Hi folks--

A bunch of things are going on here pianistically, and I just wanted to share a little. I feel like, after being afraid to play for many years due to injury, I'm coming out of my musical shell. Some developments:

-- I'm giving a small recital next Thursday. I'm going to play Schumann's complete Davidsbundlertanze. It will be a short, social evening, mostly for a handful of ex-co-workers, at my house. This is the first time I've played for a group of people in maybe 2 decades, and the first time I've ever played for so long; the whole piece is 40 minutes end-to-end.

-- I've switched teachers to Dr. Sharon Mann at San Francisco Conservatory; it was an honor to be accepted by her. I do bring something to the table-- her (much younger) conservatory students probably don't argue with her as much as I do-- but it's a bit daunting to be in the same studio as so many people who are far better than I. I had my first lesson yesterday. It went well, and now I'm much less nervous about playing the Schumann.

-- I'm going to play a 3 minute "encore" for the new studio's "Encores Recital" in a week, which, given the audience, is actually more daunting than my 40 minute recital. Torn between Davidsbundler #5 (the easiest of the set) and #6 (the hardest).

-- Not sure what we're going to be working on, but she suggested that in the near future we do Scriabin's 9th. I had mentioned some modern-ish composers (Berg, Hindemith, Copland), but not Scriabin, so it came as a surprise. She told me that piece has my name written all over it, and I'm not sure, given the piece, just what that means. By the way, does anyone (Mark or Kreisler, or whoever else has played it) have a suggestion for an edition? I have the Dover complete sonatas, but I find them hard to read.

I'll try to make a recording of the Schumann in the next week. In case anyone's interested, here are the program notes I wrote up for the recital. It's mostly fanciful description, and one might object to forcing imagery on listeners. But this audience is pretty much all non-musicians, and I think this gives them something to think about, and a way to track the piece's progress. I'll first give a 5-minute talk on Schumann's place in music, and explain how each of the Davidsbundlertanze is marked as being written by Florestan (the passionate moody side of Schumann) or Eusebius (the contemplative dreamy side).

-Jason

Well Jason,

Let me be the first to post here and say that this reads VERY exciting and finally it seems that you're 'advancing'... You got accepted by a new great teacher, you're doing a recital, getting new harder works to work on. YAY on every account!

I somehow seem to have misplaced my copies of the Scriabin Sonatas so I can't really help right now about that... So wait for Mark, or Kreisler, or someone else, to chime in!

Great news !
Congratulations in advance on your upcoming recital Jason.

I'd love to be there.
Whether you'd choose to post it here (which would be wonderful) , you definitely ought to record your recital, and perhaps you already plan too.

I've just listened to the entire Davidsbundlertanze piece , played by Benjamin Frith, BBC recording via YouTube.

Gorgeous piece!
I haven't heard it before , so I have nothing to compare too, but I feel Benjamin played a lovely rendition of this piece.

I'm not aware of what you're injuries have been... it's wonderful to hear that you feel confident and desirous of performing again.
I wish you the very best in your performance and allow yourself to sink in to your playing with awareness and abandon.

Cheers, Dara

Henle has Urtext editions now of Sonatas 6, 7, and 8 but not 9 yet. It's going to be either Peters or International, and I'm not familiar with either edition.

9

Cool! I didn't know 9 was out yet. Time to go to the music store!

Very nice program notes, Jason! "Know your audience!" is what it's all about. I also believe that, as solo musicians, it is our job to take the audience by the hand and lead them through the piece as we play it, no matter how sophisticated the audience might be. You are the one taking them on the journey!

Have a great performance!

--Andy

Good luck in your recital.

As I grow older, I've been warming up to Schumann's music, and the Davidsbündlertänze are my favorite among his piano works (my favorite among all of his pieces is an oratorio, "Paradise and the Peri," but I doubt that I'll ever get a chance to hear that again in a live performance.)

That is SO exciting! Congratulations on the new teacher AND playing such a work, I can't wait to hear a recording

Jason: This is great to hear, and good luck! I'm sure we all wish we could be there this Thursday!
(And BTW, nice little title for the thread.)

About the editions for Scriabin's 9th Sonata: I haven't seen Henle. It looks like there's been a strong vote for it and I guess you can't go wrong with that. But let me put in a loud and enthusiastic vote for the one I worked from, which is MCA Piano Library, edited by someone named Harold Sheldon (who I'd never heard of and whose name I frankly never noticed before now). I got it a long time ago and it may no longer be available. It seems to be the same thing that has also been available at various times (and maybe still) from Leeds Music Corporation and Hal Leonard. There's a brief preface indicating that the edition tried to be as "urtext" as possible, "eliminating errors found in previous editions."

I sing absolutely the highest praises for this edition. You know how we talk sometimes about how this-or-that indication doesn't seem to make sense, or we don't understand it, or we think we have a better idea? Especially maybe some of us, more than others?
I felt that in this edition, not only did everything make wonderful sense; it seemed that every little thing was crucial and served as sort of a teacher-in-residence. As you know, this music is pretty strange, and especially during the early stages of my working on it, there would be passages that I played basically fine but I didn't "get"; and then I would notice that I had missed or forgotten some little thing in the score -- maybe a "hairpin," maybe a surprising dynamic indication, maybe a word or two of expressive instruction, or a small but important rhythmic point like whether something is a triplet or a dotted rhythm -- and which would make it all work. This all made me question the common wisdom that Scriabin was pretty much nuts by this time. The notation and indications in the work are highly obsessive but the furthest thing from crazy that I can imagine.

BTW there is one indication that I never could quite make sense of and usually ignored, but decided that I better do it when I took the piece to the Cliburn competition.
I'd be curious if the Henle edition (or any other) doesn't have this. I don't mean to hijack the thread and probably y'all should ignore this, but in case anyone is interested and wants to take a look....
It's about 2/3 of the way through the piece, toward the end of an "Allegro" section (which lasts 1 page) and just before a "Piu vivo," the 3rd and 4th measures before the Piu vivo. Are those measures really "piano" and is there really a 'narrowing hairpin' leading to them? They are followed by "pp subito," and you probably find yourself wanting to keep pushing forward in those 2 measures, rather than already drawing back to a lower level before the "subito pp."

P.S. I googled to see if I could find out who this Harold Sheldon guy was. I couldn't, but look at what one of the top matches was:
Piano World, 2004, asking about Scriabin editions

It is worth mentioning that Baerenreiter is also in the process of doing urtexts of the sonatas, in four vols. So far, two vols. have come out, covering sonatas 1-5.

Great to hear, Jason. Congratuations on snagging a very good teacher. Don't let the youngsters discourage you. I've found that teachers enjoy adults much more because, as you say, we argue, which makes things interesting and we also know how to work very hard and are very dedicated.

I'm sure your recital will be fantastic!

Congratulations, Jason!

Congratulations on the new teacher, the recital, and the fine program notes.

Looking forward to hearing your Schumann recording.

I know what you mean about the challenge of playing even a short piece for an audience of pianists. You may get some useful comments. And you may show some of them a thing or two.

Congrats on the recital, new teacher, and the choice of Davidsbundlertanze.

The Shelton edition of the sonatas has been unavailable for a while - maybe about 10 years(?), unfortunately. I remember buying my MCA copy at Schirmers in NYC in 1982 - it was on the clearance table for super cheap!

I wish Henle would move faster with the Scriabin ouvre..... I really like their editions of #9 and the Op 11 preludes.

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words of encouragement. I'm not feeling particularly nervous right now, which is a *huge* improvement from when I played in public last. I'm sure that will change right before-hand, but still.

I probably won't post a recording of the event itself, but I will try to record the piece over the weekend.

-Jason

Good luck with the recital! Regarding the Scriabin, well, his music Is hard to read, my edition is Peters, works well.

Congratulations! I will look forward to hearing your recital...hopefully, you can post your favorites here and share with your new friends on PW. Best wishes.

So.....I guess today's the day!?!? (Couldn't tell if "next Thursday" meant this Thursday!)
I think it did.

Good luck! And remember: ENJOY!

I sometimes write a little note to remind myself about that. It's easy to forget that we're supposed to like doing this.

Yes, it's today. (The ambiguities of English!)

I feel like "preparing" more, but there's really nothing to do. I'll probably run through a few sections at 70% speed, nothing more than that. I don't think it will be helpful to play through the whole piece at performance level today.

Thanks for the advice on enjoying it. It's important to hear, and easy to forget.

-Jason

Good luck and have fun!! Your audience will enjoy it more too if you do.

Sophia

Wow! Incredible that you're actually here posting today.

When I saw your post on the other thread, I thought for sure that "next Thursday" must have meant "NEXT Thursday."

BTW, my lady and I have different ideas on what "this" and "next" mean. We have to straighten it out regularly.

She's in your camp. I would have said "this" Thursday in that first post up there. She would have said it how you did.

West Coast here... recital is in one hour.

What should I do with myself?

Oh yeah!
heh heh


Whatever -- I guess it doesn't matter.

Oh -- one thing: Don't forget to EAT!

Sometimes I have. One time it got to be an hour before, and I realized I hadn't eaten all day. I looked in the fridge -- and all it had was 1 egg. I ate it.

Lol
Surprised to see you here, an hour before your recital.
Best wishes Jason with your performance.
And enjoy!

p.s. How about taking a short walk in your neighborhood.

Recital's over. Whew!

Overall, it went well... although the things that didn't go well are sticking in my mind. A couple things:

-- I gave a 10 minute talk beforehand about Schumann, and romantic music in general, and how it differs from what came before. I think that this, with the program notes I handed out, helped people digest the evening well. I'm a big fan of that sort of thing, especially for a non-classical audience. I know there was at least one person whose eyes were really opened; that's enough for me.

-- Afterwards, people asked lots of questions. Great questions! Like "When the 2nd piece is recapped in the 17th piece, did you play it differently, and how/why?" I answered them all at the piano, with musical examples. It was a lot of fun for everyone, I think. (This was for a group of 10 ex-colleagues, and we all know each other quite well.)

-- The playing itself was mixed. The first 10 minutes were frustrating: I was relaxed and focused, but I just couldn't get my fingers to move! They just wouldn't move well! A couple of corresponding clunkers and false starts. Eventually this cleared up, and the last 30 minutes went pretty well. But what happened at the beginning? Is this the kind of thing that clears up with experience?

I'm thinking of giving the recital again, actually, to a different group of friends. My new teacher told me that playing the same recital twice can be a great benefit. I'd love to do it-- if it's possible with a minimum of organization.

Anyway, thanks for all your support. Will make and post recordings soon.

-Jason

Jason!

Excellent news! I found out over time (yeah... I'm 34 so not THAT old really, but anyhow) that if you do talk to your audience it helps YOU primarily than them. I also found out that despite me not feeling nervous some times our hands and inner brain has a different opinion (thus your fingers not moving in the first 10 minutes). This is why I always try to pick a very secure piece for the first work of any night, something that is rather loud and normal. This way it's hard to miss notes and play too soft, or too loud, or other...

And your teacher is right: Go for at least one more recital and then do more with different program!

Looking forward to any recordings available!

Nikolas

Jason: It sounds like you did very well.


Sometimes.

The main answer is, usually yes -- more and more.

Congratulations. Sounds like a wonderful experience. Of course, playing a second recital is wonderful. You don't spend all that time learning something to perform it once.