(Bach had his own health issues, too, namely, he went blind and then died after a botched eye surgery because it was 1750 and his doctor turned out to be a charlatan.) Bach's all-consuming obsession with music can also be chalked up to his own adversities, namely the loss of his parents at a very young age. “I think it's probably hard for audiences today to separate his biography and his personal struggles from the way he plays,” Talle adds. He's going for the spirit rather than the letter. A 1996 New York Times profile of Martins mentions that most purists believe his Bach is “crude and indefensible.” Andrew Talle, a musicology professor at Northwestern University and a Bach scholar, tells me that “Martins is a particularly avid advocate for the type of performance that is rooted in your own personal experience and taste and much less worried about accuracy. His playing is less about historical fidelity-which can be a moot point, anyway, since the Steinway wasn't even invented until more than a century after Bach's death-and more about romance and feeling. But if Martins is considered one of the greatest and most respected interpreters of Bach in the world, he can also be polarizing. I was mesmerized by old clips in which he rocks back and forth, murmuring to himself, while his fingers race across the keys: part mystic in a trance, part athlete at peak form. I'm not a classical music expert, but I do know that hearing Martins play is transportive. When the girls there learned he was in town to perform, they wanted to go to the concert, so Martins reserved some tickets for his “relatives from Cartagena.” His relatives from Cartagena ended up sitting next to the bishop and the mayor. He didn't lose his virginity until he was 20 years old, at a brothel in Cartagena, Colombia. “I learned that I should probably not say that, because a lot of people perhaps find it quite difficult.” He had a happy upbringing but, like most prodigies, a sheltered one: practice, perform, rinse, repeat. “Piano, when I was a kid, I'd say it was easy,” he says. It soon became clear that he possessed an extraordinary talent. Martins started playing at age seven after his father, who had once dreamed of being a pianist himself, encouraged his son to take up the instrument. Thirty-five minutes of calisthenics, 250 crunches, and 500 stair climbers later, he'll sit down at his Steinway for some Bach. If it's not in the obituaries, I ask for two fried eggs, and then I start the day with the stamina of a 20-year-old young man.” with zero remorse.) “Then I open up the newspapers to see whether or not my name is in the obituaries. (Sebastian, a miniature ball of white fluff, looks exactly like a dog who would demand little banana treats at 5 a.m. I can't go back to sleep after that,” he tells me in a charismatic rumble. “Sebastian, my dog, he licks my forehead and he asks for a little banana treat. “You see a lifetime of playing and loving and appreciating music.”Īt the time, he was preparing for a big Carnegie Hall comeback concert for this fall, practicing for two to four hours every morning, but that's been pushed to next year. “You can see it all in that video clip,” he tells me. My friend Adam Weiner, frontman of the band Low Cut Connie and the most acrobatic piano player I know, found himself deeply moved by it. It continued to spread throughout the year, gaining new resonance during a pandemic that disproportionately affected the elderly and left many of us ruminating on our mortality and our priorities. This video may have been catnip for the inspirational industrial complex ( 80-Year-Old Classical Pianist Plays Again Thanks to Bionic Gloves! #MotivationMonday!), but it was also genuinely affecting. That day with the gloves, I got even more emotional than I usually do, and a little tear fell from my eyes.” “As soon as I put my hands on the keyboard, if lightning strikes or there is a massive thunderstorm, I don't hear it,” Martins says. When he does, it's a full-body experience he leans in close to the keyboard, his face repeatedly crumples with emotion. These unusual gloves are what make it possible for him to play. A dignified older gentleman sits at a piano wearing a black cowl-neck sweater and a pair of black gloves that look like something out of Tron. Last year, a video began to make the rounds on the internet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |