Chilled Out Bearded Man

I apologize to all of the professionals who were wounded in the making of this article.

I was listening to a Youtube playlist of classical music in a minimized window. Maximizing that window for a moment to check the name of the artist, I noticed a woman sitting on stage with the pianist. She was sitting so close to him that at first I thought maybe it was his wife or his nurse. Then the video redirected towards the music sitting on his piano and it dawned on me what that woman was doing there. She was (and is and ever will be) a page turner. From then on I watched in complete awe. The anticipation was killing me. Would she turn it? When will she turn it? What if she makes a mistake? Will her mistake cost him the piano championship? I got to the point where the music became background for the page turning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bn3PdTyj0Q&feature=PlayList&p=2DA91D29ED24F128&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1

After a while I could no longer stand the level of intensity and had to switch back to my other work. When the next song came on I had to check. Would there be another page turner? Amazing! This guy’s piano skills were amazing. Who needs a page turner when you have a piano player? How wrong was I. After a moment the camera zoomed out off of the pianist’s hands and there he was, lo and behold, the page turner. But wait. Something is wrong. Something is missing. There are no pages to turn. The pianist is playing by heart. Then the question comes up, why do you need a page turner if there are no pages? This was completely blowing my mind. What was this guy going to do? He was far younger and was seemingly inexperienced as compared to the previous agile handed mature page turner. Sweat began pouring from my pores. (There was no actual sweat, but it felt like there should have been.) I waited. Was this young man simply the lucky lottery winner who got to sit on stage? Did he perhaps get lost and thought he was in a piano bar? Why wasn’t security pulling him back? So many questions were racing through my head. And then the moment came. I could not have asked for anything more. The “page turner” stood up, took a step forward, and… and… What’s he going to do? THERE ARE NO PAGES TO TURN!! He takes off the pianists glasses. Then he walks away. Huh? It all looked so rehearsed.

Take a look for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNZerbc-9Kk&feature=PlayList&p=2DA91D29ED24F128&playnext_from=PL&index=31&playnext=2

I have not watched a lot of classical music performances in my life, and I had seen even less solo piano performances. I knew nothing of these page turners. So, of course, wanting to learn more, I searched Google for “the art of page turning”. Can you believe it? The first result is actually exactly what I was looking for.

http://northwestreverb.blogspot.com/2009/07/elizabeth-harcombe-talks-about-art-of.html

By this point, there is no turning back (pun intended). I am in love. This is truly an art, more than even Elizabeth Harcombe could know. This is not just an art. This is a sport. And the musicians are perfect background to build up the suspense. I would really love to see John Cage perform 4’33″ with a page turner by his side. My heart is pounding just thinking about it.

Where else could this go? Well, I’m glad you asked. I searched YouTube for “the best page turner” and to my extreme joy a video of Victor Borge called “Page Turner” turned up (pun intended).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWqFaGwNCMU

I thought there could be nothing better than a stand up comedy routine to end it, but Victor Borge has been one-upped. There is a full-length feature film called… You guessed it. “The Page Turner”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fANWrJPhqWw

Now, I need to get figure out how to unwind before bed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 3rd, 2010 at 9:12 pm and is filed under So cool, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.