solosection | P S L .

Tell me the story that goes with the picture.

It's a bit long. And it starts before we met each other. When Michel and I were still together. His father had been a pianist like me, but given up playing altogether for mysterious, unknown reasons. On his deathbed, he entrusted a score to Michel and told him to give it to someone who'd understand. When he met me, I was allowed to have it. It was a cadenza composed by an unknown man called Léon, a Jew, at the end of World War II. It stole left and right from Mozart and Beethoven, but at the core of this score was the Kol Nidre prayer. I recognized the melody. Michel made me promise to perform it on my next tour and I did, but it never felt like it really landed, found its way home.

Fast forward, I arrived in Berlin earlier this week. One of the musicians in Berliner Philharmonics, also Jewish, had been to a concert I did where I performed Léon's cadenza and asked whether I wouldn't want to play it somewhere people would understand. So he put me in touch with the museum board at the Holocaust Museum and they allowed me to do an intimate concert in the depths of their exhibitions. Only 20 people could attend, but it is still the most amazing concert I've done. I played Beethoven's Waldstein sonata and then, as a final encore, Léon's cadenza.

I don't think I'll ever play it again. It belonged there.