GRADUATION RECITAL

GRADUATION RECITAL

Rites of passage, the passing

from childhood to adulthood,

the letting of blood, scarring,

disfigurement of face and

body, the prolonged fasts

of aboriginal cultures, while

not unknown to the music

major, are generally absent

from this ritual, but the

graduation recital, is, indeed,

a sacred rite of passage.

Preparatory rituals include often

a prolonged time of isolation

in air-starved practice rooms,

paper wedged in the door windows,

forcing focus, communing with

the spirits of decomposing

composers, to seek out

through incessant practice,

the intent and magic of

their music hieroglyphically

imprinted on paper in pitches,

notes and staff, and the

connection once made imprinting

the same on the musican’s

mind, body, and soul.

.

For twelve long months, in

various practice rooms at

St. Kates, had I held these

musical séances with

the spirits of J.S. Bach,

Bela Bartok, Franz Schubert,

Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn.

Preludes and Fugues, Sonatas,

Hungarian Dances and Rhapsodies,

arias from the love life of Figaro,

and multiple variations on a theme,

seventy pages of music, a

numerological sacred number,

a quest as holy as that of the Grail,

keep mind, fingers, and spirit

focused, practiced and nimble.

You restore balance to this

obsessed, off-kilter life,

pulling me from my

self-imposed exile from

the world, a hermitage

of oft-repeated musical

passages, vain attempts

at seeking perfection

allaying the fears and

anxieties of the recital

as it looms larger in the

passage of time outside

the practice room door.

You propose a change of

locale, a trip to Anoka-Ramsey

where you meet up with

nursing students to study

for the Boards, I seek and

sequester myself in a

practice room until our minds,

mutually overloaded and overdosed,

lead us to Patrick’s Place on

Larpenteur where we wrap

our numb, exhausted minds

around a couple of Rum and Cokes

ending the day in your car,

a place carefully secluded, to

unwind in lovers’ play shielded

by steam-coated windows.

The time is nigh, programs

printed, the Musical Periods

represented and shuffled

like a deck of cards, in and out

of order. Start with the Baroque,

slip in the Modernist, a little

early Romantic, late Romantic,

Classical and ending in Romantic.

Everything memorized, bows

practiced, musical decorum honed,

new suit, new shoes, new socks,

no you, alas, verboten it is

of even a hint of sexual contact

prior to a concert, theories

abound of sex’s effect

on the performer’s stamina

and concentration detrimental

on the concert stage as it is

to the boxer in the ring.

Challenges to that theory

aside, desperate allusions to

the sexual prowess of Franz Liszt

quickly hushed and dismissed

reminding me that neither

the psycho-sexual drive or

the physical stamina of Liszt,

much less his musicianship

was something I possessed.

We, instead, make plans

for a post-concert painting

of ourselves and the town.

The night arrives, all that can

be practiced and memorized

completed, I feel clothed with

a steely attitude, a fatalistic

“que sera sera” patina.

I walk the brightly lit stage

and bow to the dark-covered

audience, peering into the

darkness hoping to catch a

glimpse of you. The moment

my seat touches the piano

stool my hands launch into

the Bach, fugue subjects

fly around, augmented,

contrapuntal fragments of

notes, retrograde sounds

inverted like polyphonic

musical bats hanging from

the staff. A pause for applause

then Bartok’s Hungarian

Dances, polyrhythmic sounds

darting over the keyboard

like sparks afire in the night.

Schubert woos the listener

in the key of A minor, the

Sonata Allegro form par

excellence, the Rondo

movement exhilaratingly leads

to the Hungarian lover, Liszt,

his brooding Rhapsody’s

opening chords, power in

a minor key, leading to

a passionate transition to

a major key, ebbing and

flowing, a seduction of

sound seeking the listener

to acquiesce to its passion,

an orgy of musical climaxes,

sonic sexual energy in

octaves, both hands, compels

the listener to consider

a cold shower as

the final chords sound.

Blessed intermission, vocal

warm-ups with my voice teacher

who, like a boxer’s trainer and

cutman, gives me last minute

pointers, tips and encouragement.

Then pushed onstage with my

accompanist, we roll out Figaro’s

love life with double articulated

“Ts” and tightly rolled “Rs”.

The last fifteen minutes of my

ninety minute concert have

arrived, once more I enter

as the pianist, my mind, tired

from the emotional toll and

extreme focus of the recital,

begins to slip around the

seventeenth variation on a

theme, so near yet so far,

memory block shutting off

the picture of the music

running through my mind,

a brief panic, and then,

finger memory takes over,

the muscles of the fingers

and hands trained over and

over in repeated patterns

play until my mind clicks

back on again, the music

restored in my mind, takes

the last measures home.

I stand and I bow in classic

form, the musical marathon

over, exhausted in body

and mind, I bow once more,

then head to the lobby to

greet my guests. You stand

by my side and slip your

arm around my waist. Drop

dead exhaustion, my lips

doing all they can to just give

you a peck on the cheek.

There will be no painting of

the town tonight, no. The only

place I am heading to is

bed. As we part, I grasp your

hand, and in grand Scarlet

O’Hara fashion whisper in your

ear, “tomorrow is another day.”

© 2015. The Book Of Ruth, Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.