Open Writing

“There isn’t a chair in the place!” Saul exclaimed.

This was rather like crying, ‘Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!’ while stranded in the middle of the ocean. We were in Saul’s antique shop, ‘Olde ‘n’ New’. Chairs were strung from the rafters, stacked on tables, snugged behind massive sideboards, and lined the tops of several large wardrobes along one wall. To find one comfortably placed for sitting on was, however, a distinct challenge. Olga’s tiny, Russian mother, Rita, was seated in the only comfy chair actually on the shop floor.

Eventually, Saul perched on a beautiful old credenza near the door to listen to Olga and me rehearsing. It was late Monday afternoon. Outside, the rush hour roared on its way. We worked in a corner of the large shop, where a dusty but glorious Steinway baby grand stood on a couple of plush Persian rugs. In the curve of the piano there was just space for me and my music stand.

Olga and I, performing as ‘Duo con Anima’, were the attraction at the coming Sunday afternoon chamber music concert, for which Saul opens his shop monthly. Hence the rehearsal.

Our planned programme was strenuous and challenging, consisting of two complete sonatas for flute and piano plus a couple of solos for each instrument. We rehearsed the Kuhlau Grande Sonate Concertante, four movements taking more than the usual thirty-six glorious minutes, as we stopped a few times to polish an occasional rough patch.

We then worked on the second half of the programme. Two minutes into the gentle Morceau de Concours by Fauré, one of Johannesburg’s mini-bus taxis pulled up outside the open door of the shop, its sound system pumping full-blast. The pounding bass should have been capable of propelling the vehicle without the need for an engine. Instead, it remained there, pulsing with noise. We continued playing, ignoring the din. The marvellous strains of the morsel of music soared among chairs which swayed above us to the booming beat from outside. We finished the Fauré two minutes later, just as the taxi moved on.

The final work on our programme was César Franck’s Sonata in A Minor, originally written for violin, now beautifully transcribed for the flute. The piano part is supremely taxing, requiring a high degree of virtuosity; the flute part is equally challenging, demanding enormous concentration and physical energy. As we played, we were dimly aware of the roar of a pack of Harley-Davidson bikes pulsing past the shop, of office-workers and students shouting happily to each other from one side of the street to the other, of a brief altercation outside the liquor outlet two doors down. The music took every ounce of concentration we could produce.

After an hour and a half of strenuous rehearsal, Olga and I were exhausted. My husband, Leon was equally exhausted. He was turning pages for Olga. Saul was delighted with our music. He rubbed the ache from his rear while promising a full house on Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday morning, Olga and her family celebrated Russian Orthodox Easter over a special cheese cake. I enjoyed the luxury of snuggling down for an extra couple of hours sleep, followed by a light and leisurely breakfast. By the time Leon and I had to leave for the concert, I felt wonderful. Confident, elegant, perfumed and with my favourite man escorting me. The anticipation of sharing some of my best-loved music with a superb pianist and a good-sized audience tingled through my veins.

The shop had been transformed from its usual apparent chaos. Large tables had been moved to the back of the shop while sideboards, music cupboards and display cabinets joined the wardrobes against the walls. All the chairs were positioned in rows, waiting to seat the audience. There were dining chairs with straight backs, upholstered in plush velvets and brocades, hard bentwood kitchen chairs, and riempie stools waiting to pinch unwary bottoms. There were several low lounge and nursing chairs and even a rocking chair or two.

I unpacked my flute in Saul’s little office, checked my hair in the mirror and blew a few notes to make sure all was well with lips and instrument. Olga joined me and we chatted quietly. Saul and his friend, Tony, rushed in and out at frequent intervals to fetch refreshments and wine and report on the ever-increasing size of the audience.

Eventually, Olga and I climbed the steps into the front room of the shop. Every chair was occupied by applauding, smiling people. Friends and family were scattered among the audience. I said a few words of introduction, then handed over to Olga.

Olga opened the concert with Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations on an Original Theme in C Minor, her tiny fingers at times skimming delicately over the keys, at others, playing with enormous power.

After the applause, Olga beckoned me onto the Persian rugs, and I tried to move my music stand into place. A woman and her large male companion in the front row had their feet precisely where I needed to put it, so I ended up standing a little closer to the piano than was comfortable. During the slow and beautiful third movement, the woman’s cell phone jingled, muffled in the depths of her handbag. Directly under my left eye she leant forward, zipped the bag open, which increased the phone’s volume, then fished it out as it jangled loudly, and finally switched it off. My concentration held and I played as if nothing unusual had happened. Olga and I poured our enjoyment of this work into every note. We could almost feel the audience breathing with us; they were as engrossed in the music as we were.

During a welcome interval, Tony told us that he’d had tears in his eyes throughout the slow movement. He also had us howling with laughter as he demonstrated a wonderful, over-the-top ‘swan’ curtsey from the chorus line of Swan Lake Ballet.

After about twenty minutes, during which the audience laughed, chatted and imbibed wine and snacks, Olga and I returned to the Persian carpet ‘stage’. I opened the second half of the concert with my own poem telling the tale of Pan and Syrinx, then played Claude Debussy’s unaccompanied flute solo titled Syrinx, a musical description of the myth.

Olga followed this with a short but incredibly difficult piece by Prokofiev called Suggestions Diabolique, a kind of musical nightmare. During this piece, I sat close to the piano. I watched Olga’s face across its vibrating strings. She was transported by the music. I felt the piano shake with the power that her tiny hands drew from the instrument.

Fauré’s gentle little piece was suitably soothing after the tumult of the Prokofiev. This time, there was no pounding taxi to interfere with the soaring melody.

Finally, it was time for the emotional journey through life that is the Franck Sonata. From the opening notes, Olga and I were immersed in its glorious melodies and rich harmonies, oblivious to everything but the sounds pouring from our instruments. It was almost as if we were possessed by the spirits of the composer and all the great musicians who interpreted this work before us. Joy and grief, anger and passion poured through us as we played. A brief burst of clapping at the end of the second movement, quiet sighs after the third, and the fervent applause at the end of the sonata told us that the audience had been as enraptured by the music as we had been.

Euphoria carried us through the encore, another favourite piece of music, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Romance. We spent an elated hour drinking wine and conversing with members of the audience, then went to celebrate at dinner with Leon, and Olga’s husband, Mike.

Achieving such emotional peaks in performance is what keeps musicians grinding away, practising scales and technical exercises alone in their studios, day after day. These pinnacles may be few and far between, but the ecstasy of sharing music of this calibre with an audience that is sympathetic and so much more than appreciative, is exhilarating.

Performing for the public is a privilege to be worked for, to be appreciated every day of my life.

Until next time, ‘here comes Treble!’

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by Isabel Bradley