The country concert hall is full of old Hungarians who’ve come from miles away to hear the thrill of tarogato, cimbalom, but most of all—the violin. And what a violin! They say that after he had heard him play Yehudi Menuhin embraced him, so deeply had Szalai impressed him. When they start there’s such a shock: as though the world had run amok sound rips around the walls and hits the ceiling, strikes the metal parts of doors and watches, and the hearts of sleepers who have come to life, and young again, accept the knife of youth and pain; the lightning bursts in every space and now it’s Liszt’s transfiguration, Gypsy grief and desperation, time the thief, it weeps then changes with a bang, to pure delight as high notes hang above the hall so high they hurt with panpipes conjuring a bird; they’re old, this audience, and know that this is love, the silent bow that holds suspended all they are then lets them down through sunlit air; the gypsy and the bird are free like them, they leave him thankfully in songs and dances, out the door to Queensland which they never saw the way they see it now, with strings to all the loved remembered things. by Janet Kenny |
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