Twice in my career at WGTD, I have had the pleasure and honor of interviewing Hercules.  The first time was when I got to do a phone interview with actor Kevin Sorbo,  who is well-known for having portrayed the famous strongman in the television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.  (We spoke shortly after the publication of his memoir True Strength.)

The second encounter with Hercules came when I got to speak with a faculty colleague of mine, Dr. Wael Farouk, on the eve of a feat that can only be described as “Herculean.”  On Friday night, April 6th, at 7 p.m.,  Carthage’s own Dr. Wael Farouk was to play the five piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven with the New Philharmonic Orchestra.  Yes, all five piano concertos in one single night- well over three hours of music.  You have to understand that a typical concert pianist on a typical orchestral program would be asked to play one of the Beethoven piano concertos and would find that to be more than enough of a challenge.  The thought of one pianist playing all five concertos in one night was more than I could imagine. How could they physically survive such a gauntlet?   How could they mentally encompass five concertos and all of their inherent complexities?   How could they emotionally sustain their passion and artistry over such a span?   The thought of someone undertaking such a titanic challenge seemed utterly ridiculous.

And yet,  that it exactly what my friend and colleague did.  And he did much more than make the attempt;  he scored a resounding triumph that ranks with the most awesome musical achievements I have ever been privileged to witness in my long life in music.   And that goes for everything I have ever seen at the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, on Broadway, at Ravinia, or anywhere else for that matter.   Nothing I have ever experienced as an audience member has been more astounding than what Professor Farouk did that night. It was not just that he managed to survive.  He delivered magnificent performances of all five concertos- by memory- managing everything from the most thundering climaxes to the most hushed moments of delicacy with unfailing mastery.

One complicated challenge tied up in such a performance is that the five Beethoven concertos are by no means carbon copies of each other.  Each has its own flavor and musical perspective and help trace how Beethoven helped propel the music world out of the Classical era and into the Romantic era. On the other hand, it was a complication that all five concertos were by the same composer, and there could be a very real danger of the pianist mixing them up in some way.   (In other words, it might have been easier to play five concertos by five different composers in the course of a single evening at least in terms of keeping the five works distinct in one’s mind.)  So both of these factors contributed to the significant difficulties of such a challenge.

And I’ve only spoken of the challenges faced by Dr. Farouk- but the members of the New Philharmonic Orchestra were an indispensable part of it as well.  Their playing was both passionate and sensitive and they seemed to be in perfect sync with the pianist at every turn.  And just as Dr. Farouk managed to thunder through the fifth and final concerto (the “Emperor”) with undiminished energy,  so did the members of the orchestra.

But this was also a challenge for the audience, and enough so that I worried that hardly anybody would come – or that those who came might find it to be a tedious evening of too much of the same thing.  My fears had absolutely nothing to do with my colleague’s abilities;  he is the finest concert pianist I have ever personally known or personally seen in action.  Nor did those fears have anything to do with these five magnificent works.   But how would audiences would react to this much Beethoven crowded into one night?  I even wondered on my own behalf just how much I would enjoy this- or would it be a concert I would endure rather than enjoy?

Well, every concern I had about that proved to be utterly unfounded.  The electricity in the air from the start of the evening was unmistakable – and it never abated until the last chords had died away. Everyone in the audience, including me, was completely enthralled by what we were experiencing-  and in the presence of such greatness, time both flew by and stood still.  And the conclusion of each concerto was greeted with an enormous ovation- each greater than the one that preceded it- and at the end of this long concert,  instead of polite applause followed by a quick move to the exits, the audience was on its feet cheering – and bringing him back for four extra bows.  We all knew that we had been witness to something quite spectacular- and perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The feat of playing all five Beethoven piano concertos in the course of a single night has been done before – but such a thing is exceedingly rare.  I’ve done some thorough googling and have come up with four or five pianists (Daniel Barenboim among them) who have undertaken such an audacious feat.  A bit more common is for a pianist to play all five concertos over the course of two consecutive evenings – or over the course of a single weekend – and even these efforts were described in reviews and articles in heroic terms as a ‘Herculean Effort’ or words to that effect- and rightly so.

Here is what made my colleague’s undertaking even more extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented.   He not only played all five concertos on Friday night, April 6th – but then played all five concertos with the same orchestra the next night down in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.  And then on Sunday afternoon,  he played the same concert again in Glen Ellyn.  That means he played all five Beethoven piano concertos on three consecutive days.  (When I emailed Professor Farouk on Monday to ask how the two Illinois concerts went and how he was feeling,  he said that the Sunday performance was actually the best of the three.  If it had been me,  I feel like I could have only played that third program from a wheelchair, in a half-tempo stupor.)  So yes,  Dr. Wael Farouk will always be Hercules in my mind.

And by the way,  Beethoven tends to bring out the Hidden Hercules in all of us.  This was made abundantly clear this past weekend with a performance of Beethoven’s Mass in C that featured the Carthage Choir and Tremper High School Chorale in collaboration with the Kenosha Symphony.  This was an especially stiff challenge for the high school students,   but their director (and my sister-in-law) Polly Amborn knew that they could rise to the occasion …. and they most certainly did.  And as the last notes of the Mass died away,  you could just tell that every young singer had experienced something quite uncommon- and strongly surmounted a challenge that once upon a time had probably seemed insurmountable.  Maybe that’s the most valuable lesson of all – that Beethoven reshapes our notion of what is possible, of what we can do.

So thank you Beethoven.

And thank you, Wael Farouk – a.k.a. Hercules – for demonstrating what True Strength is all about.