Arioso

Araceli played beautifully in her last recital.  I have to say, she made definite improvement on Arioso the last week before the recital.  The video is terrible quality because I wanted to just listen, but I thought I'd record it for Scott.  It was a half-hearted recording because I wasn't sure if the performance would go well.  There had been intonation struggles.  Both her teacher and I were delighted at how our girl pulled it out.  Too bad you can't see her for half the video!  I'm so proud of Araceli and how she has taken the cello and made it her own.  Here is Arioso, played by beautiful Araceli and her teacher, Elliott Cheney. 

There was a moment during the recital that made me sad.  It was the day after the Paris attacks, so everything made me sad, but for some reason this one small gesture hit me.  An advanced student was playing absolutely gorgeously, and he had a memory slip.  His mom had been recording, but when the memory slip happened, she quietly turned off the camera and set her phone down.  I don't even know why that made me sad.  It was as if the boy had failed in some way, when really he had achieved a lovely performance, and that day, I just wanted something to be perfect.  I know it's pretty useless to have a recording of a performance you botched, and I probably would have done the same thing as that mom.  I think I was all choked up not only because it made me sad, but also because it reminded me that it's after the mistakes are made, and the pressure is off, that we can enjoy the next step.  For this boy, the next step was finishing the performance beautifully.  For the mom, it was sitting back and enjoying the music.  By the end of the piece, the flub was barely important anymore.  It was a little metaphor for life, that mistakes are made, but that time moves past those mistakes, and we have to, as well.  Hopefully at the end of it all, only the beauty remains.  It's OK not to capture the imperfections.  It's OK to let the good things flood in and wash away the bad, and it's OK to forget the bad.  There's that Psalm, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."  The joy will come, but not if you keep reminding yourself that it was dark.  Let the light shine in.

Wow, and I got all that from some kid's cello performance.  That's what happens when there are terrorists wreaking their godless havoc.  We somehow have to find a way to let the light in.  Thank heavens for music.