We just returned today from Fort Worth, Texas, where we attended the semi-final round in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition held every four years—our sixth such experience over the last twenty-four years. Twelve pianists from all over the world had been chosen from a field of nearly 150 over a year and a half, hoping to make the finals grouping of six. We heard each of the twelve in two settings over four days—in an hour-long solo recital and a 45-minute chamber music setting with the distinguished Takacs String Quartet.What can one say? It was spectacular! Every participant seemed worthy of winning—in one way or another. Ranging in age from 19-30, their technical ability and musical sensitivity were incredible. We wondered how even distinguished judges could possibly narrow the field.
During one intermission I heard one of the judges, a Bavarian Radio producer, respond to that query by saying, “I listen for the music.” Not to the music primarily, I took that to mean, but for the music—i.e. for a pianist’s living into the notes being played, to communicate its depth and soul, to let it invade and even possess his or her personality so as to pass it on to others.
“When artists like this are young, it is tempting to think a contest like this is about them and their future. We have as judges to look deeper, to wonder what this or that performer will add to the international music scene over time, given all the rigors that the winner will immediately be subject to. Does he or she have it in them to serve the music, to so perform it as to draw their audiences into its essence and send them home inspired by more than their ability or technique as a performer?”
“Music is about listening and heartfelt feeling,” a local newspaper critic said in his review the next morning. When you really think about it, ought that not be the aim of any of us plying our trade? Bring out the music in the music. “Fill the Earth with Music” as R. G. Huff has it in a contemporary hymn. Get beyond the mechanics of doing whatever you do in life to the essence of what it can convey through you to others.
We return to our home and work not only inspired by the gifts thus displayed in our presence but by the challenge they represent for us to “go and do thou likewise.” One need not be a Cliburn finalist to be a tool in the hands of God. One needs only to listen for and absorb into oneself the music in all of life to help others discover it for themselves.
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