Within the past couple of months, I have been lucky enough to take each of my kids to really great concerts at the Boston Symphony Hall. (round two!)
Often, music will give me visual impressions - a feeling of flying through a landscape, patterns swirling and hopping; visual feelings like these. With these two soloists, I got more than that. The physicality of the players, their instruments, and the pieces they played... well, they all added in some way that I can only describe as spiritual.
Ray Chen playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D, Opus 35 seemed to be about to lift off from the stage physically. Violin held high and almost escaping upward from his grasp. One foot only lightly touching the ground. He body arched towards the sky. And the music just seemed to soar right over me in heavenly pyrotechnics. His million-dollar smile shining across the hall.
Yo-Yo Ma playing Shostakovich's Cello Concert No.1 in E-Flat, Opus 107 seemed to push the music down into the ground and then erupt up through my feet and out of my own chest. His musical punctuations so dramatic that he physically forced his chair to hop into the air on more than one occasion. Seemingly playing a duet with himself at times, his body was an extension of his cello. Rather than a celestial lift, there was a tender cradling. In lieu of a megawatt smile, there was a blissful submergence in the music.
Two different men, two difference pieces, two different instruments. But, in each case, those elements blended into something sublime and intense.
