I listen to her radio show on my way into work. She has a classical music show on that radio station I recently started listening to because it spends an hour on the news in the morning and in the evening, not just 5 minutes like the other station I used to listen to, and the music they play is so eclectic, as eclectic as you can be playing serious, classical-type music all the time, plus a show in the evenings, coinciding with my evening commute home, where they play other things, jazz or serious songwritey stuff or odd music from around the world.

Every day I get home thinking, “if I could only remember the name of that guy they just profiled on the show I’d dash right out and buy his CDs if they carried his CDs at the local CD store which I doubt.” In Vienna, I suspect, if you have a classical music show on a classical music station, chances are that you are one of the ten or hundred most-informed people in the city (and therefore in the world) classical music-wise. At least as far as radio announcers go.

Also, a couple of the female DJs at this station, including her, sit real close to the microphone and you can hear them breathe and smack their lips and stuff when they talk, which adds greatly to one’s morning (and evening) classical music experience.

This morning I was listening to her show again. I assume she broadcasts live. So we were speaking at the same time. She was saying, piano, affetuoso, to whomever she says it, into the microphone so close to her face, “that was Lu1gi B0ccherini, La Mus1ca N0tturna delle str4de di M4drid…” as I was saying, to the car stopping for no reason in front of me, fortissimo, agitato, “Fuck, will you fucking go you fucking fuck, fuck!”

That led me to consider the other things we have in common besides speaking at the same time. We both began learning cello as adults; we even have the same teacher. Stranger still, we’re playing the same song at the same recital two weeks from now, at the same time!

In a way, it reminds me of the fairy tale about the princess and the swineherd, the one where the swineherd is stuck at the bottom of a well with his cello, hip-deep in slimy mud, and the princess lowers herself halfway down the well sort of propped on the bucket and he climbs halfway up and they play a duet there before she climbs back out and he slides back down into the mud.

On the other hand, it doesn’t. I met her last night and had all this in my mind but when we played the piece, we were just playing the piece. She knows everything about it, I know nothing and during the playing none of that matters, or not much. We each have our advantages and disadvantages – she has her broad and deep knowledge, but also gets frustrated knowing how it is supposed to sound, I have my beginner’s mind, but also my ignorance.

I suppose we will survive the recital if we practice like hell between now and then. We both have relatively nice instruments. The woman accompanying us on piano was astounded at how nice they sounded.

It was the first time either of us had played with another cellist. It turns out to be really hard. The hard part for me, besides rhythm and playing right in general, is intonation. In particular, it’s easy to hear when someone’s intonation is wrong, when they’re not playing exactly the right note, but it’s really hard for me to know if it’s me or the other person, and if it’s me, whether I’m too high or too low.

Unfortunately it’s bad form to stop during a song and get your bearings and then start up again, so I just sort of notice where the notes are that I’m relatively certain of, and use those to get back on track when I suspect it might be me who’s falling apart.

I’m also playing a prayer, I might have mentioned it, by Beethoven, just me and the piano, that is a bit of a problem right now because it has all these long notes, like a whole note plus a half note or even four whole notes in a row that are theoretically to be played with a single bow, except my bow is, right now, about one whole note long, max, and so I keep running out of bow. But I’m getting that figured out too. Talking to myself while playing, things like, Play faster, asshole! or, Easy on the bow! Or, Calm down, it’s only a recital.