Artists: Dennis Russell Davies & Maki Namekawa playing music for two pianos by Messiaen, Glass, and others
Venue: Miller Theatre, NYC, NY
Date: November 9, 2005
My first classical concert in NY–and an amazing surprise! The Miller Theatre is surprisingly small, although tastefully arranged (also, the numerous photos of several of the big names in 20th century classical music in the waiting area just outside the main hall, from Ligeti to Reich to Stokhausen gave me reassurance that there are others who look to the future with hope in their hearts and an eager anticipation in their ears). I had the luck (perhaps), of sitting center-front row. From this angle, the symmetric arrangement of the two grand pianos on the stage meant that I couldn’t see either player’s hands on the piano (one was facing left, the other facing right). The warm purple glow lighting the back face of the stage contrasted very nicely with the sleek black of both performers, each of whom was strange in his/her own respect. Davies, a superstar conductor and performer, looked like some weird version of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, an impression due to his bald head and costume very similar to Dr. Evil’s in the first movie. He was also somewhat dramatic in his playing, gracefully dancing his fingers off the piano when finishing a phrase, only to plunge back in after the rest. Namekawa, for her part, seemed a little unsure when bowing to the audience before playing, but became very confident as she got into the music.
Playing Messiaen’s “Vision de l’Amen” as the first half of the show, they thrilled me with thier good playing, but I was a little lost at times since I had never heard the piece before. There were many moments when I tuned out of the piece, simply because I was quite lost as to what was going on, and I felt terrible because I knew that if I had heard the piece a few times beforehand, I would have greatly appreciated the live performance much more than I did. After the piece (and intermission), they played some Bach transcriptions by Gyorgy Kurtag (interesting, but only slightly), a very original piece by Shoko Shida (”Seiken-ji”), which involved a lot of hissing, howling, and hand-plucking of the piano strings (the composer came out afterwards and bowed for the audience–she was quite different from how I pictured her, being a woman of about 40 instead of a boy at 25 like I thought she must be). Finally, they played some selections from Glass’ final opera in his Cocteau trilogy, “Les Enfants Terribles,” which they had arranged themselves for two pianos (with Glass’ blessings). While they were characteristically Glass works, I had not heard these particular ones before and was rather underwhelmed by them.
It didn’t matter, however, compared to what happened after they finished: they bowed. And then scanned the audience, eventually concentrating their gaze to a few seats behind me, pointing their hands out. And there, standing next to his wife, was Philip Glass himself. My idol (almost) for several of the past few years, and he had been sitting just a few feet away from me the whole time! I was so shocked that I couldn’t think of anything to say to him, and I left without meeting him personally. I’ve often wondered how the people how create music (something that to me seems so difficult and arcane) can appear to be so normal in person. The main consequence of this is that I expect these people to be minor gods of some sort, and thus when I see them as just people (perhaps even people I get to talk to, as happened with Longwave), I’m quite taken aback and at a loss for words.
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