The 'plaisir d'amour' when two musicians fall in love
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
It is never out of style to ask the question: What is love all about?
Mezzo soprano Christa Pfeiler and her pianist husband Rudolf Jansen have their own way to answer this question.
To open their two hour-long performance last weekend at Erasmus Huis in Jakarta, they invited the to dive into the beauty of the scenic sea floor with The Mermaids Song, a piece from Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809).
"The mermaid lures the seaman into the water singing about the pearly treasures and the rocks of coral: follow me," Christa sang.
Beauty is not all that love has to offer. Even heaven, with its countless pleasures, often cannot compete with the pleasures of love.
The duet between vocals and piano showed that plaisir d'amour (pleasure of love) can be more wonderful than heaven.
"But I'd rather stay here (than in heaven), happy with my beloved!" Pfeiler sang from a piece by Franz Schubert (1797- 1828), accompanied by Jansen on piano.
Both Pfeiler and Jansen performed excellently that night, almost without flaw.
Pfeiler, who completed her musical education at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, is not only a beautiful singer but she also knows well how to translate songs into communicative gestures and expressions.
She was so expressive that the audience could not help but explode in laughter when she used her palms to mimic swimming fish at the end of J. Engelman's Arne Borg, the name of a fish.
Behind the piano, Jansen's agile fingers danced across the keys in a "musical chit-chat" with his wife.
In the same way, he built a rapport with the audience through musical notations and sounds in an original means of communication.
Jansen, a professor at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and at the Musikhochschule of Nurnberg/Augsburg Germany, played the piano with a virtuoso's flair.
He knows that too many words often kill, which was why he presented the popular piece by Franz Schubert, Impromptu Opus 90, No. 3 for piano solo, to keep the audience from becoming tired of words, which at times enslave meaning with mere definitions.
For both Pfeiler and Jansen, love may mean freedom, reflected in their selection of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's (1809-1847) On Wings of Song.
"I will carry you my love, on wings of song towards India, where we will lay in each others arms in a blooming garden full of lotus flowers at the bank of the Ganges River, and in the moonlight we will dream away," they sang.
All of the above plaisir d'amour was meant for young lovers. But for Pfeiler and Jansen, who are no longer young, love at times must also deal with sadness, grief and even hatred.
They chose the piece Ingalill (text by G. Froding) by composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) to express the chagrin d'amour, the suffering of love.
The piece tells the sad story of a girl who was murdered by jealous villagers because she was rich and beautiful.
Surprisingly, the couple closed the performance by singing two songs about the lives of black people.
In bitter irony, and with mockery of unjust reality, the couple performed Cancion de cuna para dormir a un negrito (Cradle song for a black child), a piece by Xavier Montsalvatge (1912- 2002).
"Close your eyes and slumber, my tiny little one with your round little head like a coffee bean. When you are grown up you will be a groom, a servant."
After a standing ovation by the audience, the couple performed a rearranged piece of a popular Indonesian song for children.
"Keplok ame ame belalang kupu-kupu, siang makan nasi kalau malam minum susu ..." (Clap your hands crickets and butterflies, rice for lunch and milk for dinner ...).
It was no wonder that those children who were in attendance eagerly crowded around Pfeiler and Jansen after the show for autographs. Love really is contagious.