A Closer Look

*Note written after the completion of this entry*

An initial apology for the lazy and disorganised attempt at the review of the student concert...

Thankfully, the student concert went really well today. It was probably due my participation in the International Guitar Festival a month ago that made me appreciate the sheer amount of sleepless nights, missed meals and co-ordination to organise a concert. I really wanted to help out as much as I could to relieve the stress off Auntie Mei, even at the expense of straining myself a little before my item.

It was a pretty nerve-wrecking start, when fellow performers forgot their music or played a couple of wrong notes which sound like Schoenberg. Such instances sure encouraged the invasion of a dark thought that such instances would happen during my item as well, though I sure didn't voice it out loud like a few pretty amusing fellow performers in my same row. (On a minor note to avoid misconceptions, those ladies gave marvellous performances later on in the concert.)

Thanks to Guan Lin's most moving rendition of the largo and moderato cantabile sections of Chopin's famous Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66, Nikki's ability to draw out the rich and colourful sonorities of the piano through Sibelius's Romanze in Db maj, Serene's charming performance of Schubert's famous Ständchen. the hauntingly evocative harmonies of Arensky's Impromptu played by Ursula and Omela's distinctively Spanish though slightly unstable rendition (probably due to nerves) of Albéniz's delightful Castilla from his Suite Espanola, that I could indulge in to calm my nerves down a little before my performance.

As I walked up on stage, I was slightly more concerned about the coming interval instead of my performance as I needed the toilet. As I started off the Tango, in the Allegro Moderato section, I was struggling to keep the rhythmic tempo of the tango for the dancers in the nightclub, in the midst of the various technical demands which has to be executed seamlessly while keeping the pulse of the tango going. It was the Lento section whereby I was momentarily transported as a time traveller and ghost spectator to the nightclub scene in Buenos Aires in the 1930s. And I had a crash transition from ending of that section to the recapitulation as my impotent fingers decided not to form that chord shape which has a magical effect of bringing the listener back to the dance floor. Well, as for the last section, I was half indulging in the stylistic delivery of the tango (thankfully no longer struggling), and half thinking about the toilet. How glamorous...

Well, for the later half of the concert, the two items which got me mesmerised were Aminah's most alluring French Horn performance and Guan Lin's sincere interpretation of The Romance of the Butterfly Lovers for piano. I was almost knocking myself on my head when I realised that I didn't have the chance to have Guan Lin as my accompanist for my exam because I had postponed it for a season.

All in all, it was a truly lovely afternoon of music, though marred by a not so appreciative audience and numerous mistakes probably caused by nerves. I could concentrate better on stage now, but I realised that I'm losing my tolerance for an audience who can't keep still and quiet in the most crucial and surreal moments of the music. We ought to have compulsory tranquilizers for such people...