Forgettable
You: Jean-Frederic Neuburger in Boston
I was offered a pair of
tickets to the Boston Symphony last week. If the tickets were not a gift,
I wouldn't have bought them. On the program was the Schumann Piano
Concerto, which I have heard countless times and am intensely in love with.
I heard it played live countless times, and on recordings probably twice
as much.
Enough is enough, I
thought.
And I was right.
M. Neuburger is a talented
musician, without a doubt. But if I were Clara Schumann and he came to
play this work for me, I would have said, "Very nice, young man; come back
again when you are older."
I wonder if M. Neuburger
has ever been in love. Passionately. Breathlessly.
Rhapsodically. And I doubt it.
A true artist knows how to
translate emotions into his or her artwork. In this concerto, love has to
spread its wings and soar on the wind. It has to surge and break like
waves. It has to dream.
At this concert, it did
nothing of the sort.
Oh, the notes were there
all right. But they went nowhere. It was a bloodless, dispassionate
performance.
Learn to live, M.
Neuburger. Retire from making music for a period of time, listen to the
masters (try Dinu Lipatti's recording of this concerto, for one; and there are
plenty others). Most importantly, find yourself a person to love so
completely that you desperately want to blend together with that person. If you
are lucky, then you will understand, and then you might be able to return to
Madame Schumann and remind her of the kind of love Robert had for her.
Otherwise, don't bother.
Your playing will be forgotten and all that work and talent will disappear like
so much chaff in the wind.
January 31, 2017
