“TWELVE FINGFERS AND FOUR HANDS? No way, stranger!.”
II
But the Zen Master born in Budapest, now living in FlorenceItaly, took Carnegie Hall by storm the other night. His quiet demeanor, communicated the passion and energy of the sublime grandmasters of pianissimo grandeur… Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert, plus three encores, an evocation ofenduring sound for eternity..
III
Spanning the sublimity of his own identification, with these fourimmortals long withdrawn, Sir Amera’s Schiff brought them back to life, two nights ago at Carnegie Hall.
Isaac Stern would have exalted. Itzhak Pearlman Yo- Yo Ma,were at a loss for words, if you could belie it. And JaschaHeifetz, a child prodigy… well the last time our eyes feasted on the larger than life violinist, he was taunting the fates, rushing from a North Beverly Drive deli, in Beverly Hills, in a formidable strut, .to his master class across town, at USC’s conservatory.
IV
Heifetz in his end run did not know San Jose newspaper critic claimed the Zen Master came saw and conquered Silicon Valley with his mastery at the keyboard. That piano playing of this nature, was beyond cyber space’s 21st century..
That Sir Andra’s Schiff did have four hands and twelve fingers, the notes into harmonies like the pebbles glistening under the streams of San Jose’s Silicon Valley.
V
The knighted Buckingham Palace virtuoso at age 61, those twelve e fingers caressing the keyboard in such a way that the audience was enraptured, the pianist offered three encores, the audience caught up in his hypnotic spell, the four composers streaming their own sublimity, goring back to Haydn’s 1780 London “out of the park”... his dry wit and sense of humor seemingly gave a transparency that the London listeners accustomed as they were to a dignified sound, clapping for“encore encore”
VI
The second sonata was Beethoven’s E Major.
From his favored Viennese piano, the stream of harmonies in the key of E Major, the sonorities of Haydn’s Broadwood piano:subtly Viennese knuckle breaker tempo from Beethoven’s growing deafness.
It became the 18th Century, Beethoven taking asunder the drawing room façade. No twinkle toe tactfulness here, the composer damning, charging into the society, hearing and seeing it for what it was. Ripping Emperor Bonaparte’s dedication from his Eroica third E flat Symphony, opus 50.
Sir Anora’s Schiff’s own crescendo into his Budapest roots and political “winter of discontent..”
VII
The transformation into the ethereal cosmos, transfiguring the listeners and the pianist himself, was one with the alliance ….these immortal composers, over and through the majesty of Isaac Stern’s Carnegie Hall culture..
Gone were the other world disturbances in Oklahoma…a student fraternity. Cries of racism in Ferguson, Missouri.
That brainwashing was in these Major and Minor keys of Mozart and Schubert. Their interpreter Sir Amora’s. That popculture was a subterfuge. A Piccadilly Square myth todissimilate the passage of time, from the cradle to the grave.
VIII
The longing for heroes was not forgotten by the radio audienceeither. That the Nostradamus search was no picnic for theSalzburg born Mozart, fleeing from the Austrian court into those Viennese drawing rooms and their hypocritical stance. …..The haute monde and those drawing room pianos nee politics..
No wonder Joseph Haydn got out of himself...and enchanted the London audiences and down the road the Queen, knighting g SirAma’ras Stern.
Young Lion Brodwood pianos.
Ah delirium!
IX
Schubert like Mozart died in his earl thirties. Yet his prodigious output of those dark depression like sonorities..
Nevertheless his perseverance…. a heavier tonal darkness that Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart scoring didn’t bring to the German canon.
The repertoire starting with Alessandro Scarlatti and JohanSebastian Bach.. No cell phone interruption for Sir Amera’s“Hash mark your electronic device, madam. “
X
The three encores spanned the classical period of Haydn and Beethoven into the romantic period of drama…. Mozart and Schubert….their creative pilgrimages assimilating the distance of their setbacks au contraire, from Haydn and Beethoven’saccess to political and economic power.
The Zen master had come complete circle. From those pebbles beneath those Northern California streams, running through San Jose’s Silicon Valley..
“TWELVE FINGERS AND FOUR HANDS” stranger.
March 12, 2015 Thee city that never sleeps.
