Last month I attended a recital by Louis Lortie, who was replacing an ill Maurizio Pollini at Carnegie Hall. I saw Pollini in concert at Carnegie in the spring of 2010, but last year he had to cancel his tour due to illness, which allowed me to discover the talented Jeremy Denk (whom I was to see in concert again in Santa Fe this past summer, as luck would have it) and this year Pollini canceled again. He's seventy, and I guess I should find myself lucky that I did get to see him in concert at least once in my life. He played Chopin, for those of you who are wondering. I still remember it.
I considered not going to New York City for the Lortie recital - it was the end of the semester at the university where I teach, and I had projects to grade. I wouldn't have bought tickets to a recital by Louis Lortie, who for me was just an unknown, if they had been offered on the regular schedule. I'm not a subscriber to Carnegie Hall but I am a "friend" (aka the lowest type of donor), and I might have been able to exchange my ticket for a performance by a better-known artist. In the end, though, I decided against it.
I was tired and decided against taking the 8:15am bus to NYC. Technically the decision was made for me since I overslept. Around 9:30am, I checked to see if there was a bus at 12:15pm - I'd never taken the bus so late for a day trip on the weekend. There was. So I let the 10:15am run leave without me, and ended up making it to the park n' ride with only a few minutes to spare before I hopped into the 12:15pm run. I could have stayed home but I didn't, because I always, always root for the underdog. So I felt I had to make the trek to Manhattan and show up for Lortie, whom I have never heard of before.
Indeed, there were many empty seats in the auditorium - maybe 40%, especially on the sides and in the back of the orchestra, but also in the front boxes. Subscribers exchanged their tickets for something else, I guess. But everybody who had actually bothered showing up was rooting for Lortie to succeed. He played two Beethoven sonatas before the intermission, and six pieces by Chopin afterward. The applause after each work was tremendous and at the end Lortie did several encores. His playing was outstanding throughout. He didn't make any sweeping gesture or contorted face the way some pianists do to turn piano playing into a visual performance. The sound was the only thing that mattered. People shouted bravos when he was done. The happiness and relief on Lortie's face were unmistakable. A quick look at his website later taught me he was also unafraid to step off the beaten path - and my readers will know I relate to that - at least as far as websites are concerned. (He has a great rendition of Liszt's arrangement of Tannhauser's Overture, which plays a small role in my novel, by the way.) I was glad I came.
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