Well, I'm back at it today. Tomorrow will be two weeks until the April 24th recital. Today I have played the first half of the program, and when I return to the piano later on today, I'll practice the second half of the program, which concludes with the 'Moonlight.' This next week is a time of transition, when I move from the 'how' to the 'what' of the program. The 'how' are the technical things - briefly listed:
* reading the text correctly, the right pitches and the right rhythms, based on the best text available
* fingering the pieces, considering alternative fingerings and distributions of notes between the hands
* working through any tension, insecurities, or 'technical knots' that have come up during practice
* memorizing the pieces
* working through pedaling, colorization, i.e. dynamics, accents, overall sense of phrasing and lines
* analysis of form, theoretical considerations such as harmony, tonal centers, modulations, transistions between sections.
The 'what' :
* The 'emotional line' of the piece - where does the tension gather, where does it release, is there movement toward a point of arrival, is there movement away from that point. Are there places where we're 'on hold' the tonal center is stopped for a while. Are there places where the harmonic language points to a rise of tension.
* The overall rhythmic feel of each piece, each movement, each section - a constant check on whether my body is harmonizing with the rhythm of the piece. Am I clenching at a difficult spot? Is my breathing getting stopped by fear of a difficult passage? Am I playing with ease throughout? Is any possible clenching the result of a poorly or incompletely conceived sense of the rhythm? By rhythm here I mean the metrics of the piece - strong and weak beats, divisions of the beats into strong and weak groupings, strong and weak measures, places where there is a feeling of upbeat in comparison to places where there is a feeling of downbeat. This feeling may encompass entire groups of measures as well.
* Cultivating a sense of the awareness of what I am playing. If I find myself thinking of a fingering, or technical solution to a passage, I immediately go back and rethink it in terms of what the music says, not how I'm playing it.This is critical for a successful performance, because thinking of how I'm playing something pulls the focus of my attention back onto myself. And when the focus is on myself and not the music, I'll probably start judging the past of what I've just played, the future of the tough stuff that's going to happen, and ignore the present of the music flowing through me.
* Practicing continuity - the ability to get through the piece no matter what. Continuity practice is not detailed polishing - although that is also important and has to happen. Continuity practice is sitting down and beginning a piece and not stopping, regardless of how bad it is, or how many mistakes I'm making, etc. In other words, this is practice for performance. Once I've completed a continuity practice, I'll go back polish, and make notes on what to do. But it is vital to begin doing this type of practice. So over the next week to ten days, I'll arrange for several 'test runs' of the program - first each half, and then the entire program. This builds mental stamina, and creates a 'wholistic' continuity for the emotional line of the entire program.
BTW, the closer I get to the performance, the more frequently I'll begin just looking at the score, and not playing it at all...
So that's where we are in the process. I'll be practicing the 'Moonlight' later, and have some more specific thoughts on it for you then.