Recently, I have been listening to Behzod Abduraimov play La Campanella on repeat. No words. Just the piano, and that astonishing performance of a piece I thought I already knew.
I have listened to La Campanella played by many pianists. It is one of those pieces people perform partly because it appears almost impossible to perform. The hand flies from one end of the keyboard to the other. Notes scatter and rise. There is speed, precision, danger, brilliance. It is easy to listen to it as a demonstration of what the pianist can do.
Behzod’s performance is different. He does not merely conquer the piece. He reveals it.
I only recently discovered that la campanella means the little bell. Suddenly, the music made sense in a new way. I could hear what had always been there. Those bright notes returning high above the rest of the piano were not simply part of the decoration. They were the subject. A little bell ringing through everything.
In Behzod’s hands, it becomes almost visible. It appears, disappears and appears again. Sometimes it sounds playful, sometimes distant, sometimes as though it is calling from another room. The music around it grows more elaborate and more demanding, but he never allows the bell to be lost inside the performance. He can produce all the thunder and brilliance Liszt requires, yet somewhere above it, clear and intact, the little bell continues to ring.
That, I think, is the difference between great skill and great art. Skill shows us what is difficult. Art makes us forget the difficulty long enough to understand what it was all for.
Perhaps this is why I have needed this performance recently. There have been enough words. Words spoken, written, repeated, explained and examined. Words intended to persuade, to wound, to repair, to confuse. For a long time, the loudest things demanded the most attention. Urgency presented itself as importance. Intensity claimed to be meaning. It became difficult to hear anything quieter beneath it. Then the noise began to recede.
This morning, my son left home to begin university. He had earned his place with the same independence and quiet determination with which he has always approached life, achieving an A* along the way. When he arrived, he called me. “Mum, I have arrived. I wish you were here.” A few words spoken from one city to another. Nothing dramatic. Yet they reached me with the clarity of a bell.
He had arrived. The child I had raised had crossed the distance into his own future. I could not follow him into it, nor should I. I could only tell him that I loved him, that everything would be all right, and that if he needed me, I could come. Anytime.
Afterwards, I carried on. I paid what needed to be paid. I worked. New work arrived. Ordinary things settled into their proper places. The future did not announce itself magnificently. It entered through small acts completed, responsibilities met, and the quiet return of possibility.
Perhaps a life also has a little bell within it. A clear note that continues beneath all the noise, although we do not always recognise it. We may hear it as a thought we keep returning to, a road we want to take, a home we have not yet found, a child’s voice calling after he has arrived somewhere new. It does not tell us everything that will happen. It simply reminds us where the truth is. Mine is becoming easier to hear.
It tells me that my sons are moving towards their own lives and that I must move towards mine. It tells me that there is work to do, a home to build, pages to write, and a future that will not be made in one heroic act. It will be made quietly, consistently, properly.
A little bell does not compete with the noise. It does not need to. Its power comes from remaining itself. However dense the music becomes, it returns with the same bright certainty.
That is what Behzod understands. Beneath the speed and splendour, he keeps listening for the smallest voice in the piece. He gives it space. He lets it live. And because he hears it so clearly, we hear it too.
I thought I loved La Campanella because it was brilliant. Now I know that I love it because, through all its difficulty, the little bell survives. And now that I know what I am listening for, I can hear mine.
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