April 24, 6:00 pm
The recital ended at 4:00, and after packing up and getting back home, I'm ready to enter the last blog about the performance.
It was very well received - there was a good audience, quiet, attentive, and very responsive. A standing ovation at the end of 'Moonlight' and lots of well-wishers afterwards. I personally was quite satisfied with the performance. The hall as a lovely acoustic for piano - live and resonant. The piano can really breathe, and the sonorities have room to grow in. So it's a pleasure to play there. I played a Steinway “B” which was quite good. Not as good as the Fazioli of the previous week, but certainly playable. And although it's smaller than a full concert grand (9 ft.) it has enough power for the Beethoven I played.
Here are a few general observations:
- my plan for preparation worked in general. However, I still would like to have a decent rehearsal at the piano the day before the concert. The hour I was allotted was barely enough time to get to know the instrument, and since I'm temperamentally disinclined to play everthing at full bore the day of the recital, it's quite a push to get through a program of this kind. This was especially true for the late Sonata, Op. 101. There were passages in it that I was simply playing for the first time in that hall, and that wasn't ideal. But the first hallmark of a good pianist is coordination, and the second is fexlibility.
- luckily, it was a cool day here, so I wore a jacket over to the hall. It turned out that the dressing room was rather chilly, and I kept the jacket on until the last minute before putting on my suit coat and going out onto the stage, where of course it's warm! So in the future, I intend to add to my checklist a note to bring along a warm sweater. With ventilation systems being what they are, the internal temperature of a building can range from freezing in one room to boiling in another. Flexibility again.
- I paid a lot of attention to my breathing throughout the recital, and this was a big help.
Now onto the 'Moonlight' itself.
- it was the correct thing to use the soft pedal in the first movement. Given the resonance of the hall, the sound was not at all muffled, and using the soft pedal gave the proper 'mystery' to the sonority of the first movement.
- here are some specific things I want to work on in the first movement:
ms. 48/50 didn't get the subito piano
ms. 58/59 another subito piano, this one I did better, but I'm not exploiting the full expressive value here
ms. 25 I need to check the triplet eighth notes, something doesn't feel right here
ms. 48 triplet eighth notes on the fourth beat, right hand - I discovered Friday that I was misreading this, but didn't have time to change it - should be c-sharp, e, g-sharp. I played c-sharp, f-sharp, g-sharp. Note that I repeated the last two eighth notes of the previous beat. Those darned patterns!
- second movement: Not too much here, I felt good about it, and have finally conquered the memory insecurity in measure 13/14. Was able to correct a misreading in 33-34, where I discovered (also on Friday) that I was prolonging the left hand chord and bringing it in with the right hand on the second beat, rather than letting the chord sound on the first beat only.
- third movement - went very well in general. In fact, certain problem passages, such as measure 9- 13 went better than ever before (boy, is it nice when that happens!) In think this was partly due to the resonance of the hall - I could actually hear the upper pedal g-sharp in the right hand.
- measures 53-57 and 148-151. In both of these passages I was hitting too many wrong notes. I think the reason is that I'm not feeling the rhythmic structure of the four measures, but instead playing each half measure as an equal to all the others. There's not enough impulse, in other words, particularly over the larger, half-measure span. I'll need to work on this.
- measure 78 - didn't play the slight change in chord voicing in the second half of the measure for the right hand. I got away with it, but I need that 'c' for the D7 chord.
- 178-185 This was better, but it still could have used more spaciousness, I need to broaden the tempo slightly here, and not play it strictly in time. It just feels to 'squeezed.' But was better, nonetheless.
Finally on 'Moonlight': frankly, I took on this Sonata after a conversation last year with out Program Coordinator, who is in charge of publicity and ticket sales, etc. She felt that we need to improve our audience attendance. And I knew that 'Moonlight' was a warhorse and would be a sure draw. What I didn't expect is that, even though I've taught it before, I would have such a wonderful time learning and playing it. I truly understand why it was such an immediate success when it was first performed, and why it has been played frequently ever since.
And now a few closing thoughts:
- recital making is a process not a product. And what you've read here is just a little window into the process that any professional pianist must go through to present a recital. Remember that this blog covered only one Sonata - and I performed two other Sonatas and two sets of Variations. So the Blog, if it covered the entire program, would be huge. As it is, I've still got to go to the other pieces, make notes on them and put in some corrections. This is the ongoing work of the process of being a musician.
- I already know I'll be performing the 'Moonlight' on at least two other occasions in the next month. And, given the success I had with it, I may program it more frequently in the future.
-Finally, I hope that this blog has given you some insight into what happens on stage, and in the months leading up to it. What I can't describe here is that magic that happens when I'm totally immersed in this magnificent music, sharing its beauty with listerners. That, dear blog-reader, you'll have to discover for yourself, by making music for others.
'Bye!