So you’re in a fine restaurant, order a dish, eat a little and decide not to finish or to send it back. Maybe you didn’t like it and wished you had asked more about it before ordering, maybe it was under cooked, or that you liked it but you were full. Question, if you were the chef would you march out to the table to make the customer eat it? Well that’s what Itzhak Perlman did recently in a recital after performing a Messiaen piece. Just like in a restaurant though, he could have instead offered the equivalent of a description of the dish or even better, a take out box…….
As reported in the South Florida Classical Review Greg Stepanich writes:
Perlman played the French composer’s Theme and Variations, written in 1932, not once but twice in the second half of his program. “I’m telling you, it’s a terrific piece,” he said, and then suggested that he and pianist Rohan de Silva might repeat it.
But first he had to gently upbraid the audience for its initial lukewarm response to the relatively brief work, which ends with a long diminuendo that expires at the bottom of the violin and piano registers. “Tell me something: Was it really that bad that half of you didn’t want to clap?” Perlman said, then advised them on good concert manners, which involves applause even after you hear something you don’t like.
There’s nothing wrong with being (non-visibly) disappointed with an audience’s reaction, but to turn it back on them as if it’s their fault for not being erudite enough and to demand appreciation? I guess if anyone can get away with it, Perlman can (the audience would have been happy to hear him play anything again I’m sure) and there are a few others that could get away with this (Yo Yo, although he would never do this), but if anyone else tried this approach we should get the Hague on the phone to remind them of the fact that the Geneva Convention makes illegal torture of any kind!
Sometimes either an introduction to demonstrate your passion for a piece or even better a short demo pointing out things to listen for can work wonders. I remember whilst I was with the Buffalo Phil, Robert McDuffie came to perform the Bernstein Serenade, and before playing it he gave the audience a short musical synopsis of the work complete with excerpts using the orchestra and infusing a lot of humor. The reaction at the end of the performance was overwhelming because of the combination of the personal connection he made, his obvious love of the work and his great performance. Using the culinary comparison, he didn’t just serve the Crab legs, he gave everybody a nutcracker and showed them the best way to eat them! He gave the “dish” the best possible chance to be liked, and that is all we can do, we can’t force them to like it!
There is another golden opportunity here especially in the age of the download or in this case the digital take out box. What if Perlman had said to the audience, this is a unfamiliar work by Messiaen, which I happen to adore. Because of it’s unfamiliarity I want to give you all a gift, an opportunity to hear it again, to give it another listen so that maybe you will eventually love it like I do. Go to my web-site tomorrow and you can download the performance I am about to give, please share it amongst your friends!
These days, that is totally possible to do and I think the reaction would have been quite different. He would have only played it the once which would have then been repeated a thousand times the next day! We as performers spend so much time studying and living with music, so it has time to grow on us. It is unfair to expect an audience to hear something for the first time and for them to immediately feel the same way as we do. Art doesn’t have this problem. We can look at an abstract painting and not like it at first, then we can walk around the gallery, come back to it numerous times (even the next day!), try it from different angles and then decide if it’s still just a red dot in the middle of a giant unpainted canvas, or the Sun setting for Eternity (not a real painting, but it could be!). Some works need time to grow on us, so the invitation and the opportunity to download it would give people that time, and just the gesture alone would probably be enough for most of the audience to start to like it!
Giving the audience this kind of gift can only be positive, like the chef sitting down to dine with you explaining the components of a dish. We need to dine with our audience not force feed them, or they will not ask for more, or worse, they might never come back! (Inside joke alert) I wonder if Messaien ever ate Pouisson or Duck a’Lorange ?……..
I had an encounter with Messiaen. In 1987 he came to the Royal Academy for a week long festival. The photo left is from that festival and apart from when he was working with us in rehearsals he was surrounded by an entourage at all times, you couldn’t get near him. It was an intense week of non-stop Messiaen, he heard works he had written that he had probably forgotten about! It had a huge impact on me. On one of the days I was practicing in a room on the same floor as the recital hall, and I noticed him walking past my room…alone! I walked out into the hall, he looked at me and said: pardon, où sont les toilettes? So I escorted him, and just after he entered the restroom the door of the recital hall (recital still in progress) burst open and two people ran down the hall shouting Olivier! Olivier! The recital must have been so engrossing that they didn’t notice him leaving! They both breathed a sigh of relief (obvious joke not needed here!) when I told them where he was, and they patiently waited for him as I went back to the room to practice my part for his breathtaking Des Canyons aux étoiles which we performed the next day.
The above picture is very small, but 3rd from the left is Levon Parikian , Percussionist and now a Conductor who’s father was the great Violinist and teacher Manoug Parikian, Peter Oundjian’s first Violin teacher!