Observations

As I listened to Fei-Fei perform Schumann at Music Mountain, I recalled a moment in time in (then) Leningrad in 1975. I visited the cemetery where one million souls were entombed, who had resisted the nine hundred day siege of the city. The mournful music of Schumann was the background to the mounded tombs, each holding the remains of thousands who had perished. Then and now, whenever I hear the piece that Fei-Fei played, it speaks to my soul as well. She described seeing a listener moved to tears, perhaps, he knew.

Crossing Cultures

Crossing cultures

Caressing keys

Delicately the pianist

Calms, lifts, breathes

Music for the soul

Into the air

Transported, finding younger self

With mournful melody

Reliving history

Mounded graves

Remains of brave

Who under siege

Fell upon nine hundred days

Resistance, the sound

In cemetery cemented in my mind

Recalled in concert hall

Fei-Fei, I wonder if you heard

The tears in Schumann’s composition

Or simply saw them fall upon the cheek

Of one who knew.