A touching story about an old man and lost love

Stories from the road…

I´ve got so many of them from constantly touring around the world.

A beautiful one comes to mind for me to tell you today, one that gives me a bit of chills.

Once, I was in the middle of a tour in Russia and I performed in a city some 45 minutes away from Moscow (I forgot the name). It was an old community built specifically for top scientists during Soviet Union times. Afterwrads it just expanded and became just like any regular city, only now in a somewhat decadent state.

I performed there a piano recital with some of my favorite piano music and I was especially inspired that day, for some reason. Poeple liked it so much that I gave three encores, and among the encores, I performed music by Schumann, Chopin, and Debussy.

After the recital, many people came to greet me and ask me for an autograph.

But there was one man who I noticed from afar. He was very old and very wrinkled. He came towards me with tearful eyes. He spoke a bit of broken English, and I tried my best to understand what he had to say.

He had been touched throughout the whole performance because apparently I had made him remember of the older generation of Soviet pianists (what an honor!).

But when I played the last encore, his heart almost stopped… the piece I had just played unlocked a decades-old memory in him.

Many years ago, 70 to be exact (or so he said), he had fallen in love with a beautiful young lady who happened to study piano at the Moscow Conservatory.

And she used to play a piece for him that had the sweetest melody he could remember.

Even though she was very friendly with him, eventually his love for her was not corresponded and she ended up falling in love with another man (a musician) and marrying him…

Eventually, this man forgot the name of that piano piece and even who composed it.

But she was the love of his life, and he never forgot her.

Apparently, me playing it as an encore was the first time he had heard it again after 7 decades. All those memories came back to him, all of a sudden when I played the very last piece of my recital.

Isn´t that just an incredible story? For a moment, I felt like I was being sucked into an old love-story movie.

I´m sharing with you an audio that was recorded of me performing this same piece many many years ago at Amsterdam´s beautiful Muziekgebouw, it is a live performance. Even though it´s not the same performance as in Russia, it still is the same piece and I hope it transports your imagination to this extraordinary situation.

Listen to La Plus que Lente by Debussy here.

Have a great day!

Claudio.

P.D. Two more days until I open my membership. Pay attention to tomorrow´s mail if you´re interested.

P.D.D. If you didn´t listen to my explanatory audio yesterday about the membership, you can do so here: Membership Audio.