RADIO

I’m sitting so close to Lars Vogt, the world renowned German pianist, that I really get pulled into his timing. He begins with a formidable Janacek, In the Mist, and I’m convinced that I’m in the mist. Or at least well on my way. There is after all only about two feet distance between us, Janacek and I, mediated by a performer in trance. The president of the Schubert Society in Roskilde, who arranged the concert, announced already, by introducing Vogt, what he thought we all ought to feel, namely gratitude of the highest, for after playing for 60 people in the beautiful Biedermeier Hall at Hotel Prindsen, Vogt is going to play Albert Hall for 6000 people. God Save the Queen (from such hassle) —Like we were in need of having people tell us what to be grateful for! But grateful we were. I was, and I wasn’t afraid to show it. I went wild in the end, and I was the only one. 59 people in their 70s behind me—yes, we’re still in the provinces, and yes, there were still empty seats in the front row—were either in pain or were showing their enthusiasm as if they didn’t have any. Of course, it hit me that these people must have thought that they all had to behave nicely what with the concert due to being broadcast on the Danish radio channel P2 on Tuesday. Now, you can’t have all that ecstasy show, or hear, can you? Schmucks. I think I’m going to listen to the concert again—oh, the Janacek was so sublime, and so was Schubert, well Schubert always is—and I can anticipate that I’m going to have a good laugh listening to myself yell Bravo. Bravo, indeed. Such playing tonight, for a quiet crowd in the background, made me think that I was left completely alone on this planet. Alone only with the sounds, the mist, and the silent sweat pouring over the keyboard. For some reason I’m convinced that the radio will transmit whatever wavelength I got to ride into thankfulness.