I just finished reading Milan Kundera’s thought-provoking book, Testaments Betrayed, and have been mulling over some of the interesting points he makes about how an artist’s wishes regarding his work are often ignored and misinterpreted.

Although Kundera uses many examples throughout history, one main theme that pervades his essay is the story of Franz Kafka and Max Brod. Kafka, as most people may know, left explicit instructions with his friend, Brod, to destroy his works upon his death. He did not ask for all of his works to be destroyed, but left a clear list - he wanted his personal writings, letters, and diaries as well as stories and novels that he felt were not successfully written to be destroyed. Instead, Brod believed in his friend’s genius and had all of Kafka’s works and private papers published after his death and became the greatest proponent of his friend’s art. What we know of Kafka today - his works, his life, the resulting Kafkology myths - are a result of Max Brod’s efforts. Thus, the fundamental question: Did Brod do the right thing or did he betray the artistic intentions of his friend? Many have argued that though Brod’s actions may have been flawed, he nevertheless provided the world with the discovery of Kafka, and that this alone more than made up for any kind of betrayal.



“Brod the enigma. He was guided by no ulterior motive, only by the spirit of justice; he loved him for the essential, for his art. But he did not understand that art….Brod understood cubism as little as he understood Kafka and Janacek. Doing his best to free them from their social isolation, he confirmed their aesthetic aloneness. The real meaning of his devotion to them was: even a person who loved them, and was thus most disposed to understand them, was alien to their art.” (Testaments Betrayed, p. 253)



I am not a composer, poet, or novelist - I cannot imagine what I would feel about such a situation. But as a performer, I believe that this issue is important. I have asked my friends who are writers and composers what their thoughts were on this, and they unanimously agreed that an artist’s aesthetic concepts and wishes regarding his creations are absolute. And yet, in both the literary and music worlds, we have clearly seen so many examples of how an artist’s wishes or intentions are ignored. There are concerts that promote the first performances of previously unpublished or abandoned material from a composer’s work and new recordings of previously unpublished fragments. New revised editions with material that the author or composer chose to remove are added back in for “authenticity.” I have never quite understood this concept - why do we perform a work or fragment that the composer himself clearly deemed not suitable for performance and either removed or abandoned? Why - 200 years after a composer’s death, when he no longer has the ability to speak up or protest - do we insist on pulling every possible scrap from his personal, private life as well as from his pile of discarded, incomplete works and shine a bright light onto it like some kind of novelty? Would a composer want us to publicly perform fragments of works that he had completely abandoned? Would an author want excerpts and fragments of ideas he had written in his private journals, notes that were meant only for his eyes, to be published?

It reminds me of a conversation I once had with a well-known musician, who shall remain nameless. We were discussing Mozart’s works and he told me that he thought it was very important to go to Austria and see and study the desk, writing instrument, and shoes Mozart wore and used as he wrote a certain piece (I kid you not) because it helps us to play his music better. This same musician also said that he didn’t believe one could perform Bach unless one was German. Now, I strongly disagreed with both of these statements and very vehemently told him so. His way of thinking represents the way some people narrow their view or focus in the hopes of finding a deeper understanding or meaning. But they fail to consider the possibility that taking the exact opposite action and broadening their view could actually provide them with the meaningful perspective they’re searching for.

Even as I passionately argued against his views, this musician insisted that he was right in what he said because he truly “loved” and “revered” Bach and Mozart, and felt that he was “protecting” their authentic values. He believed that we must leave no stone unturned in analyzing their lives, and that every scrap of paper - a fragment tossed out into the trash, or a private note that was only meant for the recipient’s eyes - was important in preserving and understanding the genius of their art. But by insisting that Bach could only be played by Germans, he inadvertently limits the Bach that he loves so much to being an artist of only one country, when his artistic legacy belongs to a perspective and history much larger and greater than that. I was also left thinking about what Mozart would say if he knew people were looking at his shoes to figure out how to interpret his music…it seems, in many ways, that the spirit of Max Brod continues to live on.

Do artists have any control or authority over the legacy they ultimately leave behind? In what ways do we misconstrue or warp an artist’s original aesthetic conception or intention? Do you believe people like Brod are correctly acting in the greater interest of art? Or do you believe he betrayed the fundamental individual freedoms that are at the heart of what art is? Are there circumstances or situations that are exceptions?


A confession: I have never been particularly fond of that rather overused saying about how one door has to close in order for another to open. The image of two different doors just never felt quite right to me. I always preferred the image of one solitary door, a door that with each opening and closing reveals a view vastly different from what we saw before. I like to think that we are always standing in the exact same spot, simply and curiously looking through the doorframe at a vista that changes and shifts each time the door swings open.

I have been quiet on this blog for these past several months because I have been doing a lot of thinking about beginnings and endings. It has been an emotionally tumultuous year for me. First, there was the joy and fulfillment of getting married this past summer. It was a very private and quiet ceremony and it filled both my husband and I with the kind of hope and happiness that can only come at the start of a new journey. After this new beginning, however, came about a succession of endings. First, the very sudden death of my extraordinary teacher in New York, a person who was dearly important to me and one of the greatest influences in my artistic life. This was followed by the passing of our family’s beautiful dog in Hawaii, who finally lost his long and brave battle with cancer. A few weeks later, my uncle passed away in Japan, leaving behind a grieving family including his younger sister, my mother.

As anyone who has lost someone knows, it is difficult to grapple with the feelings of grief. I was here in Madrid and felt as though important parts of my life were disappearing all over the world and I was powerless to do anything about it. All of the memories intertwined with these people, with their words and actions, as well as the emotions tied with those memories, surged back to the surface and I needed to work through my feelings privately.

When I was a student, my teacher, Alexander, used to talk with me about what might happen after he was gone. We always had extended conversations about the meaning behind artistry, about what it meant to be an artist. Our lessons were not simple and dry one hour sessions. I would head from Manhattan to his home in New Jersey, and spend all day (between 8 to 10 hours) there. He would work with me, cook meals for us, and we also spent many hours discussing paintings, literature, and philosophy. Some of my most affectionate memories are where I would be playing a Chopin ballade and I could hear his voice, marvelously thick with his Russian accent, coming from the kitchen. “Gracie, Gracie, please - your 4th finger legato!” he would roar as he continued to chop onions for the soup we would have that evening. It was wonderful, eccentric, inspiring, and special. He used to muse aloud that music is a performance art, one that is meant to be experienced live and one that defines the very spirit and soul of the artist who creates it. Therefore, when an artist dies it would be almost as though he had never existed at all. The sounds of his music and of his art would disappear along with him, and in the end, all that would be left would be his photo on the wall. After his passing, I could not get that particular conversation I had with him out of my head.

Besides performing, I have dedicated the past few months to extended humanitarian and charity work, and have used classical music to reach out to teach students in my hometown of Hawaii and also impoverished and needy children in India and Nepal. I threw myself into intensive work with both government and local organizations abroad to contribute in any way. Music and the arts are such powerful means of empowering children to express their own creative individuality and to communicate and understand ideas and emotions that perhaps cannot be put into words. Of course, I ended up learning so much more from these children than I could ever have taught them.

As I taught, as I gave myself over to the refreshing purity, honesty, and freshness of children, I came to terms with my own grief and the aching feeling of loss. I remembered Alexander’s face as he talked about how an artist would disappear after he dies - and as I taught Nepali children about music and aesthetic principles that I had learned from him, I thought about how his photo should be up on the broken wall in that crumbling school in Kathmandu.

In the weeks following my uncle’s death, my mother spent most of her time sharing with me the wonderful Japanese folk songs he taught her when they were children. My uncle did not study music but he loved to sing and had a beautiful lyrical voice. In the end, the strongest memories that stayed with his little sister were not complex, overwhelming moments, but something much more bare and infinitely more priceless, an essence that I call my uncle’s “internal” music - a personal music that every individual, regardless of whether they studied music or not, possesses. What remains of my uncle are the sounds of his voice, of his laughter, of his pure unadulterated joy in singing, and the excitement and life on his face as he taught his little sister a new song.

I have been thinking not only about Alexander, my uncle, my unconditionally loving dog, but also about the many other fragile strands of souls spread out all over the world who helped to form the very fabric of who I am. I grieved because with each death I felt that these strands were slipping away, disappearing from me, and evaporating into the air. But I have started to realize that the ends of those strands have not vanished - they are, in fact, connected and linked right into the very heart of me, inextricably intertwined to who I am, to my music, and to my future that continues to open in front of me. I just couldn’t see it before - and now, as that one door once again opens for me, I am standing and looking at a wondrously transformed view.