In Pursuit of Music

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

88-89

text excerpt

Long before I met her I had known about Myra’s magic properties, the spiritual quality in her playing, call it the gift of making the piano sing with a human voice, call it more simply ‘personality’ or ‘soul’ (as my grandmother would have said).  Back in 1931 Eric Hope had introduced me to the Schumann Concerto – we played it on two pianos at the local music-shop, and I had learnt to fumble my own way through it on a slow but exciting voyage of discovery – and then one night Myra had broadcast it, opening up a new continent of sounds and emotions and creating an atmosphere at long distance against which the atmospherics on my crystal-set were powerless.  It was six years before I heard her in person, in the Beethoven G major – another concerto she had an incomparable way with – and how prosaic that magic opening could sound in other hands!   

Long before I met her I had known about Myra’s magic properties, the spiritual quality in her playing, call it the gift of making the piano sing with a human voice, call it more simply ‘personality’ or ‘soul’ (as my grandmother would have said).  Back in 1931 Eric Hope had introduced me to the Schumann Concerto – we played it on two pianos at the local music-shop, and I had learnt to fumble my own way through it on a slow but exciting voyage of discovery – and then one night Myra had broadcast it, opening up a new continent of sounds and emotions and creating an atmosphere at long distance against which the atmospherics on my crystal-set were powerless.  It was six years before I heard her in person, in the Beethoven G major – another concerto she had an incomparable way with – and how prosaic that magic opening could sound in other hands!   

excerpt from 'In Pursuit of Music' pp. 88-89 (161 words)

1477517124210:

1477517124210