I love Beethoven’s music. I like the melody and the intensity of his pieces. Who can ever not like his 5th symphony? Can you imagine people who, in his time, heard that for the first time? It must have been like listening to Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana for the first time…like WOW, what was that? It’s incredible!
I also really enjoy Beethoven’s Pathétique (Op.13) , Appassionata (Op.27) and Moonlight (Op.27 No. 2) sonatas. So, I was very delighted when I, while skimming through SSO’s brochure, saw that this pianist Rudolf Buchbiner would be performing all three pieces, plus one more I had never heard of. There were only single tickets left by the time I went into the system to purchase tickets, so, I decided to attend the concert myself. This was 10 December 2023.
I am quite sua ku. So, this was the first time I entered the Victoria Concert Hall since it was closed for restoration works. Mind you, it was reopened in 2014. 😬 I think the last time I went there was in the early 90s. I am not knowledgeable about classical music and ballets. I need people to explain it to me, or tell me when the good bits are. That’s why I have hardly attended any concerts since those days; there’s no one to explain it to me since. But nowadays, we have easy-to- understand layman commentaries on YouTube; I can easily go to YouTube to listen to a piece before I decide whether I want to hear it live.
I was quite excited as I found my way to my seat that afternoon. I made small chat with this lovely lady seated to my right. She told me her name was A***** and she sounded British. She seemed very elderly; perhaps in her 80s? I found out that she was a regular in these performances and that she owned a Steinway, but that she needs to sell it now because her apartment has been put on en bloc and her new apartment cannot accommodate the grand piano. Wow, she must be a pretty good pianist to have invested in that Steinway.
The performance started and right from the first minute, I felt this great let down when he started playing. Why? Well, I can’t quite explain it. It just sounded so ordinary. I felt like any grade VIII student would be able to play like him.
And then, I started getting annoyed by the audience around me. Seated right next to me was this mom with her daughter. The mom was tapping her hand on her lap according to the beat of the song. It was not loud, but because I was seated next to her, I could hear the tapping throughout the piece and I felt it interfered with the playing. It was like hearing a metronome while the pianist played. Then…oh boy…the boy seated in front of me, clearly forced to attend the concert by his mom, started fidgeting. He kept trying to find a soft spot on his mom’s shoulder to rest on. Every minute or so, he would change the position of his head. Sometimes, he would rest it sideways on his mom’s shoulder. Then, when it got too uncomfortable, he would lift his head back up. And because I was seated near the front at the stalls, I needed to shift my head each time he moved because I was unable to see the pianist every time he move. I had to restrain myself to lean forward after the first piece ended, to tell him to decide which angle to watch the pianist and then stay put.
So, just like that, Moonlight was over, and he proceeded to play Pathétique. Occasionally, A***** would reach for her binoculars to catch a detailed look at the pianist’s finger work. How was Pathétique? I felt that he played it so emotionlessly. Where was the frustration and the angst in the first movement? Where was the depression in the second movement? And he played the third movement so methodically.
I started to feel very unsure of myself. Perhaps he was playing very well and I was just a sua ku who couldn’t appreciate talent where there was talent.
The intermission came, and a staff of VCH approached A***** with a wheelchair to help her get to the washroom. When she returned and seated herself, she turned to me to ask me what I had felt about the performance so far. I gave her a very tentative look and hesitated to reply. She asked me gently if I felt disappointed. She knew! She then told me that she thought he was putting on a mediocre performance too. She explained that it could have been for a few reasons. He had been performing other Beethoven piano concertos over the past two nights and that he could be very tired by then. She used a term—Beethoven fatigue. She also told me that sometimes, when performers come on stage and see that his audience comprises mainly of teenagers and young children, they won’t bother to play their best. Ah. That made sense.
The second half went pretty much the same. The boy in front started stroking his mom’s hair which made me feel quite disgusted. Fortunately, his mom got irritated with him and brushed him off after a while. The mom next to me continued beating her hand to her lap. In my head, I could picture a scene of her sitting next to her daughter and clapping her hands to keep time to her playing. Eew.
Then, he started playing Appassionata, and something happened and the distractions went away. I was starting to enjoy it. And because he was more into his playing, I felt more into his playing as well. By the end of the third movement, I relented and gave him an applause. Yup. I had been quite rude and did not applaud his first three pieces.
When he finished playing the four pieces, he went off and on the stage several times, according to protocol. Then, he sat down to play an encore. Enough of Beethoven, he said. He would play a Strauss medley (Soiree De Vienne by Alfred Grunfeld). And…he played the most delightful piece! We all thoroughly enjoyed it and when he ended, he finally got the loud applause and cheers that didn’t quite accompany his earlier pieces. I leant over to A***** and said, “Well, he sure took a long time to warm up!” She beamed and nodded her head in agreement.
As the VCH staff came with her wheelchair, A***** turned to me and told me where to look for her should I attend any future concerts at the Esplanade. She also told me to go up to her and introduce myself to her again if I ever see her, as she has weak eyesight and won’t be able to recognise me from afar. Such a sweet lady. She also told me to look out for the review in the Straits Times, to see if the reviewer shared the same opinion as us regarding the performance.
I looked out for the article and here it is:
I suspect that the reviewer may not actually have attended that matinee’s performance. He spent the bulk of the article describing the first two night’s performances and made some general remarks for the matinee one.
I’m actually looking forward to attending my next few performances. I bought tickets for Rach 2 and Rach 3, and I even found a friend to accompany me for each of the concerts, which is good, so that I can tell them to nudge me if I fall asleep. 😉
I don’t mean to be rude by writing about how I felt about this performance. I myself can barely play the piano, and so, who am I to critique a world famous piano player? But it’s like watching a movie; I’m just commenting about how I felt about the movie, even though I can’t act, or direct. It’s how I felt as the audience, watching it. If you attended the same concert and felt differently about his performance that afternoon, please do comment. I would like to hear another person’s opinion about this.
50 and beyond 
Leave a comment