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Midori: White Lightning
| Article
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20527 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
2,883 Words |
| Author
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Susan Fegley Osmond
Susan Fegley Osmond is an editor in the Arts section of The
World & I. |
She walks onstage, a diminutive figure before the orchestra, as solitary, vulnerable, and fragile as a tender shoot in winter snows. The orchestra begins to play, and the girlish willow-wand tucks a priceless violin beneath her chin and raises her bow. A cue; then she unleashes from her violin a tone of such immensity, of such intense focus, of such ferocity that it takes the breath away. She writhes and dips and arches in such contortions that one would think it impossible for her to play at all. But her bow has been transformed into a samurai sword, whirling in a white heat of concentration, penetrating to the innermost core of the music. The dainty sprout has become a mighty fire, and phrases surge from her with such force and energy that one is reminded of the incandescent utterances of Zen calligraphy: With a bow for a brush and sound for ink, she emblazons her poem across time itself--from beginning to end one breath of inspiration.
This is Midori, a prodigy who at the age of fourteen was already legendary for her fearlessness and unwavering concentration as well as unbelievable technical command, and she is now on the cusp of adulthood. In two concerts this summer she revealed herself to be at times desperately, almost recklessly searching for her true musical identity, at other times drawing cautiously back from the challenge. But it is a struggle of genius that one only feel privileged to behold.
Born in Osaka on October 25, 1971, Midori began studying the violin at the age of four with her mother, Setsu Goto, a gifted violinist. In 1980 an audiotape was sent to the world-renowned violin pedagogue Dorothy Delay, who found it "absolutely extraordinary." As a results, Midori won a scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival. In 1982 she and her mother--who had divorced in the early seventies--moved to New York, where the ten-year-old enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music and studied with Delay, Jens Ellerman, and Yang-Ho Kim. That same year, she played for Zubin Mehta, then music director of the New York Philharmonic, who was so dazzled that he invited her to appear so a surprise soloist in the New Year's Eve concert with the Philharmonic. Her performance drew a standing ovation, and her career was launched.
Midori became the stuff of legend at a concert in Tanglewood in 1986. While playing Bernstein's "Serenade" under the baton of the composer, a string on the small violin she then played broke, and without any loss of concentration of even dropping a note she commandeered the concertmaster's full-sized instrument and continued--until a string on that violin broke as well. Again, she coolly took the second
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