December 5, 2004 at 10:20 PM

Today we had Sinterklaas in Holland. It is something like Santa Claus: a big old man in a red suite bringing presents. But we add something to it, everybody makes a poem with the present. I spend a nice evening with my family, cracking up over the poems my brother produces.

Earlier this afternoon I went to a concert of Vera Beths (married to the wellknown cellist Anner Bijlsma) playing Brahms sonatas and the Scherzo. I met her during the competition in Korea and I have rarely met anybody as friendly and nice as she is. We were not allowed to talk with jury members during the competition, but one day all of a sudden she had a plate full of fruit brought to my dinner table, because I needed the vitamins! Or during my first round she had a smile on her face, the whole time during my Bach. Later on I heard she did it on purpose to make people feel more comfortable and be supportive during their performance. Rarely does one meet among musicians somebody that is so focused on the positive.
Today I heard her play after many years. She plays a gorcious Strad from 1727 which has not been tortured to fill a hall with 5000 seats. Her tone is not big, but therefor beautifully sweet.
The concert started with the Scherzo: I have truly not ever heard it play that beautiful. I was consistently surprised by the beautiful phrasing. The sonatas were beautiful as well. In a way it was nice to see a veteran like Mrs. Beths make some mistakes too, I guess it makes it more human. But that is not the thing I want to remember. I want to remember the pianisisimo's in the slow movement of the D minor, so powerful. I guess sometimes performers can create the illusion that sound is something you can touch, that can be experienced with our sense of touch on top of the hearing sense. I have only encountered that once before, with Hilary Hahn and the opening of the Bernstein and some passages in Beethoven concerto. Today I experienced it in a hall and what a powerful experience it was! Even though it was not a perfect performance, it was almost a religious experience, because of her sound. Her vibrato and bow use are also very interesting. Once in a while I felt I should listen specifically for it, but then I would rapidly forget about it, because I would be drawn back into the sound.

I feel so fortunate to be able to listen to so many good performers. I have heard some very good young performers, as described in my last blog entry. And combined with the recordings I recently bought and todays concert I feel I have again gained a whole new perspective. I have never felt so clearly in my life to be growing as an artist. And it is so nice to see that it goes hand in hand with getting more and more serious engagements where I can try out the things I am learning. At the same time most of them are engagements that I am very much invested in. My new year will start extremely well. With two of my closest friends I will performe pianotrios in Swizterland in a little town where a couple years ago my life literally took a complete different turn. In the couple weeks I lived there, I decided to take a year off, move to the US. What I will never forget is that a very dear friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. I was sitting in a small chapel when her husband told me the news. In the couple weeks I spend there, I feel I went from being a girl to being a young woman, having to take decisions that, looking back on it, changed my life. I was forced to grow up, look at life, with all its positive, but also sometimes deeply painful experiences. And now I am going back there, playing for dear friends, some of them whom I have not seen since that periode. And you know, I did not even organize this, it was organized by the pianist, whom I met years later and turned out to know many of the people who had become so dear to me. The pianist and I have worked together now for several years in a pianotrio and when our cellist told she could not continue, we decided to go on the look for another cellist. And it so happened that my best friend had moved from the Netherlands to Switzerland to study with cellist Patrick Demenga, a close friend of my former violin teacher in Swizterland. So it was not difficult to find out who our new cellist would be.
How often in life, do we get the chance to play with our dearest friends, for an audience that have many people that have incredibly inspired me, in a breathtaking environment (I used to go sledding down the mountain there)?
Once again, I feel to be one of the luckiest people on the planet. I often doubt about myself, but if I look at the things I am enabled to do, I can only be greatful. Somebody above (God) is giving me many presents in the form of lots of people I care about and care about me and a language in the form of music that can say what words could not express: how thankful I am!

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for the hospital. I am trusting that it will be my last hospital stay in a very long time. My health has been so much better as it has been in the last couple years, that I am trusting that the doctors can only have good news after this week.

Greetings,
Carla

From Maarten van Veen
Posted on December 6, 2004 at 11:32 AM

Well Carla that's all what it is about, getting to know the people that care about the same attitude as you do. It seems to me that this can't be coincidence all the time. Of all billion people that are around I'm responding to your Blog.

You wrote several very interesting remarks. To many to react all in one response..Strange enough I felt the same about some of these remarks in live in general. The most positiv happenings came to my mind several times in my career(Pianist) and suddenly this week in the middle of the night I found the words for it.

It is still Partial because letters do not express enough: I felt like meeting several great people this year, I would like to speak of musical-soulmates. Isn't that what connects you to other people? The spirit or soul?The music experienced by different souls. I believe that is what counts in live and on stage.

Audience hear every detail when you wish it in present time. So they will hear the connecting of souls too.(Although this frase looks a bit strange when I write it like this.)
Mr. M. Pressler and many others..showed me this in several concerts. He changes the Concertgebouw Bill Hall into a intimate livingroom with gaining on the musical content because of this.

When I perform solo, it is the fascination that I feel about the music that I enjoy and pass through to the audience. Actually it is for me the most easy way of performing, telling a musical story, like a bedtime story to child.

When I perform as a duo the musical talk between the two (or more souls like a whole Orchestra) and telling the bedtimestory togheter gives it a mutual feeling, and unexpected moments who are not exchangable with anything in the world. I deccided when I'm around on this planet this is my main goal.
I felt like writing this to you as a mutual experience that I wish every single person in the world, who wishes to feel the same.

Maarten van Veen

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December 5, 2004 at 10:20 PM

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