cardboard box serves as a trash. hundreds of pairs of shoes completely fill a hallway closet. open her refrigerator you see a  dozen wine bottles of which someone broke out a cabernet sauvignon to toast.
what do musicians talk about after concerts? they talk about their students playing in competitions. conductor, E. tells a funny story about how he once forgot to put his ipad on airplane mode and received a facetime call during a performance. they talk about how people in the audience fart or squeak their chairs at the most inopportune times. E. tell how he's conducting janacek in front of an older audience, and "during a particularly dramatic junction in the music, an old man in the back asks "does anyone have a bandaid?" everyone puts their heads down and says to themselves 'don't laugh.'" yuja interjects "for the previous three scriabin 5 performances, someone has made a farting sound after the dramatic introductory rumble." the group laughs. they talk about how people make piano faces to engage the audience. they talk about how yuja made little accents in her renditions of scriabin, and how they were nice touches to the music. yuja brings up things nobody does.
my aunt, still fixated on the bach tocata said "the tocatta was amazingly fast. super super fast" to which yuja replied "really? i told myself to keep the tempo down, and play softer so i could build it up." conductor E. sitting at the edge of the couch interjected a "i noticed a 2 bar thing in the middle of the piece where you did go faster." my aunt continued to heap the praise "your bach was infused by god. you should play bach at every concert." this group knew these pieces like the back of their hand. later over the weekend, I search up bach to see if he wrote anything about writing his tocatta. nothing. but there was a story from arond the time of the writing. apparently bach was dissatisfied with the standard of singers in his choir. He called one of them a "Zippel Fagottist" (weenie bassoon player). Late one evening this student, named Geyersbach, went after Bach with a stick. Bach filed a complaint against Geyersbach with the authorities. They acquitted Geyersbach with a minor reprimand and ordered Bach to be more moderate regarding the musical qualities he expected from his students. these composers probably have a ton of quirky stories. then i wondered whether faggots are called bassoon players in german slang. no. the german word for faggot is schwuchtel. 
at 2 am, with a little more wine, the conversation devolves around music critics and how they are the worst lot who don't understand anything about music. everyone in the group talks of reviled critics who i've never heard of. i get lost in their inside conversations. "lebrecht... mark swed... damn slipped disc.... can't get their facts straight... orange dress. doesn't even comment on my rach 3.. tells anyone under 18 shouldn't attend this concert...."
the next day, i look up these idiots to get a sense of their writing.
In 2011, Mark Swed, the music critic of the L.A. Times, referring to the short and tight orange dress Yuja wore when she played Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl, wrote that “had there been any less of it, the Bowl might have been forced to restrict admission to any music lover under 18 not accompanied by an adult.”
i think it's not easy being a celebrity pianist. it's obvious yuja is devoted to her craft. to get to her level, she probably sacrifices so much and practices around the clock... and it's depressing people become fixated over peripheral non-musical issues like her clothing selections. in other yuja news, i read a week earlier,  during a sold-out show in vancouver, wang wore sunglasses. she did not oblige an encore, leaving some in the audience to wonder what had happened to make the pianist uncharacteristically angry.
On her instagram account, which reads "Musician living life with curiosity & passion" her most recent post deals with the controversial sunglass show. "On arrival at Vancouver International Airport on Friday, I was detained for over an hour and subjected to intense questioning which I found humiliating and deeply upsetting. I was then released, giving me very little time to travel to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. I was left extremely shaken by this experience.When I was dropped off at the venue for my recital that evening, my eyes were still visibly red and swollen from crying. I was in shock. Although I was traumatized by what happened, I was determined not to cancel the recital, but to go ahead with the performance and not to let the audience down, which included my dear teacher Gary Graffman. I decided that wearing sunglasses was the only way to prevent my distress from being seen, since I wasn’t yet prepared to make a statement about what happened." she had joked the night before the violent rumble of her scriabin 5 was her mowing down the order security guards...
i experience the dark side of classical music trolling first hand when i start looking into ravel's piece that she played. there's an interesting gouache entitled A boat on the ocean, which belonged to Maurice Ravel,  which shows a three-masted sailboat in a seascape. in the bottom right hand corner is his wave form arpeggios notated. ravel composed a a boat on the ocean in 1905, the same year as debussy debuted la mer. these Mirrors "form a collection of pieces for piano which mark in my harmonic evolution a change considerable enough to have taken aback the musicians most accustomed until then in my way", writes Ravel in 1928 in his biographical sketch. it was dedicated to the painter paul sordes.

i wanted to hear Ravel's piece again while looking at the gouache, so i searched renditions of it by yuja online. Eusebius et Florestan some nerd with 80 subscribers posted a illegal bootleg video of it under "Florestan" and "Eusebius," the esoteric fantasy names that Schumann gave to different sides of his own personality. Florestan was Schumann's bold and impetuous side; Eusebius, the introspective and dreamy side of the composer's imagination.
Eusebius et Florestan makes a deep poetic description under his video: "A boat on the ocean... you can really feel the caress (sometimes the squall) of the wind. The interpretation is of a scrupulous precision (respecting in particular the dynamic nuances of the score). Yet it has all the flexibility and smoothness of an improvisation."
a viewer Danny B. replies: "Incredible!"  
to which Mario DiSarli retorts: "Magic???   Fantastic??? Let's talk about Yuja Wang. I'm sure Yuja will look great in her bikini dress! While the orchestra plays, the audience would be particularly happy."

i take offense to how he denigrates yuja's craft and provides links to her sexy walk and create an account to counter Mario Disarli's stupid comment under fake name. when you're anonymous the purest most intellectual thoughts are transmitted online. i wrote: "you fat walrus. what kind of person makes a fake account? a person with no life?" i was anticipating a spirited online conversation with Mario DiSarli, but within 30 minutes, my foray into classic music trolling was flagged inappropriate and removed by Eusebius and Florestan. what a snob. i concluded the classical music critic world is full of douchebags and fuckers just like me.



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