Adagio sostenuto
Someone mentioned to me that they liked this piece today so I went looking. It’s in Pianist 102 which I don’t have but it is also on IMSLP so now I do have it as well, all ten pages of it.
It’s in D flat. My all time favourite key. Having then wandered into Sinding Google Exploration I wound up with this by Cecile Chaminade.
This is also in D flat. I need to work in that key anyway thanks to Rach but anyway…,
Alexandre Tharaud is one of my favourite pianists and he might get me to go listen to these Ravel concertos although Ravel is tainted in my mind by the Bolero which turns up in the figure skating world a lot (although for the 23-24 season, Kevin Aymoz is worth a look),
Anyway, even Argerich couldn’t get me to give much time to Ravel – it doesn’t talk to me in general. But Tharaud has a magical touch.
If you check under my objectives, you’ll see I’m currently working Grade 6. I wonder sometimes how valid it is that I write a piano blog when I am stuck firmly in the intermediate box as far as classical repertoire is concerned.
I had trouble selecting the List A piece at the time. I was surprised; I thought the List C would be harder but I found recordings of some of them, liked the first one I heard, and off we went.
Out of the four pieces, the Bach is KILLING me. Well, some of it is incredibly easy. The rest of it is killing me. In part, this is a gap in my education. I don’t align so much with Bach as I do with Chopin and Rachmananinininininininoff or indeed Felix. This is not the kind of thing you admit out loud in the piano world. Bach is 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything.
The one piece of Bach that everyone knew (well I never played it but I could pull it out by ear if I really wanted to) turned out to be composed by someone else (Christian Petzold in this case, apparently). The only piece I truly liked was the Toccata and Fugue although Sky might have something to do with that.
It’s worth digging out an organ version too. But that’s not where we are right now.
I want to do the exam performance in February or March in 2024 so I need to get a move on with Bach. I don’t know the Rebikov but I can sight read it without too much difficulty. Learning it by heart is the challenge there and I’m already at a stage where I can deal with thinking about how I want it to sound. But the Bach had been a traincrash and more to the point, Apple’s music search meant I turned up very little when I went looking for a recording of it, at least initially. Once I discovered that looking for Angela Hewitt would be more productive, things got better. I’m now more motivated to learn the Bach because I’ve realised it is a stepping stone to the Rameau that I want to do for Grade 8. So back to Bach we went.
I’m stuck in the middle of the first part. Henle tells me this is easier than the Mendelssohn that while it was a swamp inhabited by dragons from a fingering point of view, it was also readable from day one. I won’t say it was easy to get right but it was easy to motivate myself to pick it apart and start putting it back together.
I don’t believe Henle. Maybe it’s easier if you started playing Petzold instead of a music hall version of the Rose of Tralee, aged 10 (god knows why we had it) but if you’ve somehow got to the age of 50 without doing any counterpoint at all, Bach is a big thick brick wall.
In particular, I’m struggling with the highlighted bars above. Well, the first of them is okay after a great deal of very slow work and repetition. Yes, I have been using a metronome, at length, much to the pity of my neighbours no doubt. But it is very very slow going. I’m operating under the fatal excess optimism that once I manage that, then much of the rest of it being easier than the Mendelssohn might materialise.
On the plus side, it’s a decent enough piece of Bach, and I’ve also spent some time with the C Major Prelude from WTC lately, and I’ve had a look at Aria from the Goldberg Variations. I bought a copy of Anna Maria Bach’s notebook as well (and it has the Petzold in it too which is handy and now I am wondering about getting CPE Bach’s notebook too). And I really, really hope it helps with the Rameau.
In other news, I will see the Goldbergs courtesy of Vikingur Olafsson next week. I am looking forward to it.
I found myself myself in a secondhand bookstore today looking at their sheet music collection. It was…disappointing in a way but exhilarating that two second hand bookshops in Brussels have sheet music. Today, you were quids in if you played the violin, the electric organ or the clarinet. Actually I assume that if you play the clarinet, it must be quite wonderful to fall over the odd bit of clarinet music anywhere, nevermind a shop more used to selling fiction and comic strips.
Anyway, times were thin on the piano music but I picked up two pieces, one being a duplicate (of more anon) and the other being by Guastavino whose music I had to order specially lately (I haven’t started the piece yet). He is not yet out of copyright but is difficultly in print. I’m not sure what this will be like but I bought it anyway.
What struck me about it was that each page was stamped with what looks like a publisher’s mark.
Anyway. I have it.
As a teenager, aside from Rach II, a couple of pieces of cinema music seared through my mind, one of which was Richard Adinsell’s Warsaw Concerto from the movie Dangerous Moonlight. As I mostly found classical music through figure skating at that time, I assume that’s where I picked that up from. Anyway, we found a recording, probably on Naxos at some point, but the sheet music eluded me for years and years and years and years. In fact, I only picked a new copy of it sometime in the last 2 years since Pointe d’Orgue became known to me (one of the two sheet music shops that I trust in Brussels. I ordered the Guastivino mentioned above from the other, Brauer. I know them both. Anyway, Pointe d’Orgue had the Adinsell so after a near 25 year search I had it in my hands.
One of the fascinating things for me with orchestral piano music is that you can get lots of it and it all has an accompaniment for a second piano or is a reduction for 2 pianos. So the Hummel I picked up last week was a bit of a novelty. Anyway, today’s haul includes Warsaw Concerto, or more specifically, Concerto de Varsovie, solo piano.
If you’re looking for a good recording of it, I’m inclined to suggest Jean Yves Thibaudet. You can have a listen on Youtube here.
Actually, I went looking for a trailer for the film Dangerous Moonlight which I have never seen and instead, I found this. The music is very clearly the star and yet, it’s completely different to any recording I have ever heard of it.
If you want to read more about the movie, you can find it here.
Anyway, they cost almost nothing. The total I spent in the shop was 5 euro 50 cents and in addition to the sheet music there was a kids book and a how to draw ballet dancers book.
When I got home I went to my “keep these safe” documents where I thought there was a copy of the piano solo of the Legend of the Glass Mountain by Nina Rota. Apparently I have put it somewhere even safer.
This is something I’ve been looking for almost as long; and I found a copy of it in the Sheet Music Library in the Central Library in Dublin about 30 years ago having searched for a while for it. No dice but I seemed to acquire a photocopy of it. I never got around to learning it but it’s still on my TBL list. I see a copy of it on eBay though which will post to Belgium so I am going to rectify that.
I’m interested in second hand sheet music sources. Point me at them.
You can find me in Community and I have a practice diary there. I am also looking at (mostly) technique course for the moment.
Igor Levit – Fantasia
This is absolutely worth your time if only to have a listen to the Liszt and the Bach. It is bright and clear and utterly inspiring.
Some time ago, some years ago, I picked up an album called Autograph by Alexandre Tharaud. It’s the sort of album I like – a random selection of short pieces he uses for encores (note to passing concert pianists, collections like this are inspiring – I will never be able to aspire to doing all 24 preludes by Chopin but what follows is why people like me still play the piano, years after our dreams of Carnegie Hall bite the dust). Anyway, one of the pieces that is on that album is a piece from a Gluck opera, and I think it’s labelled Dance of the Blessed Spirits.
It took a while to find it but I discovered (after finding the wrong one first) that it was a transcription by Alexandre Siloti, about whom I knew the sum total of nothing. It’s somewhere on IMSLP, but not easy to find and I haven’t got the link handy. I discovered later he had done a load of transcriptions, and one which kept popping up was a Bach transcription from a piece in E minor (there seems to be some disagreement on which Bach E minor it is with some people claiming it is not the one in WTC. Anyway, peu importe. I also discovered he did Air on a G string and in a bunch of discussions on Un Sospiro (which I bought last week), his transcription is recommended as being more accessible than Liszt’s. Apparently there is some thought that it more reflects what Liszt was playing, at least in the later days, for Siloti knew Liszt.
Anyway, his transcriptions aren’t always easy to find, but at some point, there was a comprehensive overview done, so I bought it yesterday.
It is not cheap.
While coughing up for that I also had a look to see if by any chance they had Fauré’s Three Romances without Words for piano, because that too was on the Alexandre Tharaud Autograph album and I have troubled to find it in a bricks and mortar. However, here too I was victorious. So victorious, I forgot to see if the Liszt Sonata I wanted was there but as I only want one movement from that, I will look to see if it’s in Henle’s app and pick up the paper later if/when I start learning it in all seriousness.
The shop also sold pasta, so I also bought pasta in the shape of various music shapey things. Treble clef carbonara may be in my future.
The Brussels Phiiharmonic and Flagey are running a series of Rachmaninoff concerts to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth and while I will miss the two concerts dedicated to the second and third piano concertos, this weekend included the first and fourth along with And Supporting Pieces. I will pick up Piano Concerto No 1 along with Rimsky Korskakov’s Scheherazade later today but I want to post briefly about last night’s concert. Details of the festival are here.
The soloist is Boris Giltburg, artist in residence in Flagey at the moment as I understand it. He is a Moscow born Israeli pianist in his late 30s and for some reason, last night was the first time I had come across his work. This surprises me. He was excellent. Last night he chose to play a Fazioli and I think this is the first time that I have seen a piano that was not a Steinway or a Yamaha in years. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t see a Steinway. I like Faziolis so this pleased me. And I was in Row B. I know they are somewhat of the cheap seats and “the sound is better further back”. But. I like to watch the soloist and in this respect, Boris Giltburg is definitely worth watching.
The programme for last night was the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, An American in Paris by Gershwin and then, the fourth piano concerto, sometimes the forgotten of the four brothers, as it were, often overshadowed by the Symphonic Dances (which if it was programmed near me this year I somehow endeavoured to miss which is a pity because that is a mighty piece).
The Paganini was superlative. There isn’t really any other way to describe it and I doubt any other performance will match it for pure power and delicacy. I suspect the piano in part had something to do with that – for me, the piano personifies a river running through the countryside of the orchestra for that piece (and sometimes that countryside is frozen, covered in frost and snow with ice on the surface of occasional pools of still water) and the sound of the Fazioli definitely enhanced that image for me. Equally, the fourth piano concerto was an outstanding performance – it is hardly surprising that Giltburg picked up standing ovations for both performances and will probably pick up a few more customer’s for today’s concert this afternoon. I liked him very much; he provided one encore from the Moments Musicaux, one with which I am less familiar but glitteringly beautiful nonetheless.
Touching on the Gershwin, I have to confess he is not really my favourite, and I couldn’t actually remember ever listening to An American in Paris but I must have because it was extremely familiar to me. Maybe I heard it quite often when I was very young. That being said, the performance last night was top flight. I’m left with the feeling that in the repertoire, this should be performed much more often. I would also tend to suggest that it is a piece that really bears being heard live rather than in recorded format.
After the concert, there was an Aftertalk, questions and answers with the conductor and the soloist. It was something I’ve never experienced before but I have to say it was fascinating. It touched on the challenges for both composers, the changes Rach made to the fourth piano concerto a couple of years before he died, how it fitted into his dire for American citizenship before he died. The presenter prior to the concert suggested this was a jazzy concerto and in discussion afterwards, I would venture to suggest that isn’t quite right, at least in the final revisions; I learned there are elements of jazz impro in the first edition of the concerto. But for me, again, it evokes snowy scenery rather than the jazz view of the United States o the 20s. Emigrés fall between several cultures and I suspect Rach is no different in that.
On the question of Gershwin it was pointed out that he wanted to be taken seriously by the classical establishment; that he had been an immensely musical theatre composer – I have heard this store more recently of course with Andrew Lloyd Webber. In Europe at least, Gershwin is seen as a great composer and has been for the last 40 years at least. Giancarlo Guerrero, who conducted, is fascinating in this discussion and he notes that in the US, Gershwin is still seen as lesser despite this being the first great American symphonic piece. It’s an interesting perspective and that discussion is one why those after concert discussions can be fascinating and extremely fascinating.
Anyway, I came home and took out the 18th Variation transcription for solo piano and had a go at it again. My god it is so lovely, I should put more work into it, despite the Bach two part invention that stands before me like an undesirable but necessary Everest (once I am past that, Bach will be carefully selected rather than imposed).
7 October, Rachmaninoff with the Brussels Philharmonic, Guerrero and Giltburg.
I went on a shopping spree today. I wanted to buy the Goldberg Variations – one of the things that Vikingur Olafsson succeeded in making me do was decide I wanted to learn some of them, with what time I don’t actually know but hey, I can read them anyway. I also wanted to buy Un Sospiro by Liszt – I’ve seen a couple of videos of people trying to learn them lately and I realised it is a truly lovely piece (I must have heard some serious butchering as well. In fact, I have a shopping list of music I want to buy for which I don’t have the time to learn, I’m struggling with my current set pieces and also, there’s a monumental amount of other stuff going on.
So I walked to the shop, and spent money. They had one copy of Goldberg (it’s probably popular at the moment for one reason or another).
And I found one copy of the Three Concert Etudes which gave me Un Sospiro. I don’t expect to touch this for a while, but hey, it merits reading and occasional experimentation.
I came across a video of Helene Grimaud, aged about 18 years ago (so recorded on 4:3 TV back in the day) rehearsing the piano part of Schuman’s first violin sonata. I liked it and while I have no handy violinist, I still wanted to learn some of it. They had it, past tense because now I have it.
They also had some Barenreiter anniversary specials – both they and Henle seem to be celebrating birthdays at the moment – so I picked up their collection of selected Brahms pieces.
I tend to pick up collections like this for “sight reading practice” which usually turns into “oh this is a nice Waltz or other, I should actually learn it rather than butchering it for 10 minutes”. We will see how it goes.
A few weeks ago, I found a shop selling second hand sheet music and had a flick through it and found one single solitary copy of the Hummel piano concertos for solo piano. I haven’t examined it in detail, but I assume it is just the piano part and if I want to play it with an orchestra, I’m on my own babe. But it is a thing of beauty.
I mean, isn’t the engraving gorgeous? I have one copy of Solveig’s Song which is recent but also beautiful. Oh I know the Henle blue covers are classy and stylish and all that, but seriously, some of the older designs are just more…beautiful. I could almost frame either of them (and since I somehow have two copies of Solveig’s, I actually could frame that one).
Anyway, since I bought the Rameau a while back I’ve not actually worked on learning stuff. I just blew my mind on stuff I already knew or arranged myself when testing the piano emulation software last week. Need to get back to work.
If you take a look at this long indulgent post I wrote the other week on the question of Pianos I have Loved, you’ll see I included a Steinway D in that list.
Well, I will probably never be able to afford one but I now occasionally have access to a Steinway B and I like it rather a lot and at some point in the future I might be able to find space for one in an apartment. It’s the second Model B that I really liked playing – a few more and I’ll assume that like Ds, they are safe to order sight unseen (but let me visit the factory anyway) – I tested one in Steinway Hall in Paris (I love that place but don’t go often enough). In the end I didn’t buy the Ronisch I was looking at (mentioned in that long post) because the current apartment isn’t really suitable for a piano, more for the health of the piano than anything else (it gets extremes of humidity and heat and I didn’t think this was good for a 1930s piano that Rach might have played. Someone else apparently has bought it so it will forever be the one that got away).
So I will set up a savings plan for the Model B and hopefully by the time I have enough money, I will also have a suitably modern climate controlled apartment to put it in. The question is, what am I doing in the interim without a beautiful grand piano? Well, at some point, I came across something called Pianoteq. I have a digital Kawai, a CA59 which I bought during the pandemic (and thus had to wait a long time for delivery) and while I like it very much to play physically, I wasn’t all that lost on the selection of sounds – there are a couple of nice grand piano sounds but for some reason, they didn’t always float my boat (if you have one of those pianos, I like the Warm Grand sound). Anyway, the plus point about having a digital piano is that you can use it as a Midi controller. I wasn’t really in a hurry to go messing with that side of things until I started making recordings on it and figured I should learn a bit more about the capabilities of the piano beyond the on/off switch, the volume control and the sound selecting bit.
Pianoteq is a piece of software developed at the University of Toulouse and it is a physical model of various piano sounds. During the year they released a version for iOS and either an ad popped up in Instagram or YouTube or I saw it mentioned in one of the piano magazines. The reviews on YouTube are sparkling to say the least. A high proportion of people using this software state it is the best piano emulator and they have licensed some sounds not present on my Kawai, curiously enough, the two Steinway Ds (both New York and Hamburg), the Steinway B, a number of C.Bechsteins and some instruments from historic collections. And then some. They allow you to install for test purposes, and kibosh the test system by a) blocking some keys and b) going silent after 20 minutes or so (but you can restart). I had some issues configuring it which may be linked to the Kawai more than anything. Also, I learned that the Bluetooth lag to Apple AirPods is … long.
So my set up, despite cables being connected, is a Bluetooth connection from the piano to the iPad into Pianoteq and wired headphones into the iPad and that works okay for me. There is a very, very, very ickle lag.
What to do I think of it? Well, I bought the software after some testing (so yes, I liked it). I bought the entry level licence plus some additional instrument packs. It’s not exactly cheap but it is a licence rather than a subscription and you can run it on any of your appropriate devices (eg, a Windows machine or a Mac) without having to cough up more. You get two instrument backs with the basic licence which you can choose – I added the Steinway D pack and the C. Bechstein pack, and then I separately added the Steinway B and the historic set which included a 19th century Erard. I really liked that sound testing.
It costs less than an actual Steinway B and so far my Kawai isn’t cribbing about the humidity that I sometimes suffer in the summer. As a stepping stone to my dream piano, it fits my needs. On the downside, even though it does cost less than a Steinway B, there’s an upfront cost. Your mileage may vary on whether you want it or not. For me it has joined the toolset. And I hope it will support some more recordings out to my Soundcloud channel as apparently I can start running things through GarageBand with it.
I used to dream of all this sort of musical freedom when I was 15 years old.