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Violinist William Harvey was one of the Juilliard students to tour Europe with the orchestra this summer. An unfortunate hand injury (from which he has fully recovered, we are happy to report) kept him from playing all the concerts—but enabled him to do something the others in the group could not: listen to the performances as an audience member. The following is an excerpt from his tour diary.
Berlin, August 22, 2005
I simply do not have the words to tell you how incredible my colleagues were in the Rachmaninoff tonight. Quite simply, it was the best performance of anything I have ever heard. The ornately gold-wrought Konzerthaus, flanked by statues of composers, topped with gigantic crystal chandeliers and beautiful paintings, was magnificent, but it seemed petty and small in comparison to the artistry the Juilliard musicians showed. When the piece finished, I was so numb emotionally that I could barely clap. Only when the first few cliché chords of the Bizet encore sounded could I fully connect with my emotions and break down into tears, shaking. I leapt immediately to my feet following the Bizet, clapping as hard as I could. A doctor would have told me not to do this because of my finger. I do not give a damn.
From the very beginning, the cellos and basses showed us a deep reservoir, a dark, watery doorway to a compelling emotional universe. When the violins played the first movement theme, their unity and fluidity of character were entrancing. In numerous places the horns blazed with a majesty and terrifying awe that would be the envy of any king or god. At the beginning of the third movement, the clarinetist spun out an exquisite solo, every note hanging on the air like gossamer, floating slowly over the carpet of violins.The melody seemed to ask for something: love? contentment? youth? … but with such humility that would break your heart. And in the last movement, the string players pouring their hearts into every note of that last glorious melody makes me think that those who played it are more than a credit to Juilliard, or even to the United States. Every one of those students on the stage is a credit to humanity, that we dare to touch the divine, and very rarely, succeed.
This is what music can be, then: the most noble calling a person can aspire to. No pencil-pushing for those musical folks: they are in the magic-making business, the life-transforming business. To hear a group of young musicians play with such obvious love for the music, each other, and their school, to see them affect a group of critical foreigners so deeply that they brought out DePreist so many times he had to eventually silence them in German ... this is to understand why we live.
There is no conceivable experience in my future that I would not have traded to be up there playing. Had a genie allowed it, I would have traded a Nobel Prize, an Oscar, anything to be up there tonight. I simply count myself lucky that I was able to sit in the audience, and pity the several billion people who were unable to make it to a performance I will remember till I die.
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