Gabriela Montero: A woman in freefall
A concert hall in Potsdam, a slate-gray stage, a grand piano, white light on the keys - nothing indicates that a woman will break all the rules here.
What is different only becomes apparent when everyone is sitting in their seats. Suddenly, next to the piano, there is a table with a glass of wine and a microphone. Gabriela Montero, the pianist, 38, blonde long hair, big brown eyes, a warm smile on her face, reaches for the microphone and says, "I want to improvise for you. Give me a theme!"
Silence. Everyone ducks away. One thinks: Let someone else make the beginning. "Give me a tune, it may even be your phone's ringtone," she calls again, looking over the rows of chairs until a man in row five dares to say, "Moonlight Sonata." Gabriela Montero nods, she has expected, she says later, a classic motive, but that he only repeats, is not enough, he should sing. The gentleman in the suit crossed his arms. No, he did not want to. And now? Gabriela Montero is waiting, she also knows that from previous concerts. She knows that it will continue. And suddenly three, four bright female voices sound from the very back. Not timid, ever louder, like a choir.
Gabriela Montero repeats the melody on the piano two or three times, she looks up, as if she is looking inside the notes, her shoulders are falling, everything is sinking, her face, her hair. She puts her right hand on the keys. Later she will say this moment is like jumping off a cliff. This moment when she herself does not know how to proceed.
One thinks Mozart is recognizable maybe Debussy too. You discover the moonlight sonata again and. , , was not that a ragtime? It really can, you think, it just plays and invents music. Music that is beautiful, that sounds familiar, as if you had a déjà vu. Gabriela Montero uses the harmonic framework, the language of classical music, but the piece is new. It was not written centuries ago, it is happening right now. All at once they all want to sing in the hall. "Summertime" is followed by "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "I've never been to New York". Gabriela Montero, her face heated, listens patiently to the German hit parade, does not understand Reinhard Mey's "Über den Wolken" and lets her sing the whole hall again. Then she shows that not only in the sky, but also in the music the possibilities are endless: When she kidnaps Beethoven's Fifth to Argentina and runs into her a tango, the crowd starts to cheer.
"There is so much humor in Beethoven's work", says Gabriela Montero the next morning at breakfast in a Potsdam hotel. "If you dare to laugh in the middle of the concert, that would be just right, it would mean that you understood the musical joke."
On the next page: A life in freedom
There were times when she hated the piano. And never wanted to play again.
The pianist from Venezuela is celebrated as an improvisation genius. Her concerts are sold out, and her CDs are bestsellers. It seems she broke a dam with her playing: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - for the great composers, improvisation once naturally belonged to the program. Bach is said to have confused the church choirs regularly, because he changed joints and chorales spontaneously. Today the composers are equal to gods and their music is untouchable. It is played first-class by first-class pianists. Perfect. Note by note. Dodge, try, play around - this is reserved for jazz players like Keith Jarrett. The classical musicians of today play even those passages in the piano concertos that the composers left open to the soloists. Open to a journey into the unknown, open to your own inner voice, open to being yourself. Nobody takes the risk anymore. Nobody dares to fly. And then comes a young woman from Venezuela and turns every evening on a cliff.
What is she doing with the melody? She's the only thing she thinks about, trying to keep her, she says. The rest happens by itself. If a woman plays like this - so freely, without net and ground, how does she live then? At first glance: Gabriela Montero takes her freedom otherwise. She wears boots with incredible heels, even in concert, her trousers sometimes have open seams, the nails are short, look nibbled out. She laughs a lot and likes to talk about herself.
A woman who has two daughters from two different men who now lives alone, who moved to Boston from Venezuela with her mother, goes on tour every two weeks and then has to explain to her children why she is leaving her again. She is a woman who is constantly seeking balance.And that is still going to break free. Because there was someone in her childhood who locked her up. A teacher who could not stand that the girl broke all the rules. "It's a miracle that I still play the piano," she says. "For ten years I suffered from this woman, she banned me improvising, she said it's ridiculous, it's not worth anything."
On the next page: Every concert is unique
No concert is like the other
Only in 2001 did an encounter change everything. She met the best concert pianist of our time: Martha Argerich, now 66 years old, an extraordinary woman who, some say, has a similar temperament in the game. Martha Argerich knew the gift of the younger ones, asked her for an improvisation and later said that she had rarely met such a talent: "Gabriela is a unique artist." She supported her and brought her back to the point that Gabriela Montero had left as a child. "When I gave myself permission to improvise again, I was able to be a kid again, back to the playground," she says.
She is still sitting in the breakfast room of the hotel, she has no concert today, just interviews. Tomorrow, she will perform on a TV show in England and will be back the day after tomorrow at her home in Boston. There is her piano in a room to the garden. You can watch her play.
Gabriela Montero improvises on the internet on topics that can be sent to her by e-mail. Stories, thoughts, melodies. She gives away what she plays. You can download the piece. The music of their concerts can not be heard again. Gabriela Montero does not play her pieces a second time. She could not do that either. She would have to pay someone to write her down. Sometimes she records a concert, sometimes she listens later. "Then I'm often surprised myself, sometimes I fell in love with a piece, I listen to it a couple of times, but then I put it away." No regret? That's what it's all about, she says. Nothing stays. It's about the moment.
Listen to Gabriela Montero on the internet
Everybody can visit Gabriela Montero at her home in Boston - via the Internet
Under the motto "Live in My Living Room" she improvises on themes, melodies or notes that can be sent to her by e-mail. The recordings are available free of charge for three days each. The next concerts of Gabriela Montero in Germany: 17.6. in Essen, 11.11. in Hamburg, 12. 11. in Berlin, 13. 11. in Frankfurt.
