The soloists

At the Bard College Music Festival last weekend in New York, the college’s president and festival director Leon Botstein made a striking remark about Richard Wagner and his cronies. “If we used our standards of normalcy on the 19th century,” he said during a panel discussion about Wagner and the Jewish question, “historians wouldn’t be left with much worth remembering.”

I thought about that Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl. Yo-Yo Ma played Dvorák’s Cello Concerto and my guest was another cellist, Nathaniel Ayers, whose story Steve Lopez has told meaningfully in this newspaper and in his book, “The Soloist.” (The motion picture version came out this month on DVD, but save your money.)  Ayers' life has not been normal, having gone from New York’s elite Juilliard School to the streets of L.A.’s skid row.

I’m told Ayers has periods when his demons are kept at bay and those when they are not. On Tuesday he was fine company. He was excited about hearing Ma and Dvorák. Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic came by the box to greet him. He was ushered to the head of the line of well-wishers backstage at intermission to visit with Ma, who happened to have been a Juilliard classmate of Ayers. They hugged, even though, Ayers told me, Ma was quite sweaty.

Mostly what impressed me was the intensity with which Ayers listened. He knows the concerto and plays it all the time (some of that time on the street). During the performance, he noticeably absorbed every phrase, as one with the music as was the other soloist on stage.

Whether or not this man was normal on this, a good day, I am not qualified to say. But I’m pretty sure he was the least distracted person in a crowd of more than 17,000. He even used his hands to block off the view of the video screens, so that nothing would interfere with his concentration on the music.

Dvorák wrote his concerto for listeners like Ayers. Reviews of the premiere of Dvorák's major works,  and those of other 19th century composers,  offer conspicuously detailed analysis of the scores. Critics (and not only critics) were such engaged listeners that they appeared to remember every bar of complicated music on first hearing. 

Paying attention is no longer considered normal for a self-respecting proto-cyborg in a multi-tasking, mucho-distracted age of iPhones and apps. But unless we relearn the art of paying attention, which is the first requirement for any untrivial pursuit, it may be our century that won’t offer future historians much worth remembering.  

-- Mark Swed

Photo: Cellists Yo-Yo Ma, left, and Nathaniel Ayers backstage at the Hollywood Bowl Tuesday night.  Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Related stories:

Review: Placido Domingo and Yo-Yo Ma together for the first time

Steve Lopez on Nathaniel Anthony Ayers

Comments

[nogrits4me]

Real snide remark about the movie "The Soloist." Boo.

[MarK]

Fortunately for movie people, Mr. Swed is not a film critic, so don't pay any attention to such unnecessary and misleading remarks. The movie is far from perfect but has plenty of very fine qualities.
My partial namesake does however make some good points about music and listening.

[Jozielee]

Nice to get an update now and again on Mr. Ayers. I rented THE SOLOIST a few days ago and thoroughly enjoyed learning about Mr. Ayers and Mr. Lopez - their unusual friendship. Like the other commenters, I thought your negative statement about the movie was unnecessary. People will see the movie or not and come to their own conclusion. Apparently the three of us who've thus far responded liked the film.

[SR]

Im so happy to learn that Mr. Ayers was able to attend a concert with his old classmate. He has struggled with his own "demons" and just to be able to sit through a concert like this one, is an accomplishment of its own.

On the other hand, I am not a film critic, either, but I have to agree that the movie did not do justice to Mr. Ayers' life. I have read the book and it's got a lot more detail of his life, as told by a third-party. I understand that you can't put the contents of the whole book on film, but I figure, if you're going to make a documentary of someone's life, than you think it would be more specific than just "half-ass!"

[Freedomanjel]

I also loved the movie, but then again, I've served down on skid row in a women's ministry and know the realities of the place and the forgotten people there. I also followed Steve Lopez' columns on Mr. Ayers and the plight of the homeless. Many may not find the movie to their liking, hence the short stint at the box office, but I for one will purchase the DVD and savor the experience in the same manner that Mr. Ayers savors his music. I never want to forget the tortured faces, the look of hopelessness and the need to survive, because "there, but for the grace of God, go I"....

[michael]

The Soloist is one of my favorite movies. As a musician and an inner city special ed teacher it speaks to my very core.

[Edwin Gueco]

What a wonderful world we are in, to have Yoyo Ma and Franklin Ayers, a skid row artist. If we can accept two worlds and be forgiving, then we have advanced our art appreciation that differentiate our time from the savage treatment of undersirables during the Age of Renaissance.

[Michael]

Thanks Mark for reminding the Los Angeles public at-large about the joys of focused listening. God bless Mr. Ayers for his devotion to music and may many more Angelenos follow his example.

[Greg Castelnuovo-Tedesco]

Funny that you should write about this. I was sitting a few boxes away. The woman in the box in front of us would not stop talking, and laughing, during the performance! I told them to be quiet, so her date/husband(?) wanted to have a fight! He asked me if I wanted to "go outside". I would have pointed out to him that we were already outside, but I think he would have attacked me right there! Some people should stay home, and watch TV.

[Sandy Driscoll]

Sitting in the cheap ($1) seats for the Ma/Domingo concert, I figured it would be irritatingly noisy, especially with a toddler and 4 yr old boy in front of us. Amazingly, once Yo Yo Ma began playing his beautiful Dvorak Cello Concerto, you could have heard a pin drop. The child (and all those around us) seemed to be mesmerized into silence with the gorgeous music.

Two nights later, sitting in the Super Seats, a man 2 rows ahead of me was constantly playing with his brightly lit cell phone. Not talking, but seemed to be texting and checking his address book. How very annoying! It is, I fear, a sign of the times, being so self absorbed and lacking in concern for others.