Yefim Bronfman

I'm about to get all music-nerd on you. Prepare yourself.

I just got home from a recital with Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, and Lynn Harrell. I've told several people this already tonight, but my soul feels good. I have seen all three of these gentlemen (yes, Lynn Harrell is a man) play many times, and I always feel a kinship with performers I've followed for a while. Add to that the fact that I've played in an orchestra accompanying each of them, and perhaps you can understand. It would be like admiring your favorite band for years, suddenly meeting them, and then seeing them again in concert after a long hiatus.

Lynn Harrell and Gil Shaham are both incredible, there's no questioning this. But the reason I spent thirty bucks on the ticket is definitely Fima Bronfman. Bronfman is my favorite pianist. As a disclaimer, I should state for the record that I don't know all that much about pianists. I know what I like and what I don't like, but I can't give you specifics. At any rate, this is a man who knows how to work a piano. The first time I heard him play was my first summer at the Aspen Music Festival. I was playing in the orchestra, and he performed Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with us. I've heard this concerto a zillion times in my life, but never the way he played it. I still literally get shivers up my spine when I recall the way he played the main motive of the first movement. The only comparison I can think to draw is this:

Do you remember how it felt the moment you realized you were in love for the first time? Do you remember how it felt on your skin when that person touched you? Bronfman touches the piano as if it is his first love, as if it is the most beautiful woman in the world. When he touches the piano, it sighs, almost involuntarily. Sure, this is a big man, and when he wants to he can make the piano sing, laugh, cry, or scream. But my favorite moments are the sighs. I can feel his playing in my whole body. His playing feels like falling in love. Frankly, he is not what I'd consider a physically attractive man. But whenever I hear him, I fall in love with him, just a little bit.

Concerts like tonight give me hope. I feel more serene tonight than in a long time. I can't wait to lie in bed and replay the entire two-hour concert in my head, attempting to store it there for the rest of my life. I wish I could hear it again, just so I could digest it a little more fully. I wish I could just follow Fima Bronfman around a turn his pages for a living.

Alrighty, music nerd time is over for one evening. Goodnight, one and all. I'll be dreaming that I'm a piano.