ARE YOU THIS PREPARED?!!

It is every musician’s nightmare to go blank during a performance or simply prepare the wrong piece. Just to think about it almost seems like something out of a horror film, but it does happen. It could be miscommunication throughout the chain of command or simply lack of preparation on the performer’s part.

Performers experience this all this time but on a smaller scale. Missed notes, incorrect phrasing, mispronounced text, demolished diction, early or late entrances, and more. But to prepare for an entirely different piece altogether is something many would just fall apart due to pure shock and disbelief or fear. However, in the video below, renowned pianist Maria João Pires experienced this in a grand way. Watch the expressions of horror and dismay when Pires realizes that the orchestra is playing an entirely different concerto than what she prepared for. Communication was certainly lacking here but NOT how she presented herself. This is astounding!!

This excerpt only goes to 3:37 but this is a powerful example of how amazingly music can permeate throughout your being IF you put it there. This is a level to which I am striving and have yet to get there but as Pires demonstrated it CAN happen.

Conductor Riccardo Chailly said, “She was shocked because she was expecting us to play another concerto. So when I started the first bar of the d minor Concerto, she kind of jumped! And Panicked! Like, like, like an electric shock, I think. She couldn’t [even] see that in her playing. Then we talked for a moment and she told me, ‘I was expecting to play a different piece I will do what I can do if I remember.’ And the miracle is, that she has such a memory that within a minute she could switch to another concerto without making a mistake.”

Pay attention to 2:17- 2:48, how she is bringing everything up from within to perform. If it wasn’t in there, it was not going to come out. This can only be with a level of preparation that leaves no room for mistakes, blips, slips, etc. The beauty in this is in the power of the relationship between music and performer that has been cultivated through hours upon hours of preparation and study. This music is certainly part of her. If it were not, this would have been a disastrous performance.