Concerto

This short doccie accompanies pianist Nina Schumann as she prepares to perform Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 2” at the Stellenbosch Woordfees to celebrate the Russian composer’s 150th birthday. It’s a piece that she’s performed many times before and has a special relationship with. But this time it’s different, as Schumann is now living with focal dystonia (a neurological movement disorder) and Parkinson’s disease, which have begun to affect her ability to perform. Watching archival clips of performances from when she was younger, she is finally able to transcend her lifelong self-criticality and recognise just how good she had been in her prime. But, as she notes in the film, “You might lose the skill, but you never lose that feeling. No one can take that away from you”. True art, The Concerto suggests, is not just about virtuosity. It is also, and perhaps more centrally, about the most intimate expressions of the human spirit.