Communication in and through Music

The level of communication between Hillel Zori and Zvi Plesser, when they played the duets they composed based on Bach's solo cello suites, was extraordinary. In the discussion after the concert, Plesser noted that they had spent hundreds of hours working on the project over the past eight years, and you could tell. Not only was their playing seamless - though their tones are slightly different, if you listened with your eyes closed, you could probably not tell who was playing or whether it was one or two instruments playing - but it was also clear that they had worked out together just how to perform the pieces.
The communication between Marina Solodovna and Polina Semenihina was also excellent. The two women have been working together for quite a while, developing a repertoire and deciding how to play it. Without good communication between the musicians of an ensemble, communication between the musicians the the listeners, which is the point, after all, is impossible.
Lack of that communication was what made it difficult for our saxophone quartet to play for the patients in the nursing home. The communication among ourselves was excellent, because we had to concentrate very hard to ignore the occasional shouts of a demented patient and even the time when an old women drove her wheelchair into us. Most of the patients were somnolent and unresponsive, however, making us wonder whether anything got across.