MGordon_MD
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Sep 26, 2011, 9:26 AM
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By Dr. Michael Gordon
It was a very special two nights: the piano concerto component of the 13th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv.
My wife and I had decided on this special trip not long after she returned three years previously from the 12th annual event, overwhelmed by its excitement and the quality of the competitors. I decided that for the 13th event, which took place this past May, I would make sure I could take the time off for the whole festival, a total of three weeks that included 24 concerts, with the elimination of the first 16 of 32 contestants and then down to six finalists.
The last four concerts were moved from a more intimate concert venue at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to the Mann Auditorium, where on the last two nights the Israel Philharmonic accompanied the pianists in their major piano concertos. It was magical; six young aspiring but already very accomplished pianists from Japan, the United States, Israel and Russia displayed their musicianship and virtuosity to an enthusiastic and receptive audience that thrived on their music and repaid their performances with heartwarming applause and “bravos.”
It was these final two concerts that had the greatest effect on me by bringing up precious musical memory associations. The first was when one of the Russian finalists played the well-known and powerful Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. I recall as a 17-year-old listening late at night to the New York Times radio station WQXR and hearing a broadcast recording of Van Cliburn’s momentous win of the first International Tchaikovsky Competition held in Moscow in 1958 and hearing the crowd erupt in applause when he finished playing and when his name was announced as winner – an unbelievable achievement for a non-Russian at the height of the Cold War.
The second Rubinstein competitor’s piece that brought back poignant memories was the Japanese contestant whose rendition of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto stimulated deeply felt associations with a Norwegian medical student whom I adored while I was a medical intern in Aberdeen, Scotland. Although she could not return my affection, we shared music and would often curl up together before her fireplace and listen to the Brahms concerto, especially the slow third movement. The last letter I received from her some years after we parted was from a missionary hospital in Africa, where she decided to vest her professional and emotional energies and efforts.
The last association was the most profound. It was when the American finalist started with the crescendo of eight notes that herald the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto. As the piece progressed through its inspiring melodic form, I recalled when I was 15 years old, my father hooking up the 45 RPM turntable to a large table radio and putting on the changer five red vinyl records recorded by Rubinstein with conductor Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1956. I listened to that recording, with the pauses between the records as they automatically dropped into place on the changer, over and over again. It was not until a few years later that I got the first 33 RPM rendition of this piece, and it took me time to get used to listening to the music without the pauses of the five disc format.
Music can elicit beautiful, sad, poignant and romantic associations. As we grow older, these musical associations may become more profound and meaningful and should be savoured as one of the great joys of life.
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Dr. Michael Gordon is Medical Program Director, Palliative Care Baycrest Geriatric Health Care System in Toronto, Canada and Professor of Medicine, at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Gordon is the author of the engaging memoir Brooklyn Beginnings: A Geriatrician's Odyssey, published by I-Universe.
Brooklyn Beginnings is available in bookstores and online at: Indigo-Chapters, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and I-Universe
Moments That Matter: Cases in Ethical Eldercare: A Guide for Family Members, is available online at Amazon.ca.
His latest release is Late-Stage Dementia: providing comfort, compassion and care. It is available at Amazon and Indigo.
Visit Dr. Michael Gordon's website.
(This post was edited by MGordon_MD on Sep 26, 2011, 10:48 AM)
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