the cassandra pages

The Edge of Empty

The attic is almost empty. I've been working on it for several days now, and that's after last year's cleaning. We're down to the old pieces of linoleum covering the bare floorboards; the accumulated dust of more than a century, in some corners; the overturned mousetraps and bat droppings beneath the chimney.

Yesterday I put on headphones and listened to all of Mahler's 2nd symphony while I worked, sitting down on the top step of the stairs to listen to the final, choral movement and rest from the heat and humidity. Today, after thunderstorms, it was cool and I finished nearly everything, lugging boxes of old ceramics and metal to be recycled, tearing the covers off unusable hardback books. At the end, there was just a pile of boxes and cases that J. needed to go through, but when I asked him about them, he said, "What that?" pointing to a small brown briefcase I didn't recognize. "That's yours, I think."

"Really?" I said, and went over to get it, shaking off the dust and blown-in insulation from the tarnished clasps. We opened it, and saw a stack of notebooks beside a tied bunch of letters. "Clearly yours," he said, and passed it over to me. For the next hour I sat and read through the notebooks - all from courses my junior and senior years in college - and the letters, all from old boyfriends, one of whom I almost married. The letters were poignant, and painful to re-read, but even more so were the carbon copies of letters I'd typed on my old manual Olivetti as I tried to figure out what to do with my life.

 

Who was that girl? I looked back and saw myself struggling to find my way into academia or museum work with virtually no models other than professors I admired, and little experience of the world other than my university career, which had started out in difficulty - I was a smart kid from a very small rural town in a big, highly competitive Ivy League university, and it was sink or swim. It took me three semesters to get my feet under me, and then I had to take extra courses, including three languages, to satisfy my new major, classical civ., in time to meet all the graduation requirements and write an honors thesis. I applied to two graduate programs in the conservation of antiquities - at NYU, and at the University of London. One of the recommendation letters written by one of my advisers was in the briefcase:

...Her drawbacks are few: a slight shyness or lack of self-confidence, little family money, and no field experience...in her junior and senior years of college she has shown excellent ability in learning and understanding difficult subject matter, developing new ideas, and relating herself to working with others. Her efforts and interest in her chosen academic field are outstanding, and she has a stable and mature character. She is patient, industrious, and determined, full of imagination and curiosity.  Working with her is a challenge and a pleasure.

But... I didn't get in. My chemistry grades, from freshman year, were too low. The rejection letters were in the briefcase too. 

When I didn't get into one of the graduate programs, I thought the world had ended. It hadn't, of course, but it would take some time to pick myself up and figure out a new direction. How I wish I could have looked ahead and seen how things would turn out, even though it took a long time for the classics student to become Cassandra. But the years between the days of 10-cent stamps and today are far too numerous and dense to lay out in neat sequence.

I desperately wished today that I could protect that girl, and the boys she hurt with that determination the professor had praised. But all I could do was read the letters and try to learn something new, even now.

La Vie en Rosé

La Vie en Rosé was the title that my dear friend Natalie d'Arbeloff of Blaugustine gave to her installment of the Consequences game just recently concluded. She's decided to expand her vignette into a serialized story, and I suggested that we post them here as well, since my readership is somewhat different and because the story, with its French/English implications, seemed perfect for this space too. Plus, I'm a fan of anything this abundantly creative woman does - and, during the next three weeks of our final move from Vermont to Montreal, I'm going to be busy and unable to post as much. So, watch this space, and follow along with Natalie, her heroine Susan, and La Vie en Rosé. Part Three will appear later this week.

PART ONE

“We gulp what is here and ours and nobody’s and nothing’s” George said, handing her his glass of rosé.

That’s how he talked. She couldn’t understand him half the time but he was a poet so she had learned not to ask for explanations. “Guard it with your life,” he added,  “I’ll be right back.”

Nothing he says ever means what it sounds like, Susan thought. 'Right back' could mean ten minutes, three hours or even three months. She surveyed the drinks table: two bottles of the local wine, two Perriers, two Evians and fourteen cans of sugary fizzy kid stuff. Their hosts were strictly teetotal and stingy to boot but the isolated expat community never turned down an opportunity to socialise so the room was buzzing with familiar talking heads. Through the window to the garden Susan could see the teetotal host’s teetotally blonde wife in intimate tête a tête with George.

Susan leaned back and tipped the wine down her throat. Three years on the wagon and five years of compliance suddenly vanished as she poured the remains of the first bottle into her husband's glass, drank it, then dispensing with formalities, expertly guided the rosy stream into her mouth straight from the neck of the second bottle .

Oblivious to the guests' shocked stares, Susan stumbled out of the house and down the village street just as Père Lafitte was passing by. She grabbed his arm, shouting:

"Portez-moi  à une nunnery!"

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PART TWO

Marcel Lafitte’s immediate impulse was to pull away from Susan’s urgent grip but he had just been mulling over something he overheard earlier in the day, a couple of old parishioners talking about him.

“He’s so farouche,* Père Lafitte. I always have the feeling he has to make a big effort just to say bonjour.”

“Beh! He should have joined the Trappists instead of coming here.”

Père Lafitte hesitated, then took Susan’s hand and holding it in both of his, looked steadily into her tear-smudged face.

“Une nunnery!” she repeated, “Une couvent. Tout suite! S’il vous plaît.”

Père Lafitte’s English is slightly better than the French of les Anglais who have gradually moved into La Rosière in search of a paradise which does not exist anywhere on earth. Although none of them are church-goers, he knows them all sufficiently to engage in minimal small talk whenever he sees them, thankfully not too often. Of course there is the gossip, dished out by the ladies who clean the church, but he pays no attention to it.

There is something about this Englishwoman’s tipsily desperate determination which moves him. She is middle-aged but seems childlike, bewildered.

“Would you like a cup of coffee pour le moment? We can talk about the nunnerie.”

“ Yes! Oh oui! Please. Thank you.”

“Come along then. I will make coffee.”

Père Lafitte moved away at his usual brisk pace, Susan stumbling on her high heels several paces behind stopped to remove her shoes. Barefoot on the warm cobblestones she caught up with him.

“Padre,“ she whispered, “I am a bit drunk and I should not be.”

“Bon Dieu!” he thought, “I will have to listen to drunken confessing without the shelter of the confessional!” But when Marcel Lafitte decides to do something he does it and in the past half hour he decided to be more responsive to people. Père Lafitte does not like people. He likes God who is silent and demands nothing. And he loves his land, the ten wooded acres which his mother left him outside the village of La Rosière.

*2. Farouche: Exhibiting withdrawn temperament and shyness coupled with an air of cranky, often sullen fey charm: "small, farouche poems illustrated with doodles, a cross between Ogden Nash and Blake"(The Free Dictionary)

One or Two Verses

I'm sitting in my Vermont living room, where boxes begin to accumulate below the bookshelves, listening over the internet to my choir in Montreal singing Evensong. The Dean is presiding, and he reads the lessons and prayers, some in English, some in French, and I'm surprised to notice how much more of the French I understand than I used to - somehow it's easier to tell that, listening on the radio rather than from the choir loft, where my attention is understandably distracted by upcoming duties. I listen to the chanted psalms and responses, the motets, a complicated modern rendition of the Magnificat and Nunc; it all sounds good. Finally the organist begins the last hymn. It's the Welsh lullaby most all of us know as "Sleep my child and peace attend thee/ all through the night," but those aren't the words the congregation and choir are singing. I don't know what the words are in the Canadian hymnal. What I hear are not individual words, anyway, but a strong male voice I don't recognize, from one of the front pews; he's a fraction of a beat behind the organ but singing the familiar tune with genuine feeling and pleasure. The whole congregation is a little behind, actually, but by the end of the first verse they've caught up, and the church sounds more full than usual, ordinary voices blending with the choir. "It's so beautiful," I think, as last bars of the simple, unaffected tune make me stop what I'm doing. My hands fall to my lap, and I realize my eyes are suddenly full of tears.

A Tethered Cloud

We headed back down to Vermont in mid-afternoon, after J. got the first of the two required Canadian inspections on the car that we recently imported, and I did a trip to the fruiterie to buy vegetables and fruit, including the first Quebec asparagus.

Last night he went to a meeting and I went to choir, except apparently I’d missed the message that there wasn’t any. Instead there was a huge thunderstorm, which wasn’t exactly conducive to hopping back on my bike, so I window-shopped in the underground for a while, waiting for the rain to let up, and then rode back to the bibiotheque where I spent a happy half hour browsing in the classical music CD section before cycling home on the wet streets.

 

Our trip today was through storms too: a leaden cloud seemed to be tethered to the car, because it followed us all the way to Vermont. On the flats above Lake Champlain we stopped a number of times to take photos when beautiful light filtered through the dark clouds, shimmering on the fields of tender new grain or polishing the distant aluminum silos and church steeples. We saw two rainbows, several deer, a flock of captive elk, a raccoon, black cows chasing each other around a field (which made us burst out laughing,) an enormous stack of logs, a herd of sweet-faced brown Swiss huddled under a tree, and a flock of newly-naked sheep, recently relieved of their winter coats.

The house is much emptier than when we arrived the last time, and we’re both feeling a huge amount of relief at having a clear path ahead, and a place to go to: in the last few days we found a studio space that looks like it will be just about perfect for us. At 9:00 pm we ate a dinner of salmon, asparagus, and new potatoes, and J. is in the kitchen right now cutting up a half-flat of strawberries that we bought at a farm stand in Iberville: summer has arrived.

Thinking about Home

You'd think that the place I lived for thirty years would feel a lot more like "home" than our relatively new digs in the city, but... In Vermont I walk through the rooms as if they're a labyrinth engraved on my memory. I get up in the night and navigate without seeing; my bare feet know and avoid the creaky floorboards that might wake my husband; I find the light switch automatically. In fact, I think I could still do that in the house I grew up in, even though I haven't lived there forever. I used to think home meant familiar, but I no longer think that's a definite part of the definition.

In the most practical, everyday sense, home does have something to do with externals. Home is where I feel comfortable: comfortable in my own skin, relaxed with the people and place and culture around me and subtly supported by them. In the most philosophical sense, though, I've come to see home as a tortoise does: it is something I carry with me.

We've made this house a warm home for ourselves and the people who visit here; there's hardly a square inch inside or out that we haven't touched or altered somehow, and yet as we strip the layers of our life here away, we see that created ambience breaking apart. When we leave this place, we realize we'll take its unique essence with us; that was something that came from us, not from the wood and plaster structure or the even the particular slant of light moving through the rooms. The physical form will then become, for us, a memory to be revisited in dreams and imagination, but the remaining structure will be someone else's home, to shape as they want or can.

Right now I'm not nostalgic for the past, nostalgia being an emotion I don't much care for. I do miss Montreal though: lunches of green tea and cherries, beets and goat cheese on our terrace, the sound of bike locks clinking against bike frames, the squeak of swings in the park, voices in the alley late at night, sparrows in the trees. Someone called this morning and I was so happy to hear the sound of French I felt my heart leap toward him through the phone.

I carry all of this with me, too. Home actually does seem to be where my heart resides -- and it lives still in all the places I've ever lived, with all those I've loved -- but most of all it needs to be where I am right now, like a tent in the desert carpeted with rugs and warmed by a small fire made from all those experiences, all those loves, so that I can always meet and welcome the friend and the stranger, and remember who I really am.

Consequences

"Who could possibly quarrel with eyes like those?" she wondered, taking the cold cloth from her face and leaning toward the mirror. The tears had stopped and her eyes, soothed by the cool water, gazed back at her: two enigma variations in greenish-blue. She slowly ran the cloth around the small stainless steel sink, and then set her purse on the counter, unzipped the center compartment and took out a tube of mascara; steadying her hand she applied the thick black color to her lashes, and then pulled a tissue from the dispenser and carefully dabbed away an errant spot from the fold beneath her left eye.

Why had she gone there for the holidays? She was old enough now to have predicted the first rush of happiness at being home again, the enthusiastic greetings and favorite foods, and then, once everyone’s initial physical and emotional hungers were sated, the beginning of the questions and her awareness of the two red spots on her cheeks that appeared when she was angry or humiliated, even though her long legs in the expensive stockings had remained gracefully crossed and the rapid beating of her heart quite hidden beneath the pale pink linen shirt and confident grey suit.

Well: it was over. She closed her purse, opened the door, and stepped out into the aisle. The plane was full, and the anonymous strangers suddenly seemed as benevolent as the happy clouds outside the windows. A person could walk right through them without falling.

This is the ninth post in an ongoing online game of Consequences. Each successive entry begins with the closing lines of its predecessor. Entries are 250 words long, and are linked thematically. The series started with Hydragenic and was followed by Patteran Pages, Porous Borders, The Middlewesterner, Feathers of Hope, Blaugustine, Small Change, and Via Negativa. The series will soon continue at 3rd House Journal.

Packing

Our day began, as it often does in Vermont, with the sounds of birdsongs mixed with internal combustion engines. It wasn't yet 7:30 am when I looked out the upstairs windows onto the street, but the neighbor's lawn service guy, wearing large white protective headphones, was striding up and down the street, swinging a loud industrial string-trimmer against the fence. From our kitchen window, on the other side, I gazed at the blooming William Baffin roses and Siberian iris, the drops of rain on the leaves of the big blue-green hosta, and thought how deceptively peaceful it all looked. In Montreal there are ordinances against noise in the early morning or late at night, so the city mowers never start in the park before 8:30, and even airplane flight paths are regulated for the least disturbance to residential areas. Of course, it's a city, with a constant whirr of traffic, and I'm quite unlikely to see an oriole swaying in the peonies in the park. But the general attitude, a legacy of the French heritage that prizes the protection of privacy, personal space, and community interest over productivity and efficiency, is entirely different. Firetrucks and police blast their horns at intersections only, and for as short a time as possible, while here the neighbors have been complaining about the new night train whose conductor lays into the whistle for long minutes in the middle of the night. The problem is the creep of suburbia, and the dependence on all things that can be filled with gasoline and used to make tasks faster, easier, and - so some think - more thrilling. It used to be rural and quiet here, with hermit thrushes and deer under our apple trees in the evening, but they, like the hippies and the native Vermonters, have retreated further and further into the woods as developments creep up the hillsides and valley towns sprawl beyond their old borders. Gone is the sound of wood being chopped by hand, early morning roosters, or cows lowing in the distance -- all of which were common when I first lived here, thirty years ago. Now we have leaf-blowers, chain saws, and ATVs.

A few weeks ago we signed a sales agreement for our house, and are beginning the final cleaning-out process as we wait to hear if the prospective buyers have been approved for financing. Last week there was a house inspection by an engineer, and at 7:45 this morning, a camera entered our sewer line, looking for roots and collapsed walls. We stood in the basement with the real estate agent, the buyer, and two men from the sewer inspection service, watching this architectural colonoscopy on a video monitor. Everything seemed in order: we saw only water, and the disordered webs of blind spiders who've been living in this tubular darkness for years.

The day turned bright and sunny; I spent the morning writing and placing classified ads and fielding phone calls. If I sound grumpy, I'm really not: if the deal comes through it will be a great relief to us both, even though leaving a house we've called home for three decades has its inevitable wrenching aspects. The process, of course, brings up a certain amount of reflection on the past, and I can't help but remember what this neighborhood, village, and state were like when I first came here to live.  Growth, always growth: there will be more jobs, more money, a better lifestyle if we build these roads, this shopping center, convert this old farm to offices and condominiums. By and large, that's true: there is more money here now, but the values that have come with that money are not those of a cohesive community responsible itself and for each other.  Positions once filled by local volunteers are now paid; trained administrators run everything from the libraries to the town governments, and "the people" are relegated to grumbling tax-payers who feel they have very little say and very little control. We can drive ten miles and buy nectarines imported from Chile, Mexican cilantro, and plastic everything from China, but the local hardware stores and fabric shops are all gone, as are the local doctor's offices and local elementary schools. Are we happier? I honestly don't think so.

But I also realize these are the concerns of someone getting older, looking back from the illusory height of years stacked like so many unshelved books. I'm wary of the criticism of the present that seems to come with age and the way it can turn so quickly into bitterness. I'm also quite aware that young people, like the excited couple who seem thrilled with the prospect of building their lives together in this house, don't see things this way at all.

Out in the garden, the sun-warmed air is heavy with the scent of roses: wild ones, ferns, and other shrubs are taking over the perennial garden and giving it a touseled beauty. I stand in the sun surveying this collaboration between myself and Nature, thinking what a fascinating artwork-in-progress we'll be leaving to the next gardener, who may or may not impose him or herself on these beds that once were cow pasture and chicken shed.

Discussing the Cliburn with Brad Hill - part 3

 

Van Cliburn presents the gold medal to Nobuyuki Tsujii. Official photo  c 2009 Altre Media.

Brad: The Cliburn requires chamber music performances in the semifinal round. I don't have much chamber experience, so I have trouble evaluating those performances. Have you played much chamber music?

Beth: I've never played chamber music for piano and strings but I've done lots of ensemble work, on flute as a younger person in bands, orchestras, and woodwind quintets, and then for many years singing with other people and various instruments, so I do feel fairly comfortable evaluating that category. However I didn't watch much of it - I need to go back and see more of the performances. I saw Son's semifinal chamber performance, and thought it was good but I just wasn't...captivated. Moved. Her manner at the piano is also too affected for me to really warm up to her. What did you think about this category?

Brad: I fade out a bit during that round. I like the pieces, but don't know them like I know the solo literature. I'd be perfectly content if the Cliburn eliminated the chamber requirement,
though I understand why they don't. They are searching for well rounded musicians. I thought Edouard Kunz looked about as comfortable as I would be during his quintet -- he appeared almost to be sight-reading!

I agree with you about age, and seasoning, and maturity. I was hoping the jury would give Zhang a discretionary award, then bring him back in four years to conquer the world. He hasn't figured out what type of musician he's going to be. Or, if he has, then his spectacular technical ability isn't being put to much purpose.

Beth: We should touch on the question of the future of classical music, and how competitions like the Cliburn fit into that - any comments?

Brad: The whole Cliburn experience dovetails in a peculiar way with the shrinking consumer market for classical music. Even as audiences in many venues get smaller, CD sales are miniscule, and regional orchestras are going out of business -- the Cliburn Foundation seems
to be growing ambitiously. They seem to be assuming that if they put the music out there in new media (internet streaming), the audience will appear. Sort of "If you build it, they will come." And apparently they had hundreds of thousands of people viewing the competition online. I love their approach!

Music contests are hundreds of years old. Mozart competed with his rival Clementi. Liszt was staged in a playoff against Thalberg. In more modern times, the Tschaikovsky Competition (the one Van Cliburn won in 1958), the Chopin Competition (Argerich, Ashkenazy, Ohlsson, Li), and others have trained the classical marketplace to expect superhero pianists, launched every few years. As music education has diminished in the U.S., audiences rely on juries to determine who is good, and provide them with instant careers. Much as I love competitions, that is a disturbing trend.

Beth: I thought the coverage was fantastic. If the arts are going to survive, the web will play a critical role, and I agree completely: this is a brilliant example of what can be done!

We've already established the fact that the Cliburn's web format, generosity, and open accessibility are tailor-made for classical music geeks like you and me, but what about those elusive "new" audience members? Can enough excitement be generated to make non-pianists want to watch piano competitions, the way non-athletes get excited about Olympic figure skating? And can events like this help inspire little Zhangs and Bozhanovs to take up the piano and practice long hours - or just learn enough to enjoy music all their lives?

Brad: Those are great questions, and probably unanswerable. Little Zhangs and Bozhanovs are born all the time, and if they get motivation and support at a young age, the practicing happens naturally.

As to attracting audiences, there are many parts to that puzzle in my opinion. I was exposed to classical music while growing up, which I think is increasingly unusual. Were you? And my school had a pretty big music department with an orchestra, band, and choir. I don't have kids, but I gather that's less common now, too. A piano competition like the Cliburn is a piece of dramatic storytelling like the Olympics, but if you have no background, and no context, and don't know the music, it loses meaning.

But I do think that distribution is key. It's no longer just a question of putting people in the seats; it's about putting the music where people are -- that means in their homes and on their digital
devices. The Cliburn Foundation seems to really get this.

Beth: There was always music in my home, and in my school, there was a big music program like yours: every kid learned to read music in elementary school, and we started on recorders in 3rd grade and could take an instrument in the 4th. Our marching band was one of the best in New York State and we competed all summer, and the town took as much pride in it as in sports. But you're right - there are so many other interests competing for kid's time, so much less funding for art education and appreciation, and so much less exposure as classical music has become expensive and perceived to be elitist. This seems like a huge step in the right direction.

Here in Montreal, the new orchestra conductor, Kent Nagano, is trying all sorts of new initiatives - last season they MSO played a concert above the ice in the Bell Center, in honor of the Montreal Canadiens and hockey! He took the orchestra on a Canada-wide tour, has a lot of family-oriented (and priced) programs - and has become quite a hero in the city. It's possible -- but takes work and creativity and an openness to change and experimentation and the possibility of failure - exactly the qualities you like in Bozhanov!

Brad, we've covered a lot of ground, and I want to thank you so much! It was a pleasure and I hope we'll stay in touch. Enjoy your playing and listening!

Discussing the Cliburn with Brad Hill - part 2

 

Evgeni Bozhanov, Bulgaria (official competition photo, c 2009 Astre Media)

Beth: So let's talk about the performances a little. What are the judges looking for in the early rounds? Do you think some very good players failed to make it into the semis and finals this time?

Brad: There is always lots of speculation, in piano competitions, about what the judges are looking for. At the Cliburn, the official line is that they are searching for mature performers who can step into a concertizing career immediately. It might be ironic, then, that the two winners this year were the two youngest competitors.

There were two players from the preliminary round that I wanted to hear again: Spencer Myer and Zhang Zuo. Going into the event, I was familiar with only one pianist, Stephen Beus, who has done some recording. I was rooting for him based only on familiarity, but he banged a bit in his preliminary recital and was eliminated. and we should always remember that everyone who gets to the competition is spectacularly accomplished -- the Cliburn Foundation has already winnowed down from hundreds of auditions around the world. And each of those applicants is excellent, too! There is a lot of talent out there.

We must talk about the final decisions. What did you think of the medalist choices? In 2005 I predicted the placement of the six finalists perfectly. This year I couldn't have been more wrong! My two favorites placed fifth and sixth. I think the silver medalist is unequipped for a major career. Then there is Nobuyuki Tsujii, the blind pianist who shared the gold medal and will probably get most of the headlines. What an amazing and inspiring display of human achievement. But (here it comes!) as a pianist, I honestly don't believe he should have won, or even been in the finals. He played very difficult programs almost flawlessly, but also, to my ear, without much dynamic range or special musical insight. It seems churlish to complain at all about that amazing young man (he is only 20!). But on the blog there was a wide range of opinion about him. Some people thought he was a gift from heaven, and others thought he should have been excused after the first round.

 

Yeol Eum Son, 23 (Korea) - Silver Medal; Nobuyuki Tsujii, 20 (Japan) - Gold Medal (tie); Haochen Zhang, 19 (China) - Gold Medal (tie) (official competition photo, c 2009 Astre Media)

Beth: I would have picked Vacatello for the gold, Bozhanov for the silver (I think those were your picks too, but in the other order) and Di Wu for third place. I wasn't impressed with the silver medalist at all and don't understand why some people felt she was the standout competitor, so that was one major disagreement. I do recognize what is extraordinary about both of the gold medalists - the enormous human achievement of Nobuyuki Tsujii, and the prodigy-like virtuosity of Zhang - but neither one moved me in their performances.

(As an aside - I was talking about the blind competitor with a composer-friend and said I felt guilty for not liking his playing more, because it seemed so astonishing to me that he could play so perfectly and learn all this music from memory. My friend said, "It's actually not that incredible. There's Braille music, and if he's been at it all his life, he probably has no more trouble learning that way than a skilled, sighted pianist learning from a printed score." I didn't even know Braille music existed, and probably many other listeners didn't either.)

What I was looking for, I guess, is that elusive quality we call "musicality." Vacatello has it in spades; no matter what period of music she was playing, she inhabited it and gave it to us; I would happily go and hear her perform anywhere. Bozharov was the risk-taker and the most original of the finalists, and I admire that and wish it were more often rewarded in competitions. Di Wu played extremely well,  I think, and I felt there is evidence of a real musical intelligence at work; she's just young still. After four more years of maturing I bet she will be fantastic.

Brad: Yes, you and I are on the same page. In addition to Vacatello's ferocious technical command and unstoppable musicality (her Italian Concerto of Bach was to die for!), I like her intense concentration at the piano. Bozhanov was the most polarizing figure in this event. Wasn't it fun watching people argue about him on the blog? He stood out because of his individuality, which is rare in classical music. Casual concert-goers might not realize it, but their favorite pianist probably sounds very much like all the other touring stars. The modern recording era has established standard playing styles for different composers, and to win a big contest you can't play outside that mold. Bozhanov broke the mold! I thought he was sensational, and I'd rather listen to an unsuccessful performance that flies too close to the sun, than a safe performance that stays in the shadows. Bozhanov burned himself in the Cliburn, but many people will remember him and follow his career.

Mariangela Vacatello, Italy (official competition photo, c 2009 Astre Media)

Beth: I'm glad you mentioned Vacatello's Italian Concerto - it was stunning. What I felt in her playing, and in Bozhanov's, was their own depth as musicians and, frankly, as people. I simply don't think this is possible until one has grown up a bit and lived for a while as an adult. The video "performer portraits" included in the competition coverage were very good, I thought, and also revealing. When young Zhang, for instance, said "I feel safest at the piano, I was a very quiet child,  I still don't like to talk much," and then we see him at the awards ceremony, in a tuxedo with his white ear buds on, completely in his own world, that says something. Meanwhile Vacatello and Bozhanov were laughing, talking, interacting with friends and colleagues. I'm not saying that a quiet introverted person can't be a great musician -- of course they can, there are many examples, and it goes without saying that one has to enter deeply into one's self to be great. But I didn't find the same depth or maturity in Zhang's playing, or Nobu's, as in these two older competitors, and I also worry about how the two gold medalists will hold up under a grueling three-year concert and travel schedule. I wish them the absolute best, of course!

--the conversation continues tomorrow, about how coverage like this might help classical music in the future.

Discussing the Cliburn with Brad Hill

Pianist Di Wu performing at the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition.

Photograph used by permission; © 2009 Altré Media

From May 22 to June 7, the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition took place in Texas. Started in 1962 by Van Cliburn himself, who stunned the Cold War world of 1958 by becoming the first American to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Cliburn has become a major event in the world of classical music. The participants are chosen through an exhaustive process, and the winners receive enormous media exposure, professional management, and up to three years of worldwide concert engagements. Its prestige is increased by the fact that it happens only once every four years. Extraordinarily, this year, the entire competition was broadcast live on the internet. I watched a lot of the coverage, becoming more and more obsessed as it came down to the finals.

Every performance was archived and is still available for viewers to watch and hear - with headphones the sound quality is excellent - and in addition there are video portraits of the performers, a lot of other background material, and an official competition blog for information and discussion of the competition.

That's where I met Brad Hill, who seemed to be a like-minded avid observer and classical music lover. After the award announcement, which was definitely controversial, I wrote to Brad and asked if he'd like to discuss the Cliburn with me here, and he graciously agreed. Over the next few days I'll be posting our conversation. We tried to talk about the competition and related topics in a personal way that both musicians and non-musicians would find interesting. In particular, we both felt that the Cliburn's innovative and generous webcast format bodes well for the future of music and the other arts that so many of us are worried about, and toward the end of the conversation we talk about that some more. We'd both love to hear your thoughts, and are happy to try to answer any questions you might have!

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Beth: Brad, I liked your comments on the competition thread and appreciated the fact that you had tracked me down on Twitter! Some of the topics I thought we might talk about are why the Cliburn is exciting, why we both watched it, what it means in classical music today, and how we felt about the vote. But what do you think people would find interesting? And are you a pianist yourself?

Brad: Most people would probably wonder why anyone would get obsessed with a piano competition online. I went to a music school and have done a bit of competing myself, so I have an endless appetite for piano music -- especially live piano concerts. And this one is like the Olympics. The foundation scours the globe for the 30 best pianists; each one must prepare five hours of music; and there is intense unfolding drama over about three weeks. They hold it every four years. I dug in last time (2005), and this year the webcasts were really well done.

What attracts you to the Cliburn? Do you have a musical background, or do you simply love piano music?

Beth: I've played since I was five, but not on anything like this level. I'm more of an all-around, avid amateur musician - I've studied piano, flute, and voice and sing now in a semi-professional choir. My piano playing is mostly classical and for pleasure, but I do practice! My hat's off to you for competing - you must be pretty good. Do you play a lot now?

Brad: I make some time to practice, and wish I could do more. I started when I was six, and went to the Manhattan School of Music. Garrick Ohlssoh, William Wolfram and I grew up near each other, at roughly the same time. They both took the piano a lot further than I did. :) In fact, I first got interested in piano competitions when Garrick won the Warsaw Chopin, in 1970. I was still in high school. I did some studying with the teacher who prepared him for the Chopin, then it was off to conservatory.

Beth: I admire that tremendously, and I'm glad you still find time to play and still enjoy it; I know some people who were very very good but somehow lost the love. Maybe they were pushed too much; in one case it was because of severe stage fright. For me, music is very personal but it's also a bit like doing a sport with people who are better - they spur you on and help you progress. I've always been around musicians; my aunt is a professional, my father is a good natural musician who plays and sings, so there was always music in our house; my college roommate and several close friends were piano majors. I was always trying to keep up, at least to some degree, and maybe that's still true. Even though I'm 56 now, I'm still working on it, and improving. Not many things in life give you that kind of pleasure and absorption all the way through.

I first got interested in the Cliburn when I saw the documentary from the year that Olga Kern won, and also from reading a great article in the NY Times a while ago about the associated amateur competition. Last year in Montreal I got very wrapped up in the international organ competition and went to a number of the live sessions. There was also a piano competition with the symphony, and I listened on the radio and went to the finals. But this was the first time I've gotten into an online experience of a competition. The webcast coverage was excellent, I thought, and I have to admit I'm sorry it's only once in four years! What did you think about the coverage? Did you really watch ALL of it?

Brad: I did watch all of it until the final weekend, when I left town for a wedding. One great aspect of the online presentation is the archive. I was able to catch up when I got back. Anyone can go there now and watch all the performances. It's an amazing body of recorded music,free of charge.

I love the community feeling fostered by the Cliburn Foundation. In 2005 and this year they put up a blog on which anyone could leave comments. That place got more populated as the contest went on. It also got pretty fierce in there, with plenty of arguments about the performances, who should win, etc.. At least two concert pianists that I know of were in the thick of it, and dozens of other people were expert listeners and lifelong lovers of classical music. The blog, by itself, was great theater even as the  competition drama was unfolding on stage!

(to be continued tomorrow)