adelaidemedblog

Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel steeped in culture.

The Wedding March, an arrangement of the piece, first composed by Mendelssohn, then arranged by Liszt, and finally re-arranged by Horowitz, created a sound that I had never heard before. I remember that time, when I listened to it on that stereo in the family room. It was played by some Alexander… Gavriluk, some 15 year old who I generally regarded a child prodigy, who played it for his final number in the Yamaha National Youth Piano Competition (I forget the order of the name, but it’s all in there). I should sit in my green chair and relive that memory, some day. I probably was no older than 13, when I heard it, in the year that Stephen van der Hoek up and won the State Final by a mile and a half, when A and I were sitting in the wings of Elder Hall, waiting for our section to be called. This was my first touch with prodigy, and tragedy. The grandness of it all to me now, is completely out of proportion, I am sure. The capacity of the hall, though it may have felt thousands, was certainly no more than 500. My first love, though I were not to know it at the time, was sitting across from me, while I was having fun with those small mini electric organs, the one we used in school to play pseudo-jazz, taught by Ms. R. She was laughing, we were nervous together. Competitors always would be: that’s a special bond.

We were amazed, actually. I didn’t know it at the time, but the time that A was going out with S was that time exactly, marked by my total world of obliviousness. I live as though a white cloud descends upon me, constantly, fogging up my glasses as though I need to wash them with soap again, to get rid of built up grease. Imagine that: glasses fogged up and all greasy, not something easy to see clearly through. I think I played… no, I can’t remember now, not at all. At that time D was my teacher, so that’s the time I don’t remember anything, of course. She’d given me a copy of the CD to listen to - actually, my dad had burnt it, so excited with his new toy (a CD burner) - and told me that I’d be on there one day. That this would be me playing, one day, on a CD just like that one. D was a nice old lady, a nice lady indeed. I knew who the winners were. I wanted, though, to be able to listen through it, and, like the adjudicators, give comments - “This part was lovingly played with a wonderful rubato throughout, though the phrasing could sometimes use work, especially when reaching the ends of the runs of sixteenths.”

I listened to Stephen’s playing.  I wished to have a copy of Edward’s.  I remember that time, when I was a but a wee (and fat) little thing, in the room behind the library, where we spent time learning to write on Colonial Day, before the new computer room was built, and in the place that Andrew told Mr. Ward to stick carrots up his arse - I remember this time, when years 4-7 would sit in the room, cross legged, starting youngest in the front, oldest at the back, such that it was a rite of passage to move backwards, contrary to the general world setting.  The teachers lined the room like paper cutouts, cross-legged, plastered expressions (but plainly concentrated), and the piano was always at the front.  Who played the piano?  I cannot even recall.  But this day, it was special - a Year 10 student had come to perform for us, he had just won some National Youth Piano Competition.  He was great.  And at that time, I thought I was great too.  I remember the piece he played, because it was a comparison.  “Is he better than you?” I might have been asked a thousand times afterwards, compared to Cartoons, by a random Russian composer.  Of course, I didn’t say anything to incriminate myself, but inside, I was smug as a skunk with its tail up in the air.  But certainly that wasn’t culture.   The newspaper article of him in the newspaper didn’t impress me, with two legs split apart, as if straddling the camera, with a loose collared shirt on top, jeans, and sneakers (if you read this Edward, this is a reminisce about my feelings at that time, not now).  D told me about how I could be better than him, if only I would practice.  Hah, if only I would practice.

I never got a copy of Edward’s performance.  But I heard about it later.  And heard stories about others.  Including Alexander  Gavriluk.  That performance was amazing.  I listened to his last piece over and over, wondered how I could match that, wondered whether I would ever be as good.  I oogled at his playing without the music, and then, afterwards, with it.  That was around the time that WT made a gay proposal to me, in the Elder Hall Foyer.  I hadn’t been warned, I didn’t know anything before, but afterwards, I realised something about what he said.  He had told me I could stay in his house, practice the piano.  If I was going to learn in Sydney, or perhaps if I was going to go to the Pan Pacific Music Camp, one year - I didn’t need to pay for accommodation.  He even courted me, with my one true lust: the Wedding March, Liszt-Mendelssohn arr. Horowitz.  He gave it to me in an A4 paper envelope, with my name on the front and a message of encouragement at the back.  11 pages, there it was.  I was overjoyed - I  will never know what went through his mind.  Was it merely a good luck charm from a kindly old man, nearing the age of completion, a good omen for a bright career in the future of musical endeavours?  From a man in Melbourne, I forget his name, I learnt otherwise.  He was the one who told me about tragedy - Alexander Gavriluk, in a car accident with his friends, suffered a brain trauma not 2 years after he won that competition.  I gasped, “But he was so talented!”

Then this guy said, “Oh, and you know what?  He recovered, and he actually became better at the piano than before, apparently.”

Eye-rolling aside, he also revealed something else, and this was the possible tragedy.  Alexander had stayed in WT’s mansion in Sydney, for some time. Perhaps strange things went on.  This was when I started to wonder about our encounter in the Elder Hall foyer, and I was discouraged, for a time.  WT didn’t love me for my music, alone.

Now, I have started learning this piece, this piece that amazed me so.  It’s a piece of history, to me alone, and perhaps it will stay that way.  In case I don’t ever finish learning it, here’s to this piece, and here’s to history, to me alone, inside my infinitely cultured world.  The Wedding March, composed by Mendelssohn, arranged by Liszt, and re-arranged by Horowitz.   I’m sorry for the spelling.