Musical memories

One place I never thought I'd sit is in the string section of an orchestra. I always thought that the long, arduous path to perfecting a string instrument must be impossible for someone who didn't grow up playing the instrument at a Suzuki school. Wrong I was - at least I believe so now. I've been playing the violin for nearly three weeks now and have already become fascinated by the tone and the possibilities of producing new sounds, ones impossible to make on the piano, the guitar or even with the human voice. After being shown how to hold the instrument and the bow by my teacher on Jan. 30, I came home and started reading the books she gave me ( Basics by Simon Fischer, Ivan Galamian's book on Fundamentals and Methods of Violin Technique , and two beginner's books for children) and began practicing what they preached and what they offered.  I also discovered Michael Sanchez 's YouTube channel with his short videos with tips for violinists. He explains thin...

Many serious pianists I have known over the past decades have had a bout of tendinitis. The tendons in their wrists or arms become inflamed after having forced themselves to practice more than their bodies would allow. They felt the pain coming on, yet continued to pound the ivories. The same thing has happened to me. Heed my warning - when your hands begin to hurt, you need to stop and, perhaps, reconsider your technique. This past year I had set as my goal to learn and perform Scriabin's Fifth Piano Sonata in its entirety. I had been working on the first 5 pages for years - decades - and had progressed through half of it by February, playing that much of it for a few friends then. With that fairly positive experience in my pocket, I soldiered on, realizing that the music which I had years ago considered light-years beyond my technical reach was indeed not that impossible once the structure was comprehended. Now it was just a matter of memorizing it and getting my fingers to hit ...

Had I penned this post Friday afternoon, as I had planned, it would have smacked of anxiety, tension, reticence, insecurity and disappointment. I would have used the words "harter Brocken" to refer to Brahms' German Requiem . Until last night's rehearsal I had perceived it as a Sisyphean boulder, a monumental work that I just wasn't able to get my head around - much less my voice - and so I feared my ineptitude would perhaps endanger our performance on Sunday afternoon. It is indeed a monumental work, being the longest opus Brahms ever composed and, as far as popular choral works are concerned, I would guess it is one of the most demanding for the choir. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but for a chorister to stand and sing for 80 minutes without a break takes more fortitude than I attributed to myself. I can't speak for the others, but simply sitting and concentrating on a piece of music for 80 minutes (without any breaks to look at your phone, take a dr...

The stars aligned, the universe decided to play along and I ended up hitting a double a few weeks ago. At the Untertürkheimer Kulturtreff , a charming little venue for intimate performances, a local piano teacher was going to present music and musings from 40 years of piano lessons. That sounded like just what I wanted to hear. I figured everyone else in the hall probably knew him, so when I sat down, I asked the woman next to me if she was a pianist. "I'm the tuner of the piano," she replied. Even better, I thought! We chatted for quite a while, and I finally had the opportunity to ask a tuner the questions I had always wanted to ask about my instrument and about the way former tuners had worked on it. When someone is tuning my Blüthner grand piano, I feel they want to tune and not talk, so I let them go about their work. She admitted that she was no expert on the Blüthner mechanics, but she knew someone who is. He is retired; he did his master exam with her father! ...

Two years ago while I was attending the choir and symphony rehearsals for Christoph Eschenbach 's performance of Mahler's Second Symphony with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, I thought to myself: If I could ever sing in the choir for this piece, a dream will have come true.  At the time, however, I was not singing in any choir. Now that I've been singing in the Untertürkheimer Kantorei for half a year, I realize that the experience would potentially be even richer than I had imagined. Back then I was thinking I would enjoy all the rehearsal time listening to the great music. Although I get a lot of joy from playing the piano, most of my musical enjoyment comes from listening to others make music. Little did I know how much joy singing in a group could make me. My father was the chaplain where I went to high school. At the end of each weekly service (for five of my most formative years) we sang " Oh God our help in ages past ". But he was up at the front of the ch...

Shostakovich 24 Preludes and Fugues,  Op. 87 I'm going to start writing about some of my favorite music and what it means to me, so watch out! Right now I'm listening to a copy of the 24 Preludes and Fugues by Dimitri Shots-of-kovich as played by the Russian pianist for whom he wrote them in 1950 after her Bach interpretation stunned the composer as he sat in the jury of the Leipzig Bach Piano Competition. He composed these marvelous pieces within four months, becoming more and more enthralled with the idea and the genre as he went. My history with the pieces: A girlfriend in college played piano really well, stunning me again and again with the cadenza from Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto whenever we'd go over to the music building together. Her sister played some of the Preludes and Fugues, which was about as much of a recommendation as I needed to pick up the sheet music a few years later. You see, I approach music through people. And so these blog post...

The joy I experienced while singing Schubert this morning was a long time coming. My memories of Schubert stretch from Stuttgart to my college days in Williamsburg and back again. Schubert's G-Major Mass with the Untertürkheimer Kantorei at the Wallmerkirche My first introduction to Franz Schubert's vocal music was through the recordings of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I had probably first read about him in the Guinness Book of World Records, he being the recording artist (in 1980) with the most LPs on the market. In addition, our music library at William & Mary had a good number of his recordings and I found them very interesting. After failing my audition for the college choir the first week at college - and rightly so because I couldn't sing in tune - I began taking voice lessons. My elder sister sang in the renowned choir there and thought I would also enjoy singing. Our father sang Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, so she probably thought it was in our g...