The 'plaisir d'amour' when two musicians fall in love
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.