Emmanuel Ax (2013)

This was the first time I ever heard Emmanuel Ax perform, and it was worth every penny! The entire performance was quite inspirational and left me (and probably the entire audience) with a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment. As a musician and an enthusiast of the Baroque and Classical music era, I especially enjoyed the selection of music he performed. Overall the entire performance was one of the best piano performances I have ever heard.

After listening to many performances and recordings of famous musicians, I have always wondered how one could attain perfection in this world. When I say perfection, I do not just mean perfection in the music world, but perfection any category. How does someone become perfect at something? I always hated when people gave me vague answers like “nothing is ever perfect”. It is true that people can’t be perfect in everything, but that does not mean that perfection is unattainable.  If a person devotes a significant amount of time to something he/she is passionate about, I think perfection is possible. At the same time, I think it can sometimes be misleading or discouraging to “learn how to perfect” something. For example, if I am trying to perfect my skill/art by studying under a master (teacher), I might eventually feel overwhelmed with all the new things I need to learn and thus lose interest in what I am learning. However, if I observe rather than study, I could eventually understand what makes someone perfect at something.  In other words, understanding what makes something perfect is crucial to create great works.  Because in the end, it will be people that will be judging your works.

People have different opinions on what is good or bad. For example, some people might think Rachmaninoff is greater than Mozart. Others might think Mozart is greater than Rachmaninoff. Both of these are prominent figures within the music world. However, there is a greater majority who know Mozart over Rachmaninoff. Therefore during this time, Mozart’s music qualities are more agreeable to the audience and thus, a new composer who adopted Mozart’s musical qualities would be more popular than a composer that adopted Rachmaninoff’s qualities.

Another example is: why is Apple more popular than Microsoft? There are many people who have their own opinion, but overall Apple is more popular than Microsoft. Thus, if a person was able to adopt the specific aspects that make Apple a desirable product, he/she would probably create a more successful product. However when I say “adopt”, I do not mean copy.  Copying would just lead to uncreative results that would not be so successful.

I have totally went off tangent. However, this is what I realized after the wonderful performance. Knowing that perfection/or mastery is actually attainable was something I never new about, I found it enlightening to understand that studying is not the entire answer to mastery of something. Instead,active engagement and deep understanding is the key to creating something successful.