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As he launched the first chamber-music program at this year's Spoleto Festival USA, Charles Wadsworth – the concerts' director, host and sometime pianist – shared with the audience a moment of self-examination:
“I've been trying for a couple of years,” he said, “to decide whether I'm a legend or an icon.”
No one else could have gotten away with it. As long as Spoleto has been in Charleston, Wadsworth has been the daily concerts' face, soul and funny bone. It's no put-down of the other performers to say that, without his irrepressible chitchat making audiences as comfortable with music as he is, the chamber series could never have become the box-office hit that it is.
When he isn't extolling the music's beauties, he's going off on whatever tangents occur to him – from his childhood in Newnan, Ga., to his insider view of the music world and its occupants. A couple of years ago, introducing a Joseph Haydn piece that's identified with the help of a Roman numeral, he let loose with the chant that his grade-school class used to learn the Roman system: “ONE I ONE! TWO I TWO! THREE I THREE!” The audience's laughter drowned out the rest.
On the festival's closing day last weekend, Wadsworth announced that Spoleto's 2009 edition will be his swan song. Next year brings his 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of when he started the chamber series at the original Spoleto festival in Italy. Then everyone can decide whether he's a legend or an icon.
