This blew my mind...

Many years ago, I saw something that blew my mind.

Something that hadn’t even occurred to me that would even be possible.

A friend of mine, a very talented musician from Finland who was terribly gifted both as a piano player and also as a bandoneon player, was about to play a concert in a small city that I was visiting at the moment, called Tampere.

Tampere was the city I wanted to live in, it had more activity and was more beautiful to my eyes than Lahti, where I lived.

But anyways, that’s irrelevant to this story.

My friend Mikko had performed a fantastic concert as usual, and he was about to play the encore. He sat at the piano, but at the same time, he picked up his bandoneon. I didn’t quite understand what he was up to.

When I saw him play a beautiful song by Carlos Gardel called “El Día que me Quieras”, playing the accompaniment with his left hand on the piano and the melody with his right hand on the bandoneon, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Well, I could because I was seeing it, but it seemed wrong. It seemed impossible.

Many years later I was having a conversation with another friend, a gifted and famous opera star, right before we were hitting the stage of Budapest’s beautiful Opera House to play a concert together. I told him about this Mikko guy who pulled off this crazy stunt with a piano and a bandoneon. He was amazed.

It was time for our concert. The audience was packed, and the concert went beautifully.

Everything was ok until we hit the stage one last time for the encore. I saw my friend Erwin grabbing his microphone and telling the audience that they would now see something they’d never seen before. Something impossible.

I wondered what could that be. But then he announced it:

“Now, you will see my friend, the amazing Claudio Constantini, perform a piece for you on the piano and on the bandoneon… TOGETHER”.

I was shocked. What a crazy bastard!

I had two choices, either flee and run away cowardly, or face up to the challenge.

I took the second choice. And it went as good as if I had been doing it for years. I’m still not exactly sure how that could be possible, other than my firm belief in myself that I could do it.

Ever since then, I’ve been regularly playing with this stunt.

I love it.

People love it.

It´s a win-win situation :)

Here is an older video where you can watch me play some Bach with my two instruments at once: Two-part Invention in A minor by Bach.

Next time you think something is impossible, think again. There might just be a way to do it ;)

Have a great day,

Claudio.