What I'm playing this week

On the piano:

The master class has been rescheduled for April 18, so I decided since I have more than two months to prepare between now and then I will play Op. 118 No. 2 instead of No. 1. This volume of Brahms (Peters Band II) was one of the things I would attempt to sight read when I was a teenager -- skipping the weird, hard stuff -- and 118/2 was one I would regularly thump my way through. So when I play it now, it brings back wafts of memory. I have fleeting images of myself as a depressed, clueless 16-year-old, losing myself in this music as I sat at the crummy little piano we had, no idea how I sounded, and it not even occurring to me to wonder. So now, as a much happier 52-year-old, I'm really trying to learn this, and I have a much different view of the whole thing. But it's a strange clash between past and present.

I had it in mind to record the Bach prelude and fugue I've been working on so I can feel I've accomplished something with it before I move on to another one, but I'm so dissatisfied with how I'm playing it, particularly the prelude. I can't seem to give it any shape or decide what emotion I want to convey. So I keep practicing it.

The experience with the Chopin Nocturne I recorded on Sunday and submitted for the online recital was sort of deflating. In one way I was proud of the fact that I had relearned it and made such a clean recording without practicing it all that much -- and considering everything that's been happening around here over the past two weeks -- but I know it wasn't the most heartfelt interpretation, either. However, I've had no feedback at all from anyone at Piano World. Now, to be fair, I haven't given the other participants feedback, either. But the whole thing is rather odd.

I wish I wasn't so eager for reactions from people, but there it is. Music is a form of communication, and you want to feel you are communicating with someone versus shouting into the wilderness.

On the cello:

I'm playing a little Bach plus the dances we're supposed to play on Saturday. I accepted this gig thinking it would be fun, but it's not feeling fun right now. My cello sounds bad, my fingers don't feel very limber, and now all of a sudden the organizer started sending messages about the sound system and using mics. I don't have any equipment like that, and using it is a whole different ballgame than simply playing acoustically. It's making me feel grumpy about the whole thing.

Speaking of feeling grumpy, on another message board I participate in, one of the members who is an excellent professional pianist announced the other day that she has decided to quit music. I was not all that surprised because she hasn't ever sounded terribly enthusiastic about playing the piano, not really. But much discussion ensued. It has caused me to think about all this again, about how music is such a great hobby but a not so great profession. The required skills can be so tedious and, yes, boring to master when you always have to play at such a high level, and it all takes so much time and energy. Even someone who is relatively successful at it has to start thinking that there's more to life than sitting in a practice room, especially someone as bright and as interested in the world as this person. Some people do seem to find their niche and a decent balance that allows them to continue to find the art in music, but others find it a hard slog. Maybe it simply boils down to the fact that stuff you do for fun is not so fun if it's your job.

Chopin Op. 55 No. 1 -- take two!

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I recorded this piece three years ago. I decided to record it again for the Chopin E-cital organized by Chopin enthusiasts from the Adult Beginner's forum on Piano World. The idea behind this series of recitals is to collect one recording of each piece made by a Piano World amateur volunteer -- so no duplicates, and of course, no professional recordings.

Here is what one of the organizers has said about this project. He has a take on it that I've not seen elsewhere:

The focus with e-cital is on offering a tasteful showcase platform of for the amateur performer. There is love in these performances that most pros would be hard-pressed to match - the fruit of many hours of dedications and often frustration. They are humanized, and serve, I believe, to humanize the composers while honoring them.

The inspiration found its genesis in my childhood in the 1980s: no one except professionals would play Chopin for me because they felt it was "too hard", or they were embarrassed, or... I wanted to hear what was tough about his work, since anyone with formal training and able to devote their entire career to musical study would effectively hide it and make it all sound easy. Thus, all I ever heard were professional performances, which say little about a work's difficulty and even become, no matter how sublime the interpretation, rather vanilla like some mass-produced shrinkwrapped product - if that's all one ever hears! I wanted to offer a platform for amateur performers to showcase their work since - let's face it! - performance opportunities are rare. Most of all, I wanted people to believe in themselves and accomplish the impossible!

This particular recital is in honor of Chopin's 200th birthday, celebrated on March 1, and it includes the pieces that don't fall into particular categories as well as any pieces that were missed on any of the previous recitals. Most of the nocturnes were represented last year, but the person who had intended to record Op. 55 No. 1 had some health problems and wasn't able to do it. I noticed the hole and offered to fill it.

The recital will go live tomorrow here:

Chopin E-cital site


I was interested in trying to play this piece better than I did three years ago. One thing that surprised me was how much easier it felt. Everything that was stretching my technique when I learned it the first time felt well within its capabilities this time. Memory was much more secure, and little details were much more polished. It still isn't Horowitz, but it's a more advanced me.

Chopin Nocturne Op. 55 No. 1, new and improved

I'm most dissatisfied with the fact that it sounds a bit too sturdy and straightforward. A quick survey of YouTube piece reveals that most pianists play it much slower and more dreamily than I just did. My recording clocks in at around 4 minutes; theirs are more than 5 minutes. Ah well. I guess I just don't feel it that way. I keep imagining this nocturne as more of a stately dance than as a dream sequence. FWIW, my husband thought my recording was very good.

Here's Horowitz:

Horowitz playing 55/1 at Carnegie Hall

This one by Tzvi Erez is a bit more robust. There are also some interesting background tidbits about the piece in footnotes below the video.

Erez playing 55/1 on a vintage Boesendorfer

Anyway, I have to remember that I'm an amateur. There's always something new to learn. Onward and upward . . .

Action shot

Playing at my sister-in-law's birthday party on Sunday:

What I'm playing this week

On the piano

These past couple of weeks, I have been practicing the Bach prelude and fugue (WTCII/2), Brahms Op. 118 Nos. 1 and 2, and Chopin Nocturne Op. 55 No. 1.

The reason I am reworking the Chopin is because I offered to record it for the Chopin anniversary online recital at Piano World. I will need to get that done before March 1. I've been dragging my feet (fingers?) on this, though. Ever since someone insulted me over there a few weeks ago and no one defended me or apologized, Piano World has lost its charm for me. I know, it was just one thread that probably only a few people even read. However, the bigger picture for me is that when I put in some of my valuable time reading and writing but few people respond, and no one seems to notice when I drop out for a while, it all starts to feel like a waste of time -- and I don't have a lot of that to waste.

On the other hand, relearning this nocturne is not at all a waste of time. It's definitely interesting to notice that my playing has improved since I learned it the first time three years ago.

I've also started to dip into the Beethoven sonata Op. 2 No. 3.

On the cello

I am planning to practice at least a bit every day -- scales, the tunes for the English dance on March 6, and some Bach. My fingertips were pretty sore after all the playing I did on Sunday, so I need to get back in shape.

A few random musical experiences

This past week fed my musical brain a bit.

I

On Thursday, my husband called me at work and asked if I'd like to see a Jean Arthur movie at the AFI that evening. It sounded like fun, so I said okay. But then I left work a few minutes later than I'd planned to, and the train was a little slower than usual, so I didn't get there until a few minutes after the movie started. I hate missing the beginnings of movies. My husband was all for seeing it anyway. While we were standing in the lobby arguing about discussing it, a woman came up to us and said, "Come and see this movie a friend of mine made!" It was a free screening of a documentary called "The Music Lesson," about a group of high school students from the Boston Youth Orchestra who went to Africa to meet and play music with children there. So we decided to go to that instead.

My impression was that the subject was certainly interesting, but the compare-and-contrast exercise didn't quite hold together. The Boston students were the typical highly schooled classical musicians who had never tried to improvise and probably had never played any folk music. Their playing, even at its best, was a bit stilted and wobbly. The African students were trained in music only to the extent of learning songs in school, in church, and in group ceremonial experiences. The music they performed in the film was vibrant, rhythmic, spontaneous, and primitive.

There was a Q&A afterward with the director, producer, and a few others involved with the film. The cinematographer had an amusing story about something that had happened early on. One day, an elephant appeared near the place where they were all staying (accommodations were basically like camping, though in a spacious wooden structure open to the air), and the cinematographer asked one of the kids, a particularly gregarious flute player, to play something while he filmed. The kid said, "Oh, I can't; I don't have anything prepared." The guy urged him quite a bit, but the boy refused to play. By the end of their time there, this boy was jamming along with everyone else. One of the violinists commented that they were all getting much better at improvising because they were doing it every day.

One important point about all this was made by an African musician who had appeared in the film. Someone in the audience commented that the Boston kids got this vivid musical experience, but what did the African kids get? The musician said that the gift to them was recognition that they indeed had something to offer these sophisticated, rich Americans.

II

On Saturday, we had a gathering at our house in honor of my mother-in-law. Because there isn't going to be a funeral, my husband wanted to do something and decided to arrange this. It was a busy day for me, cleaning, shopping, and baking (though my husband did order in some food). I got in a little piano practice before everyone arrived, but didn't touch the cello.

After everyone had had something to eat, and we had all conversed for a while, my husband came up to me and asked if I would mind playing something on the cello. I think the film we saw was in the back of both of our minds, because normally he wouldn't have even asked me, and normally I probably would have demurred. But this time, he did ask, and I said sure.

So I brought my cello upstairs. My husband read a poem by Wendell Berry, who is a native of Kentucky, where my mother-in-law was born.

The Silence
Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there. *

Then I played the prelude from the first Bach suite. I played from memory, and I just walked myself through it. Those notes are so familiar to me; I've been playing that piece for 40 years. It would have been so silly to be nervous that I barely had to tell myself not to be nervous.

III

This afternoon, I had a rehearsal with a fiddle player and a recorder player for an English country dance ball in a couple of weeks. They both are much more experienced at playing this kind of music than I am, and I felt a little intimidated, but they were very nice and the rehearsal went well. We played through a list of about 20 songs. It was actually fun, and though I felt very creaky at first, started to warm up as we went along.

This evening, we went to my brother- and sister-in-law's house to celebrate her 50th birthday. She called me last night and asked me to bring my cello and play a little bit, so after dinner, I set up and played some Bach and some Scottish folk tunes, and then we all had cake. After the cake, my brother-in-law cranked up his Hammond organ to jam some blues with his brother-in-law, who plays harmonica. I got the cello out again and totally surprised everyone by jamming along with them.


*From Wendell Berry, Collected Poems 1957-1982. San Francisco: North Point Press.

Anniversary and life event

It's been a year today since the problem with my ear started. It seems to be fine now, though today I'm having a problem with my eye (it's great being over 50, isn't it?). Every once in a while, something happens with one of my eyes -- not always the same one. It's some sort of infection, and I don't know what causes it, but it's painful. Rest and warm compresses are the only treatments that help. So I'm nursing myself through this and considering whether I should go to the ophthalmologist.

The tears on my face feel appropriate. We are in a sad, contemplative mode here this week. My mother-in-law died on Sunday morning. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the mid-1990s. The effects were mild for almost a decade, but in 1999 her husband died rather suddenly, and with the inevitable contraction of her life (widowhood + worsening of her own illness), she was never really happy again. For the past five years, she had been in a nursing home. I've read that most people who end their lives in nursing homes stay for only about a year. Five years is a very long time to live in such a place, even when it is well run and caring.

This past week, she slipped into a deep sleep. I don't know if it was technically a coma, but no one could wake her up, and she couldn't eat or drink. It was in this deep sleep that she died, peacefully and quietly. Everyone in the family is sad because of her suffering over the past ten years, but we are glad for her that that is over. It's sobering to think that no matter how vigorously someone lives her life, it can dwindle to this. It's yet another reminder not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

What I'm playing this week

This has been a strange week. I've been off of work since noon on Friday because of our huge snow storm (about 30 inches of snow in our area), but have I been practicing a lot? Why, no. But I have been doing a bit.

On piano:

Bach WTC II No. 2 in C minor: I have both prelude and fugue memorized but can't play them through flawlessly, and I also am not sure about my interpretation. I had the idea that I would record them for posterity and move on to another set, but it bothers me to leave them in this half-done condition. I'd also like to at least be able to play them through for myself, if for no one else.

Chopin Nocturne Op. 55 No. 1: Memory is mostly back, and it does seem a lot easier than it did the first time I learned it (three years ago), but it's clunky and uneven and not polished at all. Sigh.

Brahms Op. 118: I'm continuing to practice Nos. 1 and 2. No. 2 is actually almost memorized and is getting a bit easier.

Beethoven Op. 2 No. 3: I started practicing this very slowly. Not sure why I picked one of the longest sonatas he wrote . . . but perhaps this will be a good endurance exercise. This is always an issue with me, though; when I choose pieces that are longer than about five minutes I tend to give up on them because I get frustrated. However, I did once learn an entire Mozart sonata (K. 310). I wish I had recorded all of it at the time instead of just the first movement. This was also about three years ago (seems to have been a productive piano year for me):

Mozart K. 310 

A classical-form sonata movement does have a great deal of repetition, even though it's in different keys, so it does tend to be easier terms of memorization than some other forms that are through-compose. So I'm not entirely without hope that I can do this project.

On the cello:

Not doing much, though I do have a couple of things coming up. One is an English country dance ball the first weekend in March. I was hired for this by one of the callers for the dance at Glen Echo. It will be a trio, fiddle, recorder, and cello. The event is part of a cultural enrichment program for high school students; they're going to have a workshop during the day and a ball in the evening. We're planning to have a rehearsal in two weeks (assuming we get a playlist by then), so I really need to practice just some general stuff (scales, etc.) so I don't sound like a fool.

Another event is that our little neighborhood group -- violin, recorder, guitar, cello -- is going to be playing for tips (for three hours!) at a café in May. We need to work out what we're going to play and any arrangements, so that will take some getting together and rehearsing. The last time we played anywhere was last August. Here's a sample from that event:

Sidste Vals

There are also two more orchestra concerts for the season, one in April, one in June.

In the meantime, more snow is expected tonight. I may have another day off tomorrow as well.