Incredible mastery

In this video piano soloist  Maria Joao Pires is confronted with a nasty situation.  As the conductor begins the piece of music they are to play, she discovers that it is not the piece she prepared.  She has left her music at home Imagine that.

Undaunted, she engages in a short conversation with the conductor who encourages her to play it any way – she played it last season, she knows the piece well.

Pires digs ddep – you can see it in her face – and conjures up Mozart’s D minor concerto form the depths of her mastery.

There have been times when I am working with a group, when a similar feeling has overcome me.  For whatever reason – the invitation was wrong, the situaion had changed, people were expecting something different – everything I had prepared was wrong for the moment.  In such moments the only thing that saves you is an ability to improvise, to draw on your experience and to attend to the present needs of the group.  This is what I strive to be able to do.  This is why practice is so important.