Why couldn’t I hear the music, hear it as music is meant to be heard? When the musician spoke to the audience, even though he was from another land and his English was stilted, he still came across as arrogant.
Musicians today are patted on the back when they open their engines full throttle and break sound barriers. Then they are awarded with huge record contracts. (That in itself is an achievement since the industry has dried up and produces only sound bites lasting 10 seconds and covering all composers from A to Z.) A musician is now the prizefighter who takes ’em down in four rounds and, with no blood on him, smiles to the camera. He is revered for at least 10 minutes.
Playing faster has the unintended result of making the result mostly meaningless; at the bottom of this kind of playing is a shallow goal. The audience doesn’t need a musical idea shoved down its throat by someone who plays passages at double the marking just because he can.
When in the presence of great musicians, we acknowledge that they know more than we. The joy is that we journey through the music together. But when musical knowledge is just pushed in your face at light speed to convince you of the virtuoso’s brilliance, the participation is gone.
I won’t go so far as to say that great performers are always great people, though they often do have a sense of greatness about them. But it is true that great performers miss the mark of Mother Theresa. Nonetheless, great music should do more for us than merely entertain—more for us than a card trick, or knockout punch, or a sexy smile.
I am often touched by the Gypsy violin playing in Romania, in Hungary; he who with one string sometimes imitates a howl of pain. There is no arrogance there. What is there is the artist being at one with that feeling. This is the profound beauty of music—the ability through sound waves to communicate—even if through guttural sounds depicting a tortured human in need of something, something necessary. The soul cries out to reach the heart, the center of his need. We humans do need.
I know what it can do to me. It can bring tears to my eyes, lift a black mood, or shed light on the vastness of our universe. I speak of many dimensions. I am not ashamed to feel nostalgic, nor am I ashamed to feel.
Recently I bought an old CD of violinist Georges Enesco playing short pieces. During the opening bars of his Handel D Major Sonata, I was awestruck. His message was the beauty of the sounds. I heard the music—the melding from one note to the next note, the vibrato living from one chord modulating to the next. Something happened to me: bumps on my arm, a tear in my eye, my feelings came alive.
Something else was in the air. The musical message was not trapped in a bunch of labels—it rode with the sound wave called music. When this happens, it is a great thing. We see and feel the evolution of music in a beautiful and natural way.
Arrogance was not in Enesco’s repertoire. Winning contests had nothing to do with it, nor record sales.
As for some of the recent concerts that I have attended, I’d like to issue a warning to some young, incredibly gifted musicians: Be careful about adopting these ways. Despite your technical ability, you are falling prey to buzz and hype. Find the pure way which rings true in your soul. Leave out the arrogance and the cheap tricks. Ignore what your friends say and the critics write. Tune in and listen to Kreisler, to Thibaud, to Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, and Elman. It is a difference you will know when you hear it, and then strive for something big.
Come on, you can do it. You already have the talent twice over.
Eric Shumsky is a concert violist. For more information, see www.shumskymusic.com.
