The auditory delight of a couple of evenings ago was so great and I carried it around with me so completely that I am surprised it failed to appear in the form of a post to this blog. Namely: An extraordinary group of dedicated young actors who call themselves The Fiasco Theatre hosted an absolutely hysterical Valentine's Day party for their audience. Half of this audience is types like myself, of a certain age, dressed the way we dress. The other half is young theatre types.

The company of 7 or 8 sat around in a semi-circle, taking turns doing little skits, reading Shakespeare sonnets, singing songs of various descriptions, playing instruments, each outdoing the others in style, in verve, having irresistible fun.

I laughed until I cried.

But the beauty of it penetrated every note of music I played yesterday and today: relishing every unexpected turn of a line, every magical harmonic juxtaposition, treating every syllable as an invitation to discovery of hidden possible meaning.

There is nothing more satisfying than a ten-year-old playing Haydn excellently well because she finds it funny.

I could count on one hand the number of articulation errors -- they were almost nonexistent. How unlike the usual mechanical corruption of the Classical style so often imposed upon young learners.

This was a spontaneous accomplishment, incidentally. Not required, not even recommended, no pressure, just desire.

"I like it."

"I don't like it."

Just how central these pronouncements are in developing a sense of musical structure was again affirmed yesterday when a student began her playing of a Mozart sonata movement not at its beginning, but at the place which she likes best. It put everything else in a meaningful perspective with shades of perceptible response in every note she played.

I am deeply convinced that the art of composition consists of strategically locating such moments so that the player discovers them as if surprised by their vividness.

A composer whose work I had recently reviewed commented on my having identified her obsession, which is harmony--not a particularly fashionable contemporary obsession. I say double bravo to her that her structures make that audible to me, the listener.

This promises to be the most unlikely post I will have ever produced: Yesterday I had an appointment with a dentist who had to accomplish some rather unpleasant though necessary work on my infrastructure (a good trendy word, no?). I took, as I always do, a CD player and a recording of Clifford Curzon playing Mozart concerti--his playing is so distinctive and so elegantly voiced. I take things I am studying, not for casual listening.

I notice that my hearing is very much more acute in that setting. I hear every slight deviation from equal temperament, though I do not have perfect pitch.

Apparently there is something to be said for being on edge.

The dilemma facing everyone who makes music at every level is very real and poignant: To what extent to trust one's own ear and to what extent to "take someone else's word for it." Each of us is alone with what we hear. The artist attempts to make what she hears audible to others. Whether or not it comes across is often not clear until after the passage of time--sometimes years. That is one reason why it is so hard to make a living as a performer. It takes time to develop the art and it takes time for the listener to process the levels of its meaning.

Aren't we in it for the long haul? Isn't the point of the good stuff that it remains good? Or do we do it just to pretend that we know what we are doing?

As long as children are under pressure to rattle off Beethoven sonatas before they have the slightest bit of auditory self-confidence--like eating broccoli--the dilemma will intrude upon early training with results exactly the reverse of what a reasonable person would desire: any reasonable kid will quit as soon as possible.

None of this would matter so much except that it influences listening for years and years.

When did I last sit through the consecutive performance of two major piano works lasting more than one hour in all with an impression that the time had flown by? Yesterday when Victor Rosenbaum played the Haydn F minor Variations and Beethoven Sonata in C, Op. 2, No. 3.

Mr. Rosenbaum is an attentive, meticulous musician whose respect for the score is total. But he goes beyond that, unearthing the essence of each work as it comes to life on the piano--ah!! that's the tricky part.

This is the aspect of piano playing that most interests me. The result, especially in the Beethoven, was revelatory: I heard the piece in a whole new dimension which is there to be revealed. Mr. Rosenbaum did not invent or contrive it. By respecting the score and by plunging in to its excesses of contrasting speed and slowness, bravura and intimacy it became clear that the piece has its basis in sound, not in a theoretical analysis.

Bravo Rosembaum!

Yesterday it was my great pleasure to see films of Artur Rubinstein playing the piano: one of a recital in Moscow, the other of the Chopin F minor Concerto played with the London Symphony, Andre Previn conducting. It was especially moving because I am not fond of that concerto; I find it too long and rambling despite moments of great beauty and vigor. The last movement is, however, a totally satisfying outburst of Polish peasant dance. The musicians all enjoyed it; I didn't want it to stop.

It was all the more moving in that Rubinstein was already at an advanced age and I suspect he might have had the feeling it would be his last performance of the work. But then he always played that way, savoring every nuance as if he were discovering it for the first time.

This quality directly affected a performance I played in Prague several years ago. Rubinstein's daughter was attending the festival of which the concert was a part. We had a pre-concert chat in which she confided that she didn't like the trio I was going to play. I agreed; it was not a favorite of mine, either. While in the wings ready to go on stage, I looked out and saw her face, which strongly resembles her father's, seated third row center and I knew he would never perform a piece bringing anything less than total commitment to its importance. I found things in the music that I had never known were there.

Afterwards she said: "I change my mind about that piece."