Adagio sostenuto
The piano in Area A in Brussels Zaventem appears to have moved. This is sad.
There has also been a really nice upright at Gare Central in Brussels in a hall with wonderful acoustics. I haven’t had time to play it yet. But I have heard people playing it and it just sounds exceptional.
I missed the weekend because I was in Dublin, to see Maxim Vengarov. I know he plays the violin but still….
Anyway, the practice was daily except Sat and Sunday so I broke my streak. I’m struggling. Really struggling to get further than about 15 days in a row. But all that days I have missed in March so far were travelling days.
So where are we: quick look back at last week. Okay. The fingering accuracy problems which were a major feature of last week are not such a problem this week. I’m inclined to think they are hormonal and I probably should track them as such in my practice journal. This leaves us with a review of what I got up to since I last posted.
I played other stuff this week at various times, sometimes when I am tired or lost and also because I passed through Brussels and Dublin Airports and touched pianos in both airports. This week that included the Waltz Opus 30/15 Brahms, the A major setting (by Brahms himself). Currently stuck on the opening piece as I shape my fingers to it, but I love it and I think it will be a useful building block to 118/2, the other great expression of unrequited love I think. From the Celtic repertoire, there were the following pieces:
All pieces that I love. I also touched Exodus, Scarborough Fair, I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables, and I think that was about it for the late night session last night.
For my next trick I need to start booking grand piano time a bit more frequently, and then I also need a tripod for my phone so I can film the exam submission by the end of the month. I’m really pleased about this.
Firstly, I need to apologise to Cork Airport. They have a piano, as in Dublin, it is in Arrivals on the ground floor of the terminal and you need to retrieve a key to use it. If I have time on Monday I will do so. The piano is supplied by Moloney Pianos and my point about there needing to be one airside still stands.
Before Christmas, I passed through both Brussels and Amsterdam and played pianos in both airports. As Brussels is my local departure airport, I know the set up there slightly better and they have two pianos, one in each terminal, A and B (Schengen and non-Schengen). I always try to find time to sit there for a while and play and I duly did. I’m in the process of setting up a YouTube channel for this site so will add some bits and pieces from public pianos over the years when it is up and running.
The one that surprised me was Amsterdam. I hadn’t known there was a piano there and I found it by accident in what I think is the non-Schengen side of the airport on Christmas Eve. There was a young American with a leaning towards jazz and blues playing there. I was impressed and listened for quite a while. His flight had been cancelled. Two teenaged boys came up and asked if they could have a go. The first of them played Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, the second movement, and then he played a medley out of what I think was the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Hans Zimmer. The second played a couple of bits by Yann Tiersen, at least one of which was from the Amelie movie. I played some stuff from Ireland.
The piano is in the library in Amsterdam Airport. Already, I love that they have a library area, I love that there is plenty of place to sit and relax or work, plenty of sockets. It’s a K.Kawai, and from what I can see from the internet it has been there for more than 10 years. It’s in tune, and in reasonably good condition. So AMS takes care of it and that’s to the benefit of passengers passing through.
What I loved about that interlude on Christmas Eve was how supportive a) all of the musicians were of each other despite playing very different music and b) how supportive the audience were. In fact, I’m always surprised by the feedback I tend to get playing public pianos – I’m not Lang Lang – but I have had people come up to me on trains in Ireland who heard me playing on the pianos in Heuston, and each of the four of us playing in the Library in Amsterdam Airport on Christmas Eve got rounds of applause. It makes you feel good.
I didn’t learn the name of the young American pianist but he was utterly charming. He showed a four year old how to play scales and then improvised with her so that they made something very special. We need more people around doing stuff like that, I’ve done it in Heuston once or twice when children show an interest. It’s one of the reasons I think public pianos are important.
The two teenagers were French I think. At least one of them spoken English with a heavy French accent. The other said very little.
I’ve played public pianos in Belgium, Ireland, France and now the Netherlands. I’ve not seen any of the public pianos in Germany and I couldn’t get near the train pianos in St Pancras the last time I was in London. I think this is kind of a good thing.
I moved from Dublin to Luxembourg in 2016 and part of my journey to Luxembourg took me through the Gare de L’Est in Paris. Flight to Paris, you see, and a train to Luxembourg. I had HOURS to kill in Paris, armed with quite a lot of luggage.
Gare de L’Est has a Yamaha piano, and I summoned up all my guts to play it – if you look for the #pianoengare hashtag, you’ll know that the SNCF pianos are often played by extremely able pianists and I think there is video of Valentina Lisitsa, for example. It’s intimidating and I have to be honest, I didn’t at that time, have a lot of self confidence. What I had, I summoned up and noodled at the piano for around 20 minutes before I got cold and went in search of something to drink. It was…interesting. I had not actually played the piano regularly for many years.
It’s a good piano.
I have a dreadful tendency not to be able to say no sometimes, and especially, if someone is asking me to do something which in a way, terrifies me. This year, I got asked to play piano in public-ish (how public is an even which features a bunch of your work colleagues) and with a lot of concern, I agreed. There were some limitations in terms of repertoire and eventually, having decided on some pieces, I got on and did it. I won’t say it went perfectly – I had a nervous crisis at the piano, precisely because I knew all these people. In a way, the train station pianos are easier.
But it was good for me, not least because it provides an unusual motivation to practise, and it made me think about how I approached the piano. Do I play for me, or do I want to shine and sparkle for others?
I tend to think I play for myself. That it is a self indulgence. I’d like to hope it’s one which will stave off dementia in about 40 years time (I dread aging for some reason). But I also felt that accepting the risk of doing things which scare me – like performing in public – is good for me. Not just because it motivates me to practice, but also because it motivates me to open up. Both pieces I played back in May in a work concert were arranged by me (with not one piece of sheet music to hand because that’s just not the way I work). I’ve been asked about a transcription since, and that too, has motivated me to think about how I might approach that. There is software on my iPad, but I find, I prefer to play the piano than actually sit down transcribing what I play. No matter.
The other point is that, there is a difference between the safe things I play in public (ie the things I can’t possibly make a truly ridiculous mess of) and the things that I challenge myself with at home (Ballade No 2 by Chopin). I am thinking that perhaps, this needs to change.
This is the piano in Heuston Station, Dublin. It is one of three station pianos that I know about in Dublin (the first was in Pearse Station, and I believe there is one in Connolly Station now also).
I love the idea of pianos like that. The SNCF has a load of them in the train stations in Paris – I’ve played two of them. Most of the time that I pass through Heuston now, which is not very often as I live in Luxembourg, someone is playing the piano. The day I played (see below), a couple of teenage girls knocked out a lot of Yann Tiersen after I went off to get coffee.
The pianos in railway stations seem to survive remarkably well. The piano at the Gare de l’Est in Paris is a Yamaha which, by the standards of Yamahas, is a really nice piano to play. We often hear comments like “That’s why we can’t have nice things” when something has been vandalised but a million people must walk through some of the big stations in Paris and yet….
Trip to Ireland, Bensusan, arranged for piano by me
In Ireland, people come up and talk to you. They even came to me on the train in Mallow, 2 hours to the south to say that they had enjoyed it. I wasn’t doing anything particularly difficult – the piano is a piano d’études, and not very new. The keys are a little harder to play than I am used to. But if it’s free, I play it any time I pass, although I don’t always have time to record it. And I play things that are second nature.
Eamon an Chnoic, also known as Ned of the Hill
Cé hé sin amuigh, atá báite fuar, fliuch.