Prelude

“Turn up the music!” my 82-year-old piano teacher hollered as we raced down the highway, blasting Beethoven’s Eroica symphony. I had been studying with Natalie for fourteen years — since I was four years old. She was going through periodic bouts of chemo, and though she never lost her spunk or shrewdness, I was not expecting this burst of energy to see the pianist Radu Lupu play at a college nearby.

When I started my senior year of high school, Natalie had decided it was time to take two of her students, Mark and me, to see a “real” piano recital. In 2007, before all the world's best and worst performances had been uploaded to YouTube, my world of classical music was limited to the likes of “Bach at Bedtime” alongside Natalie’s recordings and a couple of Greatest Hits — Glenn Gould playing Bach or Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky. I played these CDs over and over, long before I learned of the mystique that surrounded them. “Van” was still just Natalie's old friend from her student days.

The previous summer, though, Natalie had given all her students a gift: a CD from her collection. Mine was Radu Lupu playing the Schubert sonatas I was meant to learn. I had never heard his name before — in my mind, I was just hearing Schubert, not Lupu. Little did I know this was a magic in itself. So when Natalie told me who we were going to see, I recognized the name only because its Romanian syllables were exotic to my sheltered New England ears.

We sat in the upper balcony, in what in hindsight was probably a small hall, but at the time it felt a mile from the stage. Lupu emerged — a bearlike figure in black — greeted by an already-enthusiastic applause before he even played a note. The program was just two pieces: a Schubert sonata and a book of Debussy Preludes. I realized that on CD, I had never really listened to Schubert intently before, and I found myself sucked in to Schubert’s magic — or was it Lupu’s. Drama and narrative seemed to unfold out of nothing — no theatrical gestures, no anguished facial expressions. But beneath his stern frame, his lungs breathed with the song of it, and his fingers stepped to the dance of it. The sound came alive as it wound through the corners of the hall. I had never heard this sonata, and yet its arc felt inevitable, notes running like a river finding its path downstream. Eventually, the music tapered into half-phrases and ended humbly, as if the river would continue flowing after we stopped watching it. I was in awe, transported, and the audience’s applause was generous, but without a heroic conclusion, the room wasn’t brought to its feet.

Intermission was short, and I leaned forward as he began the Debussy — my favorite composer. But by the second of the twelve preludes, my attention had wandered and I was wondering what movie my friends were picking out at Blockbuster that evening. I snapped back only when I recognized La Cathedrale Engloutie, which I knew from Natalie's recordings. To my shame, I glanced down at the program and counted just two preludes remaining. It had all blurred together. How will I have something intelligent to say to Natalie about this one?

As the last prelude ended with two crisp chords, the crowd erupted. I clapped politely, feeling out of touch. From our perch in the balcony, Natalie shouted down to stage, hands cupped like a 12-year-old at a ballgame, convinced the players would hear her from the field. “Encore! Play some Brahms!” She turned to me, “I hope he plays Brahms — I love his Brahms.” Persuaded by two curtain calls, he played his encore. It was Debussy.

Years later, I would learn that Lupu was already considered one of the Great Pianists. His recordings of Schubert and Brahms would lead me to share Natalie's enthusiasm, making him one of my favorite interpreters too. But I never got to see him live again. When he passed away in 2022, I wished I had clapped louder that evening. But walking back to the car, my heart jumped into my throat when Natalie asked the inevitable: “So, what did you think?”

Was it OK to say that the Debussy was too boring to hold my attention? Would saying so reveal that I didn't actually know how to listen? And if Natalie loved it like the rest of the audience seemed to, would that mean that I hadn’t learned to appreciate music?

I stayed silent and waited for her other student, Mark, to speak first. “I loved the Schubert,” he said simply, “but I didn't think the Debussy was that good.” I breathed a sigh of relief, and then another one as Natalie agreed with him. “Yeah, the Schubert was amazing, but Debussy's not really his thing. I wish he had played Brahms,” she said. Now I chimed in with my agreement, elaborating loudly to make it as clear as possible that the opinion was in fact one I already held and not at all influenced by what they said.

That night, hearing Natalie’s validation, I decided to trust my experience. It was a pivotal revelation that happened for the wrong reasons. The fact is, Schubert and Lupu didn’t care whether the listener was at their thousandth concert or their first, they offered their music all the same. The moment the music passed through anyone’s ears, it became their music, too.

Today newcomers to classical music outnumber established audience members, and now I’m usually the one bringing first-time listeners to concerts, hoping that I can share even a fraction of Natalie's enthusiasm. After each one, I ask, “So what did you think?” My heart still jumps, but now with anticipation — hoping they'll say “Best concert of my life! When can we do it again?” Or even just “I thought the Bach was boring.”

But more often than not, they hesitate. “You tell me,” they say. “I don't know much about classical music.”

It saddens me that this is the default response — that we’ve built barriers to classical music so substantial that people can’t even trust their own experiences enough to voice them out loud — but I’ve been there too. These barriers — of knowledge, of culture, of belonging — have been around for a long time, and they won’t come down overnight. In this book, I hope I can reveal some other ways in.