A Performer

My father was a man of varied interests. He could talk fluently for hours on novels of Tolstoy and Turgnev, music of Smetana and Janacek, art of Kaminski and Kokoschka, politics of Churchill and Gandhi and the origin of species in Bible or by Darwin. But he had only one ambition for me, his only son. He wanted me to perform on the stage of Royal Festival Hall in London. He chose the instrument carefully, by letting me play piano, violin and cello at the tender age of five with masters of these instruments. The decision was unanimous. My talents were suited for piano. I spent next fifteen years practicing five hours a day, every day including birthdays and Christmas. I won competitions, scholarships, medals in the Conservatory of Music and raised hopes of a great music career not only in my father’s breast but in many of my teachers.

It was thirty years ago when I left home for the first time for the final step in my training under a German master in Berlin who had been the leading performer since long before I was born. It cost a pretty penny, I suspect prettier than my father could afford, but any sacrifice was worth it for me to reach the level required to perform on the stages of the great hall on the banks of Thames. There were twenty students from all over Europe and America under the master’s wings. I never found out whether it was by coincidence or design, there were ten men and ten women in the group and it was not long before twenty singles became ten couples. Partners rotated during our term of two years but no one went single for long or found a partner outside of the group. Who else would want to spend days with someone who can only do one thing – play piano and talk one subject – intricacies of music they were practicing?

The time passed very quickly. Our families traveled to Berlin for the last piece of our training - a series of concerts that lasted a whole week. Each student played a sonata, one chamber piece with instrumentalists from a renowned chamber ensemble and a concerto with a local orchestra. It was a tribute to the master’s reputation that the performances were sold out months in advance except for a few celebrity tickets saved for dignitaries who dropped by at the last minute. We could never decipher our relative levels from the master’s demeanour. Rather than earn the wrath of parents impoverished by his charges, he chose a committee of professional performers and academic musicians to do this important job for him. The committee graded the performers and these grades determined whether a graduating student will perform in the leading halls of Europe or teach beginners in his/her home town.

The budding performers were under great stress. They had sacrificed the childhood, adolescence and the youth for the anticipated glory of a Rubenstein or a Horowitz. One lapse of memory, one untimely twitch of finger, one miscue from the conductor, in fact one slightest mishap of any kind whether a performer’s fault or not, could be enough for a prospective Van Cliburn to turn into a Mr. Nobody in a Junior High. Of course no one expected it would happen to them, some competitive souls did pray it would happen to others. Oddly, many of these prayers were answered; that is what an overload of stress does to you.

Before my performance I followed the routine prescribed by the masters; a light meal with a small glass of red wine followed by the rest for half an hour when I tried to get my mind away from music to something of little importance – global warming for example. Half an hour before the performance, I gave a quick look over to the heavily annotated score, reminding myself of the pitfalls I must avoid. The last act in preparation was a five minute soak of hands in a basin of near boiling water to loosen the finger joints. The hands were so hot they did not need drying. I was ready for a sign from the stage manager to walk to the stage looking confident but actually a bundle of nerves.

I walked to the centre of the stage, bowed to the audience, sat on the piano stool, adjusted its position and height and held both hands above the keys for an extended moment for dramatic effect. The stress was excruciating and my hands were shaking but not enough for any one except those in a few front rows to notice. I was to play Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, D958. The stress went away just as the hands dropped on the keys and I must have held the attention of the listeners because there was hardly any coughing. My biggest feeling as I played the last notes was suspense about the response of the audience. Much to my relief the applause at the end was enthusiastic. I bowed gratefully a couple of times and walked slowly off the stage. The cheering became louder and the stage manager suggested another bow. “How about an encore,” I asked. “Not allowed,” He said. I went back to the stage with a heavy heart. To paraphrase Lerner and Lowe I could have played encores all night.

The performances with the chamber ensemble and the orchestra were similar except that I shook hands with the conductor or the leader of the chamber ensemble, both mumbled words of encouragement. The presence of other performers on stage also reduced the stress somewhat although the periods when I was not playing were a little awkward. The audience responded with enthusiasm again and the conductor and I returned twice for the bows.

I attended some of the performances of other students. The audience was just as enthusiastic as it was for my performances. Although not complimentary to the critical faculty of concert crowds, this reaction did have one positive: the judges were not influenced by the audience reaction.

The results were not publicly announced but mailed to the homes of the students. You can imagine the suspense; it almost killed my father. He had mortgaged his home to the hilt, sold the car and borrowed against his life insurance to pay for my training with the German prodigy. At last the envelope arrived a week after we had been back. It was appropriately addressed to my father. He opened the envelope, read the short letter, looked with infinite grief at me and never talked to me, or any one else, again.

I never touched a piano after that day. As for the Royal Festival Hall I have never been inside. But I perform in the building everyday. How do I manage that? No, not as a panhandling musician, I do not need to stoop that low. I am the pastry chef in the dining room. I perform with the best ingredients available for a distinguished audience. Lords and Ladies of the realm wish they could lick the plate after tasting my mango lemon sauce on their sherbet. Some do sneak a lick via a piece of bread. The maitre’d is disgusted but I am flattered. I do wish my father were alive to see them. I score a major triumph when this happens. I have never heard of any one kissing the program after a great performance of a piano concerto. Have you?