This week’s guest soloists at the Grant Park Music Festival were pianist George Li, showing off Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and cellist Pablo Ferrández, treating us to Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante. But neither could hold a candle, so to speak, from an entertainment, if not talent, viewpoint, to the guest soloist bagpiper on the Michigan Avenue bridge, whose music was so hot that he had flames shooting from his instrument as he played, which apparently is not uncommon for street bagpipers.

I wonder whether the city knew about the fiery nature of his act when they gave him a street license. The application form only seems concerned with noise and congestion, not possible loss of life.

Nevertheless, getting a license to be a street performer, also known as a busker (news to me), can be a challenge, which has led to numerous legal challenges across the country.

It’s unlikely that Li or Ferrández will have to resort to playing in the street for tips, but that doesn’t mean that they are without their challenges. For instance, in particular in regard to a pianist, what about one’s height?  I read that 6 foot, 4 inch Bruce Hornsby hunches over the keyboard. and doesn’t use the pedals.

So what about Li, who, from a distance, appeared rather short. Li’s height, or lack thereof, was a topic of concern when, as a ten-year-old prodigy playing with a trio, he could barely reach the pedals.  I wonder if he used a pedal extender.

This also led me to wonder whether bicycle manufacturers make toe clips for piano pedals, so that you can play faster? Ukrainian Lubomyr Melnyk claims that he is the world’s fastest playing pianist, at 19 piano notes on each hand every second. It strikes me that a tuba player might have trouble keeping up with him.

 

I don’t write about every GPMF concert I see because it would get boring to say I loved the music and the orchestra sounded great. So here’s a twist. The orchestra sounded great throughout the evening, and I loved two of the pieces they played (Ralph Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsody No. 2 and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3), but I hated Andrew Norman’s Switch. It is for moments like this that they should have two overhead signs, one that lights up for Applause for the Orchestra and one that lights up for Applause for the Music, so that we can show our appreciation for the musicians’ efforts and our disdain for the music.

Actually, if you could filter out the sounds created by the guest percussion soloist and just listen to the orchestra’s backup, there was music to be heard. But I thought I was watching a symphonic version of This Is Spinal Tap, with Michael McKean as the percussionist, acting the part by pretentiously parading around the stage in anticipation of the next singular (as in one, not as in special) note he would tap out on a variety of paraphernalia on the front of the stage that blocked our view of half the orchestra.

To be fair (as much as it pains me), of the four of us together at the concert, one appreciated the composer’s efforts. So our group rating was above the musical equivalent of the Mendoza Line. But to me, what I was hearing wasn’t music (much like, I concede, some of our parents thought of rock and roll). Perhaps, however, it could be described as some non-electronic form of noise music (a term I had not heard of before looking up the definition of music).