I can’t sleep. It’s not unusual that I have trouble sleeping the night I play a concert. When I lay down the music starts playing over and I think about how things went. But tonight was special, because people listened. They really, really listened.
Our local record store has a new space big enough for small concerts (I didn’t realize until tonight we were actually the first). It’s an amazing shop, everything you could want is there including a quiet listening room that just has classical CDs and vinyl with good headphones to try things out. Gene, the owner, is an absolute enclyopedia of repertoire and recordings. We always have amazing chats about whatever music we’ve been into. He is someone who believes in the power of listening closely, which is why he wanted to start hosting concerts for classical musicians.
My friend Seth is an incredibly fine cellist. Really he’s one of the best musicians I’ve ever played with. This was our second concert cycle together and we’ve gotten to know each other’s playing. What we in music call having “ensemble” - a sense of togetherness. Someone had the idea for this program to play a complete Bach suite that has both a cello and lute version (me playing a guitar arrangement of Bach’s lute arrangement) by trading movements. Kind of unorthodox, but it really worked! Even for someone who loves Bach as much as I do, 25 minutes of music in the same key for a solo instrument can tire the ears out. The changes of instrument worked beautifully and was really successful.
Part way through the first movement of Bach I played, it happened. It’s happened before, but it doesn’t happen every concert. I could feel the energy of everyone in the room listening to the same sound and entering the music with me. When that happens, it’s almost as if you become a spectator too, hearing the music through the ears of everyone else. A 300-year-old piece of music I’ve played for almost twenty years was brand new, as vivid and alive as the day Bach wrote it down. Like a Bob Dylan song says: “every one one of them [notes] rang true and glowed like burning coal, pouring off of every page like it was written on my soul from me to you.”
It is a sacred moment.
I practice and prepare for these things, but I’ve played enough to know that you can’t make this moment happen alone. Everyone has to join you with their full attention. It’s a gift every time.