The unwanted visitor

A couple of days ago I played my first bandoneon solo recital of the season.

It was in Valencia, Spain.

The concert went fine, it was nearly sold out so there was a nice amount of a very receptive and cheerful audience which is always something to be grateful for.

A concert is always an unknown situation. Even when you play in a theater you´ve played in before, it´s never the same public or the same pieces of music or the same temperature in the hall, or the same state of mind.

There is no possible way of really preparing for a concert if you take every little detail into account.

Not the perfect situation for control freaks… I had to stop being one in order to survive.

Especially when a situation like yesterday occurs. It was a very warm evening, 32 degrees Celsius and lots of humidity, in a closed space with lots of people and no air conditioning. Nobody was prepared for such strong heat during this time of the year.

This meant lots of uncomfortable sweating (I got a free cardio workout) and also lots of bugs. Flying bugs biting me while listening to Bach. And spiders.

A big spider came to check my scores while I was playing Bach´s d minor Toccata. He must´ve spotted something interesting, like a mistake in the score… perhaps it looked like a very appetizing bug?

Normally I´m not too afraid of spiders but I have great respect for them. That means that I try to stay away. And I definitely don´t appreciate them getting too close to me. So a big black hairy spider running around my scores wasn´t helping my concentration very much.

WHat did I do?

Forget that it exists.

For, believe it or not, this is not the first time I´ve had to deal with these sorts of things. And experience has shown me that concentrating on just one thing at a time (in this case, the music I´m playing) is the only way to get out of the situation.

Now, let´s forget this tense situation and relax with some pleasant music.

I offered a free copy of one of my latest piano pieces, I´m going to share now the link so you can download this piece and listen to my performance of it. Optionally, you´ll also be able to listen to and purchase the other pieces from this album if you wish on that same link.

Have a great day.

Claudio.