Passionate Melody of Life (Part II)
In my last post (Part I), I explained how my Nocturne No. 2 (subtitled “Passionate Melody of Life”) had been commissioned in May 2017 in honor of two Phoenix-area pianists, Ruth Costa and Sue Lawson, both of whom were battling cancer. Ruth Costa passed away before the composition was complete, but Sue Lawson was present when the new nocturne premiered at a large chamber-music concert in downtown Phoenix, where (to her great astonishment) she was honored and presented ceremonially with a copy of the score.
Sue Lawson was a highly accomplished and experienced pianist, who had earned a master’s degree in piano performance in her youth from the Manhattan School of Music and who had studied with a number of well-known teachers over the years. She took an avid liking to the new piece and quickly adopted it herself, playing it with deep feeling. Barely a month after its premiere, on August 24, 2017, she performed it for the Phoenix Piano Club (left pic below). Despite having undergone a debilitating chemotherapy treatment two days prior, she rose to the occasion and offered a magnificent performance that visibly moved the audience. Dr. Glenn Deibert, who had commissioned the work, can be seen holding a copy of the score in the right pic below, along with myself, Sue Lawson, and Sue’s husband Jim Lawson.
Because of the physical toll of her illness, Sue’s practice time was reduced to about 25% of normal. She was physically debiitated and no doubt deeply concerned about her future. I was deeply humbled by the fact that under those circumstances she managed to produce a fine recording of the new Nocturne No. 2, uploading it to her YouTube channel on September 4. It now resides on the Susan Lawson channel alongside her impressive other performances of Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Bach, Ginastera, and others.
Sue’s August 24 performance was the first time I had ever attended a meeting of the Phoenix Piano Club, but because of Sue’s influence I became very active in that club as well as two other classical-music clubs in the Phoenix area. In fact, my very first performance at the Piano Club followed on November 16, when I presented my own rendition of the same Nocturne No. 2.
Around the beginning of October, just a few weeks after she recorded the nocturne, Sue had gone into the hospital to undergo a complex and radical procedure in which her cancer would be eradicated by chemotherapy and her immune system would then be rebuilt via a bone marrow stem cell transplant. As can easily be imagined, the risks were extremely high; statistically, the prospects were not good, and it was unclear whether she would survive the procedure at all. But without it, her anticipated survival time would have been a few months at best. Following the procedure, her condition looked very grim for the first month or so. But after that, it gradually improved, and most importantly, tests showed no remaining traces of the cancer.
By the spring of 2018, Sue seemed to be returning to good health and was practicing the piano again, although she remained isolated at first since her immune system was still very weak. Finally, on May 6, she performed for the Sunday Classics Club East, accompanying a cellist and two violinists in succession, and then for the Sunday Classics Club West on May 20. I was present on May 6, the first live performance I had heard from her while she was in relative good health, and the professional precision and interpretative sensitivity of her playing impressed me greatly. On the evening of May 24, she offered a fine presentation of Chopin’s Impromptu No. 1 for the Phoenix Piano Club, which we hosted in our home. At that point, it seemed, the passionate melody of life still resounded vigorously within her.
I believe that may have been Sue’s last public performance. Beginning in July, her bone marrow transplant led to a series of complications, which eventually resulted in her final passing on February 25, 2019.
Jim Lawson relayed to me Sue’s expressed wishes that I should play the Nocturne No. 2 for a Celebration of Life that would be held in her honor. In order to avoid various conflicts and to allow family members to travel from across the country, the event was scheduled for several months later, on Saturday, June 22, at the ASU Kerr Cultural Center. It was a very beautiful ceremony, including video recordings of Sue’s own performances interspersed with tributes from family members and musical colleagues. The eulogy was given by Jim Lawson.
One of the testimonials was given by Glenn Deibert, in which he recounted the story of Nocturne No. 2 for Piano: Passionate Melody of Life — how he had commissioned the work in honor of Sue Lawson and Ruth Costa, and how we had surprised Sue with it at the July 2017 concert. I then played the piece again as my parting tribute to Sue Lawson.
My own authoritative recording of Nocturne No. 2 was made on May 14, 2018, about a year after the work was composed.