With dual tornadoes flattening a small town in Nebraska yesterday I found myself thinking of a performance I gave under rather challenging conditions some time ago. The program was, what else? — all Mozart. The venue was the beautiful Art Room of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church in Minneapolis. Everything went smoothly until around noon the day of the performance. Tornadoes moved in on the Twin Cities. Some of my guests who planned to attend the concert found themselves holed up in movie theater in a Mall in St. Paul as a tornado roared by. Another who lived near Lake of the Isles found a tree had fallen across their driveway. One tornado zeroed in on my accompanist’s apartment building. He became terrified and tried to bow out, claiming he had no way to get to the church. He did, fortunately, manage to arrive, at the last moment. And yes, everything ended up working beautifully, and all but a handful who had planned to attend made it and seemed to be delighted by the program. My three little children ran around the back of the room, playing quietly. As with just about everything connected to Mozart, that which seemed to be almost impossibly challenging evolved into an experience of absolute joy…
Le Chant du Rossignol...(song of the nightingale) 