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AFTER MARK
[If performer wishes to interpret this this passage by very staccato] When I marked the moment of first seeing your face it was Sunday morning at 5 o’clock and I’d woken dreaming of it pressed against mine from behind and to one side. If it was a memory the room was unfamiliar. I am going to accept its reality as a proof of curved time. My life will fly towards it as when a falcon stoops, screaming down warm air, ripping its wings, and the sun placed behind dazzles the young pigeon below; the grey bird oblivious travels on; flecked warrior above limned in light holds course; a juxtaposition of feathers; the two spiral to earth like Icarus [and Daedalus weeps for a thousand years] the two spinning to earth one dying one flexing its talons for landing square [and Icarus’ bright feathers scatter the Aegean Sea]. If it was a memory the room was unfamiliar. Visions
The tree outside is perfectly still —in that it wobbles around the outline-- The stillness of something not quite there Existing in the pause between seconds. Images slip like that too Hovering about the frame; Light through the window a moment Imprints the room in red —and my eyelids when you’re gone-- And for days we see framed clouds blinking But like evening primrose the mind blooms only a moment Then settles into stillness And soon, searching with hazy arms, Visions disappear: The world shrivels under scrutiny. But, sometimes, in the moments just before sleep, Like snow drops they slip up from the ashes, Planted and forgotten. Maria João Pires was expecting to play another concerto
“When I started the first bar of the D Minor she kind of jumped and panicked like… like an electric shock, I think. She couldn’t consider even moving ahead playing, you know? Then we talked a moment… and the miracle is that she has such a memory that she could within a minute switch to a new concerto without making one mistake.” –Conductor Riccardo Chailly Playing a Mozart concerto is very much like riding a bicycle. But she looked desolate: kept plucking her hair out, saying she couldn’t. I knew I had the other one somewhere but if we swapped it now the audience would notice. When her part came she treated the keyboard like it might be trapped. I never worried, though. As I implied before, playing a Mozart concerto is like tapping into the latent until it remembers you. She knew the piece beyond pulse and muscle. |
