Like Son, Like Father

Ninth International Van Cliburn Piano Competition 1993; Regard de l'Esprit de joie; Oliver Messiaen, composer; Christopher Taylor, piano; Valery Kuleshov, piano

About six times per quarter at CCM, all piano majors, grad and undergrad, had to attend Masterclass. They held them on Friday afternoons and each piano faculty member took a turn at leading the sessions. The faculty didn’t have fast and hard rules, but they did expect each of us to play for one of the masterclass sessions during the quarter with the idea that we would play for someone other than our own piano instructor.

On the second Friday after Thanksgiving in 1989, one of the undergrad students, MC, took a seat at the bench to perform one of the most dissonant, thrilling, cacophonous, spine-tingling, chord-clashing, hair-raising, grating and riveting musical trips to a steel mill that I had heard in a month. “MC,” the instructor asked, probably knowing the kind of answer he would receive, “when did you learn this?” “Oh, I got bored the day after Thanksgiving so I picked this up and worked on it for the rest of the weekend.”

Oh, for crying out loud, that narcissistic, flamboyant, diploma-less impresario. He did this just to prove that he could play it, the attention-loving, twelve-fingered, little monkey. Hmmph. Still … I kind of like the piece. Better write down the title and the composer. See how long it takes ME to learn the piece.

In February of 1996, I took the opportunity to play an alumni recital at SDSU. Having found the music for “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus” by Olive Messiaen at a sheet music store in Nice, France, I began working on the piece that I had heard MC play at that masterclass all those seven years before. You know, I’ve worked on difficult pieces before, but, Jeeze’M Crow! I almost drowned in this thing! Thank the good Lord I had six months to learn it.

Let me say that this recital had me stoked. A lot of people had told me that they would come; teachers, church members, classmates, friends, family and music instructors from my student days. As I stepped out on the stage, the first thing I saw was my cousin Dale with his family in the front row, with his cowboy hat sitting in his lap and a grin underneath his handlebar mustache.

All the way through the Beethoven sonata, the Chopin sonata and Debussy’s “Clare de Lune”, I thought, How is my hayseed cousin going to react to this high-brow, ethereal yet athletic, serialistic essay on palindromic rhythms, parametrisation and the baby Jesus?

Well, after the applause, and one encore (“We’ll Meet Again” by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, made famous in 1939 by Vera Lynn), I met “my public” in the reception lounge. Dale met me at the door with no perceivable control over his enthusiasm. “My God, I’ve never seen hands move so fast in my entire life! Kids, listen to your father when I tell you that if you just learn the choreography between the manual gears and the clutch on the John Deere 730, well, you may be on your way to playing the piano as fast as your cousin, Erik.”

My Uncle M. was there, too. “I don’t understand anything about that last piece that you played, but I’m absolutely floored.” My dad asked, “You liked it?” “It was the best thing on the program. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep till three AM.” Then Dad said,

I think he did it just to prove that he could play it.

Credits: To my long, lost friend MC, now a piano instructor at CCM. What a talent! Thank you for your wisdom at our bible studies.