Monday, September 29, 2014

relationship with perfection - on Mozart

When I was a kid, I was slightly a troubled one. The only thing I ever enjoyed then was going to the rehearsals of this string orchestra I belonged to. They met on Saturdays too. Our conductor, Mr. Yamazaki, was an ex-principal cellist of one of the many major professional orchestras in Tokyo, and was then the owner of a string instrument shop that traded and repaired instruments. He was tough and mean. At every rehearsal, someone got sent home because he/she wasn't prepared enough. Rehearsals were more like military drills. We would have "competitions of shame" where each person had to stand up and perform the most difficult part of the piece in front of everybody else, alone. Each taking turns. In retrospect, all of this goes against every grain in my body, but at the time, I loved it. I loved every second of it. It was the only thing that offered me something meaningful. It offered me a personal goal, and also a common goal among my comrades and friends. It offered me a role, where in school I had none. In school, teachers chose to ignore my talents and intelligence. They didn't seem interested, and I was only confused by that. Being half white in the early 90's in Japan was hard enough, and to have (what seemed to me then) my only redeeming qualities ignored was crushing. So I found my solace in what some would describe as "hell". But since nothing else in my life offered any real meaningful challenge, and if they did, they would have ignored me entirely anyway, I welcomed and accepted the super rigorous rehearsals as something you just have to go through to attain something that is more profound than numbers on your report cards. That was real, and it was only natural to me.

The three and a half years I belonged there, I was not sent home once, and was always given the principal position, a leader. Even though I was one of the youngest and had no social skills what so ever. But I belonged there. It made me feel that way anyway. I was not ignored.

We would get good enough to perform in front of Mr. Shinichi Suzuki himself (the creator of the now internationally acknowledged pedagogue system in music education, "Suzuki Method") at his hometown of Matsumoto, Japan. And we would perform difficult pieces such as Resphigi's "Ancient Airs and Dances", a rarely performed gem of a piece called "Idyll" by a Czech composer Janacek, the entire Four Seasons by Vivaldi with our own kids performing the solo parts, and others.

It was one of those days while we were getting pretty comfortable performing those pieces, a new piece was handed to us, and Mr. Yamazaki made an announcement at the beginning of a rehearsal. I looked at his face, and I was shocked. He actually seemed content! He says to us, "you are finally ready. I had been saving this piece until you were ready, and now you are". I looked at the part that was handed to me. All I saw at first was just a bunch of repeated eighth notes, and I remember thinking, I could have played this when I was three years old, in my sleep... It was Mozart Divertimento no. 1 in D major, the same piece we are working on in chamber. At the time, I didn't quite understand the depth of the music, and how deeply profound it is underneath the seemingly simple and casual melody, standard form, and semi-predictable progression. I thought he was joking.

But as soon as we started rehearsing it, I quickly realized how difficult it was to sound remotely close to "good" in this piece, and I could not figure out why.

It was too pure. Too innocent, too happy. It was divine. Could a work of genius be performed by a bunch of ordinary school kids? Suddenly those repeated eighth notes seemed unplayable. I think most of us simply took it as just another piece to learn, and to me that was exactly why it was so difficult. It couldn't be played like the other pieces. Maybe in reality, it was not a better piece or anything, but it sure was "different". The other pieces were slightly more "tainted" (in my own way to describe them) and were closer to home. This piece was less humane, less natural, more divine, more super-natural.

To be honest, at the time, Mozart was not one of my favorite composers at all. His music seemed too happy, and was so far from the reality I lived in, and was hard for me to relate to. It was only later when I was already close to an adult that I started to think, well, music is sometimes NOT about the reality but more about the ideal, or just about being in the moment. While this music is going on, nothing else matters. It is there for us to enjoy what is not, and to experience what we cannot otherwise. It is there for us to enjoy actual perfection, which is not accessible anywhere else. It is only possible in Mozart's music, and nowhere else on earth. Music often times is used as an "escape". It was often so among some of the greatest composers throughout history, and for some of the greatest performers as well, and perhaps it is true for many of the listeners too, if not most.

At any case, I was more than happy and proud to be working on that piece, even though the cello part wasn't as difficult, exciting, or even noticeable for that matter. But it was definitely a challenge, in the highest form. An honor, to even have a relationship with perfection.

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