Schubert afternoon

The Arts & Cultural Council of Rochester sponsors the Gateway Music Festival, encouraging and developing classical music featuring African-American musicians from all over the United States in solo recitals, chamber music concerts, and symphonic endeavors. This afternoon, Roberts Wesleyan hosted a chamber concert at the Cultural Life Center - a performance of Shubertian musics presented by Paul Badura-Skoda at the piano for the first half, and joined by various African-American string players for the second.

Pity the concert hall was barely half filled. On a rainy Sunday afternoon, this concert, which was free to all comers, was a treat. Badura-Skoda, an Austrian pianist (whose list of conductors for whom he has played reads like a Who's Who of famous musicians), may be 80, but his proficiency still far surpasses what Rochesterians are accustomed to.

He began the program with several little Schubert waltzes, delightful light fare, the last of which was particularly charming. Smiling, nodding to the audience, his fingers tripped over the keys with accustomed familiarity, floating the dancing phrases out above our heads with joy.

Then he presented Schubert's Piano Impromptu Opus 142 No. 1 in f minor. If a bit slow, I could clearly hear Schubert, feel his soul despite the piano's wont to overplay the bass and underplay the trebles. It was as if Badura-Skoda threw each phrase a gasping, gutted fish onto the stage where we barely had a chance to digest it before he threw the next one out, stopping sometimes for us to catch up, watching us wrestle with the slippery slimy mass.

Our society has so much to absorb, so much to explore, to digest, that we have become either a vast lake a quarter inch deep, or a mile deep hole one inch wide. We haven't the wherewithal to assess our musical encounters well.

Whether Badura-Skoda is at his peak or not, one cannot help but realize his expertise, his grasp of so much music, playing from memory, moving stiff fingers in rutted patterns with ease. One needn't be a musical genius to recognize his mastery of piano. His musicianship showed best in Schubert's chamber piece the Trout.

From my vantage point, I could watch his hands. Sometimes they hovered delicately over the keys, like a hummingbird darting in for sweet nectar. Sometimes they crawled tarantulan like deep into the valleys between the black mountains. At one point his hands were traveling in opposite directions rapidly, and it looked like he was stripping the peel from an orange, laying bare the succulent fruit for our ears. Sometimes his fingers worked like pistons, pumping the sound out of an oil rig. During one long trill, his hands vibrated like a cell phone. It was artistry to watch, punctuated by aural delights.

Despite the paper rustling, coughing, squeaky chair, velcro ripping, heavy breathing, head nodding, snorting distractions of the audience, the music was refreshing. And yet. As accomplished as he is, as well known, as experienced, I got the sense he was not giving us of himself. For a musician noted for his passion, I did not get a glimpse of his own soul.

Don't get me wrong, the notes were all there (and there were a lot of them), the phrasing enticing, his connection with the other performers faultless, the music was good. I enjoyed it. But it was a surface skimmer. I glided gently along without being made aware of the world beneath the surface that I know exists.

Granted I would a whole lot rather hear good music than badly performed music. But it was just music. I want more. I want that magical in the moment breath holding riveting spell binding suspension of time nowness that rarely ever happens in performance. I know it exists because I have on a few occasions experienced that.

So I remain happy for today's music. And unsatisfied. But eternally hopeful that I will encounter what I seek again, likely when I am least expecting it. And I will hold my breath while breathing. And *then* I will be happy to stand in recognition not of a job well done, but of an unforgettable open sharing of life.