Review of David’s October 2011 concert in the synagogue of Brno, Czech Republic

Translated from an article published in Kachol Velavan, Brno, Czech Republic

Sorry, dear readers of Kachol, who could not have attended the piano concert of the American miracle David SYME held on Monday, October 24, 2011 at 7:30 pm in Brno Synagogue, that you will not know who and why they ever printed my lines, because they will justifiably seem to you as corny, a way “off”, as an outcry from some lobby of the teetotal catch, or as a disoriented obsessed drift of words under the influence of other opiates. (David Syme had a concert in Brno Synagogue and in Prague it was held two days ago – in the Rudolfinum).

Once you have made a devastating mistake of not going to the concert, don’t even bother reading further. Since I am writing less than 45 minutes after that earthquake, tsunami of the tones, music, happily crushing whirlwind of music from under the fingers of a genius. So yes, I am half-deranged, overwhelmed by the insufficiency of words that would at least describe a little those orgies of the Muses, who sought to destroy the synagogue Skořepka – and by the flood of the music crusher crack all our dead ordinariness like an egg shell, the legendary dreaded Adriatic tornado disaster called “Bora-Bora”, when whipping the rogue sea level.

MAESTRO David! Deafly, defenselessly naked of words are we after your hurricane!!! This diabolical angel, heavenly demon steals with just one gigantic hug all present souls and carries them up to the heights – with no end to be seen – to the rapture of heaven, there he does a brilliantly refined turn at the tips of charmingly childlike innocent fingers and takes straight away the whole heaven together with those souls, which even after two days will still feel dizzy – back down to the earth. With an aristocratic charming smile that indicates it was nothing really, just a little touch of wonder in the garden of God, he irresistibly bows and slightly casts the brilliant storm of more and more and more and more dizzy music that drags and weather the viewer between the heaven and non-existence.

The Music MAGUS (he performs mostly with closed eyes), does in unattainable arbitrariness with tunes, dynamics, tempo of the music, with the keyboard, with the viewer, with his soul, his heart – just WHAT he WANTS. Rather, I should write, what He wants – as a direct tool in the hands of Someone to create on Earth what He wants… The one up there in the heaven…

Yes, that evening there was a HEAVEN HELD in the Synagogue… Not only a giant performer who snatches your soul together with the roots and makes you a music with the ease of recreation, with the same ease his fingers pour diamonds of brilliance in frantic tempos (without any accompanying gestural adornment, over esthetic exhibition of “tightening the tones”) the most daredevil sequences of Liszt, Chopin, or the famous Root Beer Rag Billy Joel, of course in his own arrangement, because the “Maestro David” – breaks down the walls of Jericho ALONE with HIS concert GRAND PIANO with the charm of an angelic wing more heartily than many music interpretations of the symphony orchestra. Then his solid stroke and fortissimo lift or threaten to splinter the dignified corpus of the concert Petrof and connects all the emotions in the ever new portions of visible human talent miracle.

In two fair hours of the music flood he played music from Bach and most classic classics – after the “hot jazz”, to then fragrantly steal all of the remaining hearts by irresistible Bernstein and Gershwin. And as a breath of tenderness – he added the last encore – a variation on the Israeli theme.

Well simply I admit – I am completely overwhelmed – as they say, meaning in a trance and shocked. This charming Colossus (Colossus in all), with delicately – and in proportion to his stature with unreasonably small, soft hands, unpretentious except of the torrentially rolling music, when we almost stopped to breathe, he suddenly connected the time and meanings for me:

At a distance of probably less than 4 meters as I had the opportunity to sit and gaze on the rampaging massive music – in the proudly happy synagogue was perhaps a silent glitter of invisible gratitude ash particles of all those sacrificed 6 million instead of the heavenly manna, thanking for the fact that one of these genius TRIUMFS of JUDAISM, even the son of an American rabbi – goes around the world, performs, gives away, blesses and speaks for those silenced ones, who could also have testified for themselves in a similar way… about the most fascinating works of the Creator – about the values, about the inhaled creativity of a Man.

With thanks,
Marianna Štěpitová-Klaučo
Professor of Music-Drama Dept.
Conservatoire in Brno