Rare reality: Why hearing Boris Giltburg in real life is authenticity at its best
While the constant craving for digital dopamine is taking over our world (see this excellent recent opinion piece in the The New York Times) and many performing arts organizations are pulling out every possible stop to meet the ever-growing demand for personalized, digitally augmented and immersive experiences, we’ve been spending a lot of time at the PPI office, thinking about what value and significance a nineteenth-century performance model (the solo piano recital as we know it today was essentially “invented” by Liszt in the 1800s and never revised) still has to offer in today’s harried, hurried society.
Luckily, that same Time article had the effect of a meme-quality fist pump (“YES!”) on my psyche, as it beautifully confirmed exactly what we’ve been saying and doing in anticipation of our 48th season: Society needs need more IRL experiences. Social order, life satisfaction and existential meaning comes from spending time in the real world, not from becoming increasingly immersed in the virtual abyss. Seeing and hearing an acoustic, analog instrument played by a real person in real time is not the way of the past, but rather, the way of the future!
It's certainly true that with the incredible sound quality offered by even the most basic pair of headphones, the phenomenal advances in broadcasting and the sheer abundance of high-quality recordings out there, IRL is not always superior to digital (Rachmaninoff’s opinion, in a 1931 Gramophone magazine interview, that “radio has a bad influence on art” and that “it destroys all the soul and true significance of music” certainly didn’t stand the test of time). There is a lot to be said for the gift of access to global content that was simply impossible in Liszt’s time. Yes, I love that I can stream the Berlin Philharmonic from my Portland basement. But this still doesn’t account for the sheer joy and singularity of physically being present, in body, not just in spirit, at a live concert event.
Indeed, as our striving for flawlessness make us more and more intolerant of things that are less than machine-smooth, there’s an element of touching humanity in hearing a missed note, seeing an artist spontaneously breathe, sigh or hum with her phrasing, watching his sheer concentration, a lifted eyebrow, a smile. These are people doing something they’re passionate about.
Sometimes their wardrobes malfunction (a mismatched pair of socks, an evening gown with a slipping shoulder strap). Sometimes their pages don’t turn. Sometimes – as in the case of Boris Giltburg’s hilarious encounters with bats and bugs – there are unexpected visitors on stage.
We know that you agree with us when we say: The realness is what makes every performance so ephemeral, singular, and spectacular.
When Boris Giltburg takes the stage on October 5th – with a shimmering program of Chopin and Rachmaninoff – we guarantee that you’ll feel something akin to the thrill of getting on a swingset as an adult, or eating a sunripe peach straight from the tree: Wonderfully, ravishingly alive!