The Golden Age: 22. The Concert Summary & Analysis

When she arrives at the Golden Age, Ida can see that they’ve tried hard to create a concert venue, setting up a spotlight, renting folding chairs, and printing programs. Still, she’s a little scornful and embarrassed at performing so informally, and she worries about humiliating herself. When the parents met to discuss the concert, some suggested it should be turned into a kind of talent show with other parents singing or telling jokes, but Ida was so frosty that the suggestion was dropped.

The audience trickles in and nurses help the children to their seats. Families of patients and staff have come. Meyer is setting out soft drinks donated by Bickford’s. Ida is comforted and unsettled to know that only Frank and Meyer know enough about music to judge or appreciate her work, but she’s still determined to do her best. Her new blue gown now seems ridiculous, an attempt to preserve the rituals of her career in Budapest in an obscure Australian city. She feels intensely foreign.

Ida sees Frank sitting in the front row next to Elsa. He’s talking rapidly and Ida can see that he’s completely in love with the girl next to him.

Sister Penny watches Meyer, noting how it always seems like he’s watching events from a distance. She’s invited Elizabeth Ann to the concert but her daughter isn’t coming, probably because Tim Budd, her boyfriend, doesn’t like classical music.

Sister Penny introduces Ida, mispronouncing the names of all her awards but saying sincerely how honored she feels that Ida is playing at the Golden Age. Looking at Ida, she feels the Golds have altered her life with their “sharp attentiveness” and “frankness.”

Ida lowers her fingers onto the keyboard, reminding Sister Penny of a surgeon beginning his work. During her three pieces, which she plays “bare-armed like a workman,” the entire audience is still. They’re transfixed by her dress and exotic appearance, which convince them she must have been famous in Hungary, and by the beauty of the music, which they’ve never experienced before. Even the babies are quiet.

When Ida finishes, the audience is silent and then applauds wholeheartedly. She looks at Frank and they smile at each other, feeling unusually close for a moment. When he watches her play, Frank forgets all his quarrels and appreciates her “strength, her vast determination.” It reminds him of her fierce confidence that he’ll learn to walk again. Ida feels that the concert was worth it, no matter who the audience was.

Meyer watches Sister Penny usher the audience towards the drinks. In the midst of the crowd, it seems like they’ve never had any connection at all. He sees one of the patients Albert, with his five older siblings and is reminded of his own siblings, now mostly dead, and a recent nightmare of his time in the labor camp. He’s reminded that he no longer believes in the innate goodness of people or countries.

Rodney Bennet blusteringly informs Ida that her performance was “first-class” and wonders if she would play for a cocktail party at her house. Haughtily, Ida declines. Nance Briggs asks if she can give Ida’s name to an old colleague who works in radio broadcasting. Meanwhile, Ida thinks about her poor technique and imagines Julia shaking her head. She feels she’s cheated the audience out of a good concert, but also knows she has to accustom herself to working in this new country and performing for these new audiences.

Frank and Elsa escape onto the verandah, wanting to be alone. They feel more at ease with each other than with their families. Elsa says she liked the Mozart the best, because it reminded her of “Twinkle, Twinkle,” and Frank resolves to start teaching her piano.