by Dorothea Barth ©2010
Written following the Sarah Chang and Andrew von Oeyen recital at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, March 7, 2010
Pianissimo is haunting
Legato is sublime
Soaring without effort
Upstairs to where we climb
In prodigious partnership
Pianoforte plays
I contemplate the fiddler
Who with the music sways
Missed her while in Santa Fe
By four short days at least
But now she's here with us to share
This Brahms, this Franck, this feast
Her tone more golden than her gown
That shimmers in the light
From painted perch high in the hall
I catch the upbow's flight
How does one partake of this
Apollonian tryst
Submerge within its beauty
Or be the analyst?
Surrender is the way to hear
My partner 's firm therein
But then he's never had the chance
To play the violin
To recognize each note, each phrase
As it comes floating by?
Not born to play like this but yet
I can identify
Degrees of separation
She's not so far away
Jump to the other's conscious
How does it feel to play?
I rise with many hundreds
To celebrate her song
And take my leave enraptured
One of the adoring throng
Some hours till the ferry
Transports us 'cross the Bay
And on the green the parrots
Begin their twilight play.
The cherry-headed conures
By scores and scores now sing
Cacophonous their choruses
That down, not upward ring
From eucalypt to eucalypt
Unselfconscious bliss
We stand, an audience of two
Without analysis
On this sun-swept afternoon
Two concerts we have met
Man's most profound endeavor
And nature's canzonet
