TANGO IMMORTALE
Lisboa

RIENCD 49


Oriente
Argentina

 

Lisboa
Over 40 years ago, in the last century, the piano came into the house. Into my room. It did not take long for me to find the chord that sounded the way I felt, and which was not too far to stretch my little hands. C minor. I hammered it into the ivory 10.000 times at regular intervals. Then I looked further. When I leave the planet one day, my only wish is to hear this one chord, my first chord, as a farewell. It tells all there is to know about me, for that is where it all began, and I told all there was to know with it. It led me from childhood into youth, from youth into maturity, from my room to my first performance in the "Post Office Hotel" to the next town and beyond, into the world. It brought me together with wonderful, beautiful, cruel, calculating, gifted and inspired musicians. It waits for me in the morning, when I sit down at the piano, and in the evening, when the curtain goes up. It often accompanies me into town, then people avoid me. It likes to sit next to me in a café, that way I can read my newspaper in peace. One evening in Lisbon, a smartly dressed office worker carrying a briefcase went into a garage in the Barrio Alto. There were wooden stools and wine in the garage. A man was playing the guitar. The office worker sat down, listened and then started to sing. The people (that's what they were) breathlessly listened to his voice. The expression on his face was not from this world, only from the world in that garage. When he had finished his fado, not a hand moved, and he laid his head in his hands. Lisboa.

Peter Ludwig, 8.12.2003