An apology

Piano Concerto in A Minor; Edvard Grieg,
composer; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; Dimitri Kitayenko, conducting; Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

Dad’s cousin L. lives in Norfolk, Nebraska. The locals call their town “Nor’fork”, a derivative of “North Fork”. The tenth largest city in Nebraska, it claims Jeromey Clarey, an offensive tackle for the San Diego Chargers, Jim Buchanan, a pitcher for the St. Louis Browns, Johnny Carson, from The Tonight Show, and Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Tony the Tiger and the singer of “You’re A Mean One, Mister Grinch” as notable home town boys.

Through the many years of family reunions, weddings and funerals, L. and his family always came up to South Dakota to see us. I decided, one day back in the spring of 1993, to make the trek down to Nor’fork to see the family. On the way down US Highway 81, I listened to Public Radio. Just as soon as I came up out of the Missouri River Valley that separates the eastern part of the southern border of South Dakota and Nebraska, South Dakota Public Radio was gone and I had to look for Nebraska Public Radio.

It was a special afternoon. In just a few day’s time, the great violinist Itzak Perlman was performing Johannes Brahm’s Violin Concerto with the Omaha Symphony. Nebraska Public Radio studios in Lincoln had invited the violin master to spend this afternoon with its radio hosts. For the occasion, they had asked Mr. Perlman to bring his favorite recordings. Expecting a folder of CD’s, they about filled their pants to discover that he had brought along reel-to-reel recordings from several years’ worth of live performances.

Over the course of the conversations and portions of violin repertoire, the inevitable question presented itself: “Mr. Perlman, don’t you ever get tired of playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto?” “I cannot allow myself to go there,” replied Mr. Perlman. “You know, as well as I, that each and every day, someone discovers the Pachelbel Canon for the very first time and it opens a gate into a brand new world. I have certainly heard the piece to my life-long satisfaction … but we can’t just stop playing it because we’re tired of it. The Pachelbel Canon, whether we like it or not, is a classical music beacon and it leads the way for those wonderful people who don’t know that they want to become classical music aficionados – until they hear the Canon.”

That was the day that I woke up to my classical music snobbery. It’s one thing to be aware that you’re a snob and be comfortable with it – and quite another to shamefacedly discover that you’re neck-deep in it.

Here is the degree to which snobbery had suffused my being: I knew that the Piano Concerto in A Minor by Edvard Grieg was one of the most popular piano and orchestra pieces around. Everybody knew, knows, the first few moments of the piece. Get a load of this: I never got around to listening to the rest of the piece – because, I figured that if Joe Q. Public liked this concerto, then it must not “measure up” musically with the other piano concertos. This was “pop” classical music. And I didn’t have time for it.

World, … I apologize. To all of you. You are not shallow. You just know what you like. If ninety percent of you love the same portion of music, who am I to declare that all of you are under some type of delusion? I stand in front of you all with my head hanging low … begging for your pardon.

In the fall of 1993, I entered a CD shop in Bergen, Norway, and heard the opening crashing chords of the Grieg Piano Concerto. I thought, Maybe I better listen to the whole thing some time. So, I checked out the recording at the register. Norwegian pianist with a Norwegian orchestra playing the music of a Norwegian composer – how can you go wrong there?

One day later, I was sleeping in, in my stateroom aboard the Crown Odyssey, and I got a phone call. “Get yourself up here!” Where? “On the deck!” Why? “Fjords!” Really? “Yes! Now!” I looked out the window and saw solid rock ushering past. I rushed upstairs to come face to face with … the ... most ... beautiful ... scenery … ever. I asked myself, Is it really this beautiful? Or is it beautiful because I’m Norwegian?

Later that day, toward evening, I listened to Mr. Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor by the moonlight. What I heard was the aural, musical personification of everything I had seen that day: the water, the mountains, the snow, the waterfalls, the green, green grass, it was all in the music.

I LOVE Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor.

Credits: Mr. Pachelbel, for your lovely Canon. In D. Indeed.

This is the thirty-eighth of my final forty-five CD’s.