All The Ears Of Cerberus

“In all the conservatories, including my own at the Peabody Conservatory and the Curtis Institute, the kids are extremely competitive—they want to play louder and faster than the pianist in the next studio. Most of them can play the hell out of the piano in a way that their elders never could. But they belong more appropriately in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. It all has very little to do with making art. They have a lot of work to do, but it's easier just to pump plastic.”

Leon Fleisher
quoted in the WSJ review
of his book,
“My Nine Lives: A Memoir
of Many Careers in Music”

I’d like to see a superhero play
a guitar or a piano slowly.
When a musician plays slowly you see
and hear what each note and rest has to say

to you and show you, what sound can portray.
When a performer plays music quickly
you see not sound but a hand that’s tricky,
a hand that’s waving the music away.

Would anyone but a superhero
think not of themselves but of the damsel
in chains, in need of rescue like music?

A superhero can ignore fear so
they break chains in the dark, save the damned soul,
return her to the light. That’s the true trick.

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