May 19
“The roses under my window know nothing of former roses or of more beautiful ones; they are what they are, and live with the present day. For them there is no time — only the rose, perfect in every moment.”
Self-Reliance (freely rendered)
Listening mode
“The roses under my window know nothing of former roses or of more beautiful ones; they are what they are, and live with the present day. For them there is no time — only the rose, perfect in every moment.”
When you hear a piece in concert for the first time, one you have known for years from a recording, the recording sits in the hall with you. You know where the tempo ought to pick up, and you notice that here it hesitates a little. An entry comes later than your ear expects. For a while you mostly hear deviations.
Without the recording, though, you wouldn't be sitting here at all. Your knowledge can't be switched off, and it would be odd to want that: it was the recording that brought the piece close to you in the first place. The difficulty lies elsewhere. A comparison can become a yardstick against which the present only ever succeeds more or less. But it can also sharpen your attention to what happens only on this one evening.
From the outside the two can hardly be told apart. In both cases you hear the same hesitant passage. In one, something is missing there. In the other, you wonder where the pianist means to go with this hesitation.
At some point someone in the row behind you coughs. On the recording no one ever coughed.
