{"id":13514,"date":"2014-07-29T17:22:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T00:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=13514"},"modified":"2014-07-29T17:35:05","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T00:35:05","slug":"house-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/29\/house-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"house concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

When he arrived, just before noon, the house \u2013 on a quiet corner of a 55+ community \u2013 was quiet. The caregiver had gone out to run errands and check on another client. Several long minutes after his knocking, tentative steps to the front door could be heard. “Is that my son?” exclaimed pop. The son entered, gave pop\u00a0a big hug, and looked across the living room at his mom. She was in her customary spot of these past several months. The large easy chair – now the new lift back variety – nearly swallowed her now tiny frame, making her look like a child. So weak. Mentally sharp at times – though well below her fearsomely acute senses of her prime – but often fading in and out of conversations. Always wondering where the dog had gone to. The dog was usually behind her chair, or behind pop’s.\u00a0He said “Last time I was here, in May, I promised you a little concert, so I brought my instrument with me”. “That’s nice,” said mom. “It’s \"IMG_8084\"going to be a work of Bach – his first cello Suite, but for viola” he replied. He got out the instrument, tuned it, and began to play. As he did, he caught glimpses of the expressions on his parents’ faces. Mom, rapt, with a childlike expression. Pop, with his eyes closed, his foot moving not at all in time to the music. The interpretation suited the occasion. He’d been working on playing the suites in slower, more contemplative tempos. Little vibrato, but becoming more expressive with the left hand as the phrases rose to their high points. Not a lot of rubato. The G major Suite is one of the happiest of the six – functioning sort of as an overall Prelude to the huge meta-Suite of all six, if one subscribes to that view. Even the Sarabande is happy, if perhaps just a bit wistful in character. He felt happy, being able to share this with them \u2013\u00a0they hadn’t been to hear him play since his first years in the orchestra, fading vision and the three hour drive being major deterrents \u2013\u00a0if it weren’t for their support, he may never have made it to the point where he could even decide that he wanted to try to make a living in music. It felt like giving back a little \u2013 a minuscule amount, really \u2013 compared to what they had given him. The Menuetts – I and II – so beautifully and artfully given over to their, respectively, major and minor modes, in spite of their melodic similarities (pure genius, this!) go by, and he decided to honor the full repeats (unlike the previous movements, sensing that mom’s attention might wander). Finally, the Gigue \u2013 not too fast, he decided, the tempo has to ride the line between jaunty and l\u00e4ndler, to hit the sweet spot. This was\u00a0a suite played\u00a0for two lives lived long \u2013 for 65 years of marriage, and a combined 173 years on the planet \u2013 and on he played, to its conclusion. The last G sounded, open and resonant. “That was nice” mom said. “Thank you for the concert” pop said. “You’re welcome” the son\u00a0said, “and I love you”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When he arrived, just before noon, the house \u2013 on a quiet corner of a 55+ community \u2013 was quiet. The caregiver had gone out to run errands and check on another client. Several long minutes after his knocking, tentative steps to the front door could be heard. “Is that my son?” exclaimed pop. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-viola"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3vY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2887,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/21\/all-quiet-on-the-orchestral-front\/","url_meta":{"origin":13514,"position":0},"title":"all quiet on the orchestral front","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the middle of the summer.\u00a0 The dog days, one might say, at least here in Portland, where the mercury is expected to top 90\u00b0F again today.\u00a0 There is little going on, classical musically speaking in Portland right now, except for the final concerts of Chamber Music Northwest's summer festival\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"son_lynx_a","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/son_lynx_a-400x612.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13486,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/10\/musical-performances-city-parks-for-the-soul\/","url_meta":{"origin":13514,"position":1},"title":"musical performances: city parks for the soul?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a warm afternoon here in Portland - the beginning of what promises to be a pretty lengthy heat wave (there was a 'heat wave advisory' declared today for the weekend and beyond). I spent the early afternoon working on the Dies Irae movement of Verdi's Requiem for Saturday's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wallace park | photo: charles noble","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/IMG_7508-500x177.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":22489,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2022\/08\/26\/dog-days-of-summer\/","url_meta":{"origin":13514,"position":2},"title":"Dog Days of Summer","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 26, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Lily enjoys the dog days! It's that time of year, summer is winding down. The summer festival circuit is coming to an end. Orchestras with 52-week seasons are just ending their 21-22 seasons or just about to start their 22-23 seasons. The weather is hot, the greenery is starting to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_1414-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_1414-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_1414-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_1414-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_1414-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_1414-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7505,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/04\/15\/the-other-carlos\/","url_meta":{"origin":13514,"position":3},"title":"the other carlos","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"And I don't mean Carlos the Jackal. I'm referring to our guest conductor this week, the thoroughly enjoyable Carlos Miguel Prieto. We had a very unusual start to our first concert with Carlos in Portland tonight (we played in Salem Friday evening). As the lights came down, who should stroll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/gallery-18762-300x446.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3087,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/05\/et-cetera\/","url_meta":{"origin":13514,"position":4},"title":"et cetera?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"On Sunday, September 6th @ 7:30 p.m., the Oregon Symphony will be doing a most unusual sort of concert.\u00a0 We'll be playing at the Oregon State Fair in Salem, and will be the backing band for Peter Cetera.\u00a0 Should be pretty fun, and I'm looking forward to a world-class corn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "pops"","block_context":{"text":"pops","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/pops-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"pc.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/cetera.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7933,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/10\/09\/program-notes-for-oso-concert-now-online\/","url_meta":{"origin":13514,"position":5},"title":"program notes for oso concert now online","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a bit of shameless self-promotion: the program notes that I wrote for this weekend's Oregon Symphony concerts are now available online. Take a read and see if this concert might be one that you should take in. I think it's going to be fabulous, and you'll wish you'd gone,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}