Last October Mom sent a birthday check so I could buy tickets to one or two concerts at Orchestra Hall. I had wanted to get back into the habit of going there a few times a year, a practice that had lapsed because of hurried schedules, lack of money, and because Amelia had never liked sitting in the small, hard seats.
Yesterday was the first of these concerts: a recital by the young violinist Joshua Bell.
I hadn't been in that auditorium for at least 10 years. The inside hadn't changed all that much: new seats around behind the stage; a large and complex space ship-like acoustical appliance hanging from the ceiling on an intricate scaffolding of pipes and cables; a couple of other things. They said something at the time of the remodeling about having refinished the chairs, but either my backside has lost a good deal of its natural cushion, or they were as stingy with the padding on those things this time around as they had been a generation ago. Amelia would still have been uncomfortable.
But all reflections of that kind disappeared once this young man began to play. Others have written a lot about Bell's skill, his graceful touch with a melody or the sometimes strange gyrations of his body; I won't try to compete with that. Suffice it to say, the music, the moment, was beautiful.
Part of the way through the first piece, by an Italian composer of the 18th century, as the operatic melody soared through the vast, elegant glittering space, my eyes went to the ceiling and, suddenly, I remembered Mom. She had wanted me to be here, had given the means for me to come, and I was pierced by sadness, by longing, and by gratitude. She would have loved to hear a note-by-note account of the day, which of course I could never share with her now. Still, from beyond the separation between this life and the next, across that infinite divide, Mom had given me yet one more precious gift.
