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Nodame Cantabile Paris 10

Summary:

Shinichi wonders how Charles Auclair aka Yoda plans to groom Nodame as her fingers are still stiff. On recital day, Nodame bursts her dress and draws on Pierre's Mozart period cosplay as an emergency substitute. Nodame goes the whole hog, dressing up as Mozart, starting with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star which charms previously Mozart-hating French shotas. Tanya notes how the perfectly rounded sounds as the results of Nodame playing around with the notes. She goes on to play Mozart's last sonata with perfect balance, fulfilling her quota of two Mozart pieces. Pierre thinks it's all over but Nodame has other ideas, pulling her audience into a different world with a colourful Ravel piece that impresses even Pierre. As she plays her final piece, Tanya tells Yasunori about her loneliness, fear and the pressure during her previous two years learning piano in Paris, observing how limited the prospects are for classical musicians. That's why she's going after Pierre's sons.

At the evening reception, Shinichi, Yasunori and Tanya are made to perform. Going with the flow, they dress up in period costume too with the Benoit Mozart String Quartet. Tanya's plan to let them eat cake is ruined - as everyone cosplays too, she can't stand out. It gets even worse when the two elder Benoit sons are married with kids and the remaining eminently eligible one had seen Tanya's cheapness from the morning. To rub salt into the wound, he's been charmed by Nodame's piano playing. Nodame gets a repeat invite as well as to have her own salon party performance. Meanwhile Chiaki and Yasunori impress the audience with their violin and oboe playing respectively. Yasunori urges Tanya to use the power of music to make oneself attractive and duly does so with a grave rendition of the woeful and sentimental Sonata in A minor. In the garden, Shinichi and Nodame spar over her candid photos. Shinchi praises her recital, thinking about how she's yet so near but yet so far, and they share a kiss.

Reaction:

Yoda knows how to do training FTW. With this recital, he gets Nodame to draw on her spontaneity and to use her joy of live performance as a spur to display her flair wrt pieces and composers she did not do well with in a formal school context. The context of the recital has cut out the formal instructors and their expectations and allows Nodame to perform to her heart's content. It also recalls how her crowd pleasing at the Maradona competition had the recursive reinforcement of the crowd pleasing her, a great motivation to play well and to play professionally which she had acknowledged to her grandma in the last episode of the first season.

We learn more about Tanya and how music is simply a stepping stone to flee Russia but she also encounters three consecutive counterpoints from Nodame, Shinichi and Yasunori; the latter urges her to think of how music does make her special and to flaunt it since she's got it. This is probably the first time we've heard Tanya play properly and well whereas previously she had, in her own words, been cowering in fear. That created a lot of sympathy in me for her because as I shared her experiences and feelings while pushing new boundaries to create a better future but always faced with the prospect of failure via the Peter Principle. There was also a Winry backwatching moment when Yasunori dragged her to have some dinner; I do like this tentative pairing as Yasunori is clearly having a positive impact on Tanya.

Related posts:

1. Nodame Cantabile Paris 09
2. Nodame Cantabile Paris 08
3. Nodame Cantabile Paris 03