“You have to enjoy the music!” And: “Breathe! Breathe! BREATHE!!!” Today I remembered a memorable cello lesson from my beloved teacher at the conservatory. One of the few lessons where I burst into tears of frustration. That never happened; although he could sometimes be quite harsh with his students, he was always constructive with me and I could feel that he believed in me.
But that day it sounded really lousy. I was so stuck in doing my best that the chance of enjoying and breathing had dropped to well below freezing point. And of course it doesn’t help when you are given the imperative task to enjoy. Still, I understand what he meant. And that lesson has always stayed with me over the years.
It is, of course, about surrender. When I go to a concert I want to see, hear and feel the musician play with every fiber of their being. I want them to hold nothing back. I want to be swept away into the music without being bothered by their ego and the problems that ego has, whatever they may be. Yes, we all want surrender in our playing.
You can recognize real surrender immediately. Both as a player and as a listener. You see that someone is transported, that there is nothing between the musician and the music. It is also rare. Because you cannot force it.
Still, I tried to do exactly that of course. At first it was through perfection. Because after that memorable lesson I thought: well, I can only enjoy myself when there are no more out of tune, wrong, boring, uneven, scratchy or squeaky notes. So let me strive for that first. Uh-uh. That wasn’t it.
Then I started learning the Alexander technique. With the idea: then I can prevent myself from tensing up at all times and I’ll have complete control. And then it will be fine. And indeed: learned a lot, playing and breathing more freely than ever. Much more control than before. But a guarantee for surrender? Hm… mwah.
In recent years I have been training as a Taoist. Ancient Chinese wisdom that teaches you to be the ‘eye of the storm’. And for me that means: maintaining an inner – and therefore also outer – calm in the midst of all of life’s turmoil, including concerts.
Tonight while studying I realized that surrender does not mean that you have to lose yourself. Wasn’t it Richard Strauss who said: “Der Muskier soll kalt bleiben, damit das Publikum heiß wird”? Of course, kalt does not mean detached! This is what I mean. Being so calm, physically and mentally, that you can let the music flow through you. Being so in touch with your body that you can regulate it while it does difficult things, experiences beautiful and intense emotions. When it perhaps does not sit quite comfortably on the chair of the day, or starts straining to compensate for dry acoustics. And so on. There are so many circumstances that stand in the way of surrender. But if you become a container big enough to let it all exist and if you can keep your attention on the music with gentle and true interest despite everything, then it can happen: Enjoyment. Breathe. Surrender.
Photo: Bodil Anaïs
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