The keys to my heart

07/20/13 

“Mozart!?” i read. No. I wanted to go. I never liked Mozart. As my mind said “go!” and my body waffled, the lights began to dim. Ugh. I missed my chance. “Fine,” i thought. “Mozart it is.”

I know little about what happened in the next two hours, but it transposed my thoughts on Mozart for the better and . . . for good. Federico Colli’s fingers hopped along the ivory keys of the piano, coupling the notes of Mozart’s Variations on “Salve tu Domine” K. 398 and two sonatas. After the intermission, he painted the pictures from Viktor Hartmann’s memorial exhibition — figuratively, of course. There were moments when it didn’t even sound like one pianist playing, but an ensemble of different instruments and singers.

Federico’s majestic power was unforgettable — as were the feelings floating in my body. From the first note, the effervescence was obvious. Never-ending phrases made thinking about everything but the present moment out of the question. My fears of the future and guilts of the past slipped away as my ears noticed every melody — top, bottom and middle — and nearly every harmony and resolution from E flat major to G sharp minor to B major to G sharp minor to A major — the Neapolitan of the original key — to F major. “All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future and not enough presence. Guilt, resentment, grievances, sadness bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough presence,” Eckhart Tolle said in The Power of Now. Federico gave me a nonpareil dose of presence. Nearly every bit of negativity drained from my toes, and, in its place, positivity and happiness gushed in, filling me up from my toes to knees to hips to my belly button, from my fingers up to to my neck, lips, ears and eyes until i was thoroughly submerged in nirvana. In moments, I felt as though I was high or on a drug.

After my two hours of Federico-engendered ecstasy, Mozart’s and Mussorgsky’s melodies played again and again in my mind for days. One week post intoxication, I flew to Bourgogne and Valée de la Loire for a three-week-long holiday, and, as I walked from castle to castle, my eyes goggled at the beauty around me, and my ears, Federico’s mellifluous playing. Before I knew it, August was upon me. The midsummer balmy and toasty month, September, October, November and maybe even December were chock-full of inspiration for me, as a pianist. My motivation to play doubled, the number of hours I practiced tripled and my love for piano quadrupled. I wanted to better my technique, to study and learn — an anomaly for me.

In about four months, though, as little to nothing lasts forever, my inspiration slipped away.

09/23/17

I got the chance to listen to Federico play again — three times in three weeks! First, in London’s Royal Albert Hall, then in Southampton and third in Nottingham. The feelings from New York made it to London even stronger than before, and thank goodness for timing, too, for i was recovering from a three-week-long depression.

I went from feeling nothing to everything. In the middle of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major — the Emperor — my heartbeat got stronger. The moment Federico’s fingers lighted up the fortissimo E-flat major short arpeggios in the Allegro, my eyes closed, and i felt the upturn of the corners of my lips as a soft smile appeared. My breathing deepened, and in the blink of an eye, my vision got blurry, embodying a painting by Renoir or Monet. Little tear drops escaped my eyes, dripping down my cheeks as goosebumps popped up on my arms and legs. A chill glissandoed down my spine from the top of my neck to my toes.

In the moment of silence between the Allegro and Adagio un poco mosso, i thought about Federico’s timing. His dosage of rubatos and breaths is nearly always . . . genius? Nabokov would think so. “Genius is finding the invisible link between things,” the novelist said. I think Mozart and Debussy would agree. “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between,” Mozart said. “Music is the silence between the notes,” Debussy said. Genius or not, Federico is undoubtedly modest. Of course, his technique is strong, but it’s not what i noticed first — he made it about the music, not about him. 

Federico’s playing, to me, is everything i’ve ever wanted from piano. For minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years, i would sit down at pianos, practicing and listening, always hearing in my mind what i wanted my fingers to create. Although my playing never got there, Federico’s got there for me.