Post 32: Respectable Third: A Dream Dies

After seven years and almost twenty competitions, I was used to the hurry-up-and-wait nature of the day. Performances stared at nine a.m., each taking approximately fifteen minutes, with five minutes in between for applause, judges’ conferral, and bathroom breaks.

The day was well orchestrated, and no variances were allowed. The schedule called for ten performances in the morning, a forty-five-minute lunch break, and then ten performances in the afternoon. At the National level, this repeated for a second day. At the end of day two, having heard forty performances, the judges culled the herd to three performers who would play again the following morning. Of these three finalists, one would be chosen the National Best Performer.

At this level, there were no age divisions. Fourteen-year-olds like me competed with all ages, up to and including age seventeen. Most of the competitors were fourteen or fifteen. By age seventeen, for most, the deciding competitions had already occurred.

Although we only saw and heard each other play once or twice a year, a core group of us emerged, and we recognized each other’s faces and talents. About half an hour prior to the performance, our groups were led to the stage wings, where chairs were provided just out of the sight line of the audience. From this vantage point, we could not only hear each other play, we could see each other sweat.

I was nervous. With so much riding on my fifteen minutes on stage, I was grateful to focus on the beautiful music being played by my fellow performers. As we had each prepared the same material, per festival rules, the notes coming from the lone piano were as familiar to me as breathing. I knew every rest, every crescendo, and every note now floating across the stage. I closed my eyes and enjoyed my competitors’ labors. I was startled by a wave of applause and sat up, attentive in my chair.

The next performer was a girl my age named Kathy Burns. She was from upstate New York, and for years we teased each other about our accents: hers upstate lockjaw, mine melt-in-your-mouth Shenandoah Valley. Over the years, Kathy had grown into a beautiful young woman, but retained her giving nature and her giggly humor. She had always been supportive and complementary of my playing; I was able to honestly return the praise, as Kathy seemed to improve exponentially each year.

As she approached the piano, a smattering of applause broke out. Kathy was developing a small but devoted following in music circles. She turned briefly to the audience with a reserved smile, and then sat at middle C for perhaps the ten-thousandth time. The hall settled. The judge requested the Beethoven and, following scales and inversions, with the judge’s nod, after the briefest hesitation, Kathy began to play.

The sound of Kathy’s Beethoven caught me off guard. Maybe I wasn’t hearing this right. There was a smoothness, a richness, and a subtlety in her Beethoven that I wasn’t familiar with. Where Beethoven meant legato, Kathy complied and smoothed the notes, rose to forte, and descended again to pianissimo without so much as an exhale. It was, in every sense of the word, effortless.

It struck me, sitting across the stage from this beautiful and magnificent performance: this was exactly the way the piece was meant to be played.

And then came the second and more powerful realization: Kathy is in that league, the one that travels on a wave of greatness, that I will never be in. I was an accomplished and talented performer. Kathy was, quite simply, a step beyond.

I performed my Beethoven to admirable applause, and met similar, complimentary reactions to my Rachmaninoff, concluding with one of my best performances of the Grieg. But after hearing what greatness sounded like from ten feet away, oddly but clearly, the pressure was finally off. With a mixture of sadness and relief, I didn’t wait for my scores.

I found Mama and Mrs. Solenson in the back of the hall and announced that, despite everything, I was not going to be a concert pianist. Mama looked puzzled and stood there, trying to make sense of it all, not exactly sure who needed consolation: she, myself, or the both of us. Mrs. Solenson, who had clearly heard what I heard when Kathy took center stage, looked at me and nodded with a smile. I could now hear the difference that she could hear, and we both were right.

To my surprise, I made it into the finals. Of course, Kathy made it, too, and if you can sweep the floor with someone’s Bach, she did it with mine. Again, her playing was effortless and beautiful. I took third; she took first. And it turns out Aunt Cam was right. For the life of me, I have no idea who took second.