In front of a giant mural depicting seraphim with elongated upstretched arms flanking the entrance to some sort of Greek temple, on a Steinway piano lit orange from within some twenty feet in front of me, Jean-Yves Thibaudet breezed through Chopin, a trite Liszt piece, labored through Ravel and rounded out the program with some strange Debussy. During these latter pieces the silver-haired man beside me was snoring audibly. Thibaudet came back for three encores even though he caught some people in the act of leaving with the second. As a tribute to the German crowd, his final encore was the Liszt arrangement of Isolde's Liebestod, by Wagner. Didn't stack up against the Horowitz recording (but then what does?). Thibaudet was good, though I got the impression that what I had paid for was not so much music, but the mark of status. The Munich aristocracy was out in full force. Many exotic birds about--and qualified keepers of exotic birds, if the looks of their men said anything.
Went to bed early and woke up disgusted with myself. Disgusted because, laying there with my eyes closed and preparing to get up, I was so completely out of touch with reality. But this is a normal part of getting up in the morning as you transition out of the dream state, right? So I don't know why it bothered me so much. Things will not be immediately better. It's going to take time to unlearn.
Posted by Alan at November 16, 2002 06:17 PM