Alfred Brendel

The ceiling is rippled, striated for better acoustics, the walls a warm knotted wood, dark pine, absorbing and muting at the edges. The armrests are covered and plush and the seats narrow but wide enough that I can lean to the side, resting gently on my extended fingertips as I find my window to the stage. His hands are reflected in the smooth front of the black paint, dancing and sighing over the keys, flourishing up after a chord to let the subtle tones ring out, holding the silence. No one claps between movements, the first concert I've ever been to without the cardinal mistake. I have a moment of indecision during the Impromptus - two in a row by the same composer - what does that count as? - but I hold my peace and am right to do so. The old woman behind me sucks her cough drops noisily but when I can relax and unfocus my eyes and slip into the repose that is far too often lacking in my life I am drawn out by the undertow of the chords, tickled by the trickling arpeggios, Mozart's swirls of chromatics. So long since I have been to any sort of concert, so long since I have been to any whole sort of concert. Ethan is bored after the first half and wants to leave at intermission so we run to catch the bus - but today, today I am alone (where is Nathan?) and happy to be so. The seat next to me is empty, the other filled solidly by a middle-aged professor discussing with his wife the goings-on of class. I am invited to meet Classicists afterwards in the lobby for some social occasion but I bow out ahead of time knowing I will savor the quiet walk past empty streets and forlorn buildings into a silent world of my own making. I do not communicate well after concerts, I abhor human interaction. I relish the moment of pure emotional solipsism, feeling and surrender, that is so precious and rare. Yet I am bursting in some kind of vulnerable efflusion and I think of calling Ethan, my mother, my sister, someone to unhinge my mind upon and to call me back into the momentary world. I sit, instead, feeling the emptiness that is full, or the fullness that is empty, flicking this: may it fill a void.