One's first performance in a new town can be a little stressful, especially if it's a new town in which you plan to live for a while! The main reason for the stress is that you know that many people will base their understanding of you, your musicianship, and your abilities on what they perceive on that occasion. In addition, you never know who will be at such a performance or what they know or believe about piano playing. Often, some real connoisseurs show up, so you want to be at your pianistic best. As an insightful friend suggested to me, it can feel a little more like an exhibition than a concert. You want to give the audience a good sense of the range of things you can do well. Further exacerbating the situation is the fact that your competitiveness can kick into overdrive which can result in a distorted reading of the music and get you off-message. And that brings me to my point.
For me, the mature approach to these issues is to stay focused on the message of the music. The message has enough weight to replace the smaller personal concerns and competitiveness. Perhaps some of the really meaningful energy of performing comes from the confrontation and struggle between the message and the self on-stage.
What do I mean by "message?" I'm referring to what the music might be able to say to me as a human being and what its value is to my spirit. A good way to start to articulate what such messages might be would be to say what pieces of music might be about without using technical musical language. Imagine you're an audience member who is not a musician. What might you get from a given work?
At my first performance in Lakeland last week, I played Chopin's C-sharp Minor Nocturne Op. 27 No. 1 and a transcription of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata with flute.
From its very first measure, the Chopin is filled with a lot of uncertainty - and that might cause you to feel a little uncertain as you play it. As unsettling as that is, it might be okay and even appropriate. Preparing for last Monday's performance, I felt that the message of this nocturne is about the experiences of struggle and effort, the ups and downs of life, and the fact that the sympathetic God is with us through it all. I think it is a very affirming and honest work, moving between uncertainty and moments of hope, with great victories followed directly by defeats that seem beyond our control, ultimately concluded by a sunrise.
The Schubert is a lengthy work with many wonderful tunes but perhaps not the most compelling overall shape. As I tried to understand its drama and trajectory, I remembered that Schubert was a school teacher. For some reason, a lot of his music for instruments makes me think not of the dramatic moods of the poems he sets as songs but of more peaceful scenes at home. Picturing him in his classroom expands those feelings for me. I can hear both lovely and dreary moments of classroom life in the Arpeggione.
I imagine Schubert was a great story teller and probably told some stories that captivated the imaginations of his students - maybe stories about pirates. At any rate, they are lively stories, charming and colorful, but not actual events. I think that might express the tone of the piece, as well. There's a little more narrative mixed into this sonata than the title "sonata" would lead us to believe.
In the end, I think a big part of the spiritual message of most any work of chamber must be the enactment and celebration of cooperation.
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