on “Elegy for the Victims of the Tsunami of March 11, 2011 in Japan” – Nobuyuki Tsujii
by richibi
“Tsunami“ (1998)
__________
while watching Nobuyuki Tsujii play the
extraordinarily demanding Tchaikovsky
First Piano Concerto on television the
other night, with no less than Valery
Gergiev, conducting the resident
orchestra at the Mariinsky Theatre in
Moscow, for its White Nights, I was
wonderstruck by the challenges a
visually handicapable pianist would
have to conquer in order to reach
such an apogee
everything must be learned by ear, all
items must be discovered tactually,
from the piano itself to the very
individual keys, not to mention
the player’s very own fingers
there can be no visual contact with a
conductor, either, for cues, for
instance, nor for any other
accompaniment, for neither even an
audience, it would all take place in
the dark recesses of the head, the
amorphous and, I suppose,
confounding, cerebellum
later he played for an encore his own
composition, “Elegy for the Victims of
the Tsunami of March 11, 2011 in Japan“,
a fine addition to my budding collection
of threnodies
and a very, very moving piece
an elegy, incidentally, is usually written,
while a threnody is composed, but these
terms are often used interchangeably, as,
indeed, they are here
you’ll note the utterly Classical mode of
composition of the “Elegy“, it adheres to
a uniform tonality, a consistent tempo,
and the grounding and comfort of
repetition, returning always to the main,
endearing air, rather than more modern
tripwires and stridencies, traditionalism
being not an inappropriate, nor ineffective,
mode of address for honoured forebears
long live Classicism
R ! chard
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