03.08.06
The molecules are alive….with history
I am preparing for my trip to Zuerich, Stuttgart, and Paris. It is an interesting time, as I really found Paris stimulating in November and had some epiphanies while in Switzerland in July. For me, the sense of place, of the earth, the air, the food, the people, is essential to my connection as a performer. I was fascinated to see Richard Wagner’s home in Luzerne, Tribshcen, where Toscanini conducted and where Wagner conceived many of his works and his plans for Bayreuth. I walked the expansive grounds of Tribschen with the tall trees, the vast lake, and the alps in the distance. I could see the town of Witznau where Scriabin went for a water cure in the 1890’s. The beauty, the scale, the light, all the elements showed me how Wagner could conceive the works he did. The mythology felt right at home on this idyllic peninsula. Wagner’s Bechstein piano is purportedly in the same room and spot as when he lived there. I could perceive how Wagner might have felt a mythical existence in a land of seemingly unreal scale and beauty. This mythical existence could be completely divorced from aspects of reality, as at times the creative impulse requires. Wagner perhaps went deeper into a reflexive reality of myths, leitmotives, and neuroses.
I don’t intend to rant against Wagner. So many have done that before I ever knew he existed. But my short afternoon jaunt to Tribschen epitomizes what I experience in Europe..on Mount Saleve outside Geneva, on Monte Bre in Lugano..at Debussy’s grave above Trocadero Square in Paris…at the Rousseau exhibit at the Tate Modern in London… The reality of the past, and of art that still resonates today, almost requires the experience of the place where it was conceived and created. Even decades and perhaps centuries after something was created, a deeper appreciation of the art, the time, the style, the REALITY, can be gleaned.
I find this especially true of my perceptions as a performer. Seeing Witznau where Scriabin was, travelling the train route from Geneve to Basel that he travelled, reading accounts of trips up Mount Saleve during the time he was in the area, all affected my feelings about the Second Sonata he completed during 1895. And it continues to affect my playing of this piece.
Next time I will discuss this in relation to Debussy and my upcoming trip.
