The Space Between the Notes - IX

The word august, in English, has more than just one meaning.
According to Webster, august comes from the Latin word augustus, meaning "consecrated" or "venerable," which in turn is related to the Latin augur, meaning "consecrated by augury" or "auspicious."

August is marked by majestic dignity or grandeur, to refer to someone with imperial qualities, such as Augustus Caesar, for whom the month was named after.
My month of August was, indeed, very august.

After sitting around twiddling the proverbial thumbs as far as performing is concerned for a very long time, August to me was what Santa is to December.

I count 16 appearances in 4 weeks, in 5 different cities. Where in the past, that might have been part of a regular tour, now, after such a long pause from the stage, it felt like an utter marathon. I’ve compared notes on this with other musicians, as I try to make sense of my emotional and physical feelings, but I sense I’m not alone. It’s been something of a rebirth for the arts, this summer of 2021.

GAIA 2021

GAIA Musicians 2021. Image taken by Andreas Kehrli, volunteer for GAIA since 2012.

My parents are visiting me following on from GAIA, their first time back in Switzerland since Christmas of 2019. Leaning back and considering things while I write this to you, I realise that I’m recuperating from what appears to be some sort of ecstatic exhaustion. It’s not just tiredness – it’s more than that. It’s a feeling somewhere between exultation and a ton of bricks landing on me from a considerable height.

Looking back on GAIA less than a week after the final chord sounded, I’m incredulous of what everyone who works to bring you GAIA, achieved. We have experienced so much as a collective of likeminded beings, my team and I. Our new organisational manager, Andreas Fleck, had to wait 23 months between being hired and the baptismal fire that was his first GAIA festival this past August. Our committee members and volunteers organised and reorganised our festival with me three times, until we could finally play this summer.

I edited the programme that centred around Beethoven at least twice, constantly reducing my performance workload in order to enable other musicians of the festival and yet never being able to let go of some of the pieces: Beethoven’s Septet, his Opus 29 string quintet “The Storm” and his “Ghost” trio, the latter aptly placed in this season of “ghost concerts”. I made incredible new friends – the time I shared with pianist Diana Ketler, violinists Wouter Vossen and Sebastian Bohren, violist Rumen Cvetkov, cellist Benedict Klöckner and bassist Lars Schaper are beyond the ordinary. I’m hugely grateful for the opportunity to play with them – at last, and again.

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Wouter Vossen, Benedict Klöckner, Gwendolyn, Tomoko Akasaka, Lars Schaper, Moritz Roelcke, Igor Ahss, Hervé Joulain. As a group, we performed Schubert's milestone work, his Octet.

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Sebastian Bohren and I working our way through Bach's Double Concerto at GAIA.

National Concert Hall International Master Course 2021

Finghin Collins and I outside the National Concert Hall Dublin just after our streamed recital.

Why am I so tired? Was it because already at the start of the month, my dear friend Finghin Collins and I threw ourselves so passionately into our third International Master Course held at Dublin’s National Concert Hall? Was it because we spent weeks researching Debussy’s Violin and Piano Sonata, the guided tour and performance of which we remain in resonance with?

You can listen to that performance of Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano here.

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Or was it because the marathon that was this year’s GAIA with 7 concerts in 9 days is kind of a lot for anyone? ;-) Was it the joy of being together, in a room, rehearsing, with multiple musicians? Was it the unexpected bout of nerves I experienced as I strode on stage to welcome our guests, and play the repertoire? Was it the journey home to my family in the evenings, the other reality of feeding our 20-month-old three times a night regardless of the limelight?

Vladimir Mendelssohn (1949 – 2021)

GAIA Musicians 2021. Vladimir Mendelssohn is third from the left beside Blythe Engstroem and Dora Kokas. Photo by Sára Timár.

Was it a confusion of feelings? Just days before the festival began, the Berner Zeitung chose the image you see here in this article about GAIA to accompany its preview of the festival.
In this group shot taken in May 2019 we see, amongst other dear friends, Vladimir Mendelssohn. It would be the last time I played with him before his passing on 13 August 2021, aged 71. His spirit swung along during myriad moments when we played this year's festival.

Vlady

Vlady's inscription on a GAIA poster from 2019.

Vladimir Mendelssohn at GAIA 2019

Vlady Mendelssohn at GAIA 2019, by Sára Timár.

Beethoven - Personifying Humanity's Triumph Over Adversity

Whilst other promoters and artists tell me that concerts are being cancelled due to low ticket sales, I am in awe of how well-attended GAIA was. Audience members overcame a sense of trepidation they may have had in the face of the pandemic to join us at our concerts and share in the joy of Beethoven. Of the 7 concerts we had, 5 were sold out.
Being reunited with the public, our team members, the musicians, our families, our technical crew, and collaborative friends such as our sound engineer, photographer and film maker was equally new as it was familiar.
The whole experience amplified the feeling of gratitude I carry with me.

Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, to me, is a mystery of sorts. Were aliens to land on earth and wonder about mankind, I think we would do well to show his Symphony as a monument to our abilities. Beethoven per se, and certainly by way of the idiom he uses so skilfully and the emotions he weaves into his musical cathedrals, has the ability to survive through time. Why? Because he underlines mankind’s ability to overcome hardship, humanity’s triumph over adversity.

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