TEARS
Tears are streaming down my face. My breathing is fitful. I am leaning forward in my chair. Every muscle is tensed up and twitching. Nothing exists, except the scene in front of me.
No, this is not a tragedy. This is not a funeral, and not a personal crisis. It is a concert. Tha Afiara Quartet is playing Haydn’s Opus 33, no 3 in C major, “The Bird”. So why the lachrymation? Yes, I am a mushy sentimental. I cry at movies, sometimes when no one else does, any time there is an intense or emotional scene. I wish I didn’t; I get embarrassed sometimes, thinking that I am making a fool of myself. But this concert is not a tear jerker, so what is going on? It is Haydn! Happy music! And yet, here I am, dissolving. The Afiara is a young Canadian string quartet, composed of three Asians and a Hungarian, with enormously impressive credentials. Winners of several international competitions and prizes, they are one of the emerging forces in chamber music with great promise for the 21st century. As they quietly file in and take their seats there is nothing signaling what is to follow. Adrian Fung fusses a bit with the endpin of his cello, the others move their chairs, position their music stands till they are just so. First violin, Valerie Li, is sitting at the very edge of her chair, leaning forward, head down, bow poised, motionless – a steel spring loaded. And then a flash of her eyes, a slight, barely visible intake |
of breath, and she explosively uncoils. Her body whips back, head and violin swing upward, and despite the motion and speed, the bow is gracefully and unerringly guided over the strings by her graceful wrist.
Incredibly fast, yet deliciously delicate music fills the auditorium. Valerie no longer sits. She dances, she flies, while being in complete control of the sound. Her legs, her feet never stop. Curling under her chair, stepping forward, crossing over, and back again. Her body leans forward and back, she is off the chair with an upswing of the bow, then drops back down at the next bar. She whips her head around, pony tail swinging like that of a go-go dancer, while her slender fingers dance on the strings with lightning speed and complete accuracy. And I have to take off my glasses – they are completely fogged over… The first time I cried at a concert, as far as I can remember, was while I was an undergraduate at Yale, and Vladimir Horowitz came to perform at Woolsey Hall, only the second concert of his celebrated return to performing after several years’ hiatus. He played Chopin and Scriabin and the audience went wild. He gave several encores and during the Nocturne I dissolved in tears to the point of sobbing. I tried to stop but could not. Filing out with the crowd after the performance I was drying my eyes among all the smiling, happy music lovers, and wanted to die of embarrassment. |
Since then the context or circumstances that elicit such exaggerated echoes from me have expanded considerably. I remember crying like a baby during the 1984 Olympics, watching Joan Benoit win the women’s first Olympic marathon decisively, by a huge margin. And crying even harder twenty minutes later, when a completely dehydrated competitor spasmodically wriggled around the track, desperately struggling, inching towards the finish line, pushing medics away while obviously in critical physical condition, obsessively focused on nothing but reaching her sacred goal.
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I cry during the sprint of the Tour de France, or watching a small child sing especially well, or a Kazakh competitor managing to press a quadrillion pounds with eyes and jugulars bulging. Or during the virtuoso performance of the Afiara Quartet, with Valerie Li displaying the same concentration and focus as the weight lifter – in her own way. I guess instances of extreme concentration, supreme focus, superhuman effort absorb me and engage me to the point where I cannot control it. I enjoy the experience more than I can say. The tears are those of joy – they speak for themselves.
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