I'm giving my graduation recital at the end of May.

Here's the program that I'm thinking of performing - let me know any thoughts you might have regarding the order, selection, etc.

*******

Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1

-------- OPENING REMARKS --------

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, WTC I

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat Minor, WTC I

Gossec: Gavotte

Beethoven: “Appassionata” Sonata in F Minor, Op. 57
I. Allegro assai

-------- INTERMISSION --------

P.D.Q. Bach: Suite No. 1 for Cello All by its Lonesome, S. 1a
I. Preludiamble
II. Sarabanda Carmen Miranda
III. Gigue-o-lo

P.D.Q. Bach: Suite No. 2 for Cello All by its Lonesome, S. 1b
I. Preludio molto importanto
II. Bourrée molto schmaltzando
III. Sarabanda in modo lullabyo
IV. Menuetto allegretto
V. Gigue-o-lo

Chopin: Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34 No. 2

Chopin: Waltz in F Minor, Op. 70 No. 2

Shostakovich: Prelude in B-Flat Minor, Op. 34 No. 16

Shostakovich: Prelude in C Major, Op. 34 No. 1

-------- CLOSING REMARKS --------

Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
I. Allegro molto moderato

*******

The approx. time for the first half is 30 minutes (not including mushy speeches by parents, teachers, and self).

The approx. time for the second half is 40 minutes.

Total time, approx. 70 minutes of music + 70 hours of speeches. :p

Wow, thats a lot of music. How exactly do graduation recitals work anyways? Im a "noob" on the matter. Is the whole recital specifically you?

Yeah, just me.

Here's how it will go:

Pomp and Circumstance

I'll probably welcome all of my friends, teachers, et. al. and then my parents and piano/cello teachers will talk about how much they love me and are proud of me, and how much the audience should love me and be proud of me as well.

Baroque/Classical Music

10 Minute Intermission

Romantic/20th Century Music

More mushy speeches from parents, teachers, and self.

Grieg 1st Movement

Reception with lots of food and drink. And tears, too, probably.

Go home and ponder the fact that in three months, I won't be living at "home" anymore.

Hehe, well good luck. I don't know if I could handle all the attention, myself.

It seems to me, for this type of occasion, the program might be a bit on the long side. Keep it short and sweet and flawless, of course. No matter how well you may play, at graduation ceremonies everyone wants to be out of there as soon as possible! Play only one Prelude and Fugue by Bach, only one Suite by P.D.Q. Bach, one Waltz by Chopin and one Prelude by Shostakovich

Surely you didn't mean 70 hours of speeches, but even 70 minutes of speeches is intolerably long. Through it all, your self-effacing modesty shines through!

Two Shostokovitch preludes and fugues?

Two Bach WTC Preludes and Fugues?

Two (PDQ) Bach Cello Suites?

Two Chopin Waltzes?

Plus the accolades.

Don't take this the wrong way, but if I was attending I'd go in liking you, and I'd be hating you after the first hour.

Cut the whole thing down by 50%.

If you're going for chronology it makes more sense to put PDQ Bach at the very end, plus it's nice to open with a Bach and also close with a "Bach".

An awful lot of music but if you're confident that you can fit it all into 70 minutes, do it!

70 minutes of music will take 100 minutes to play. 20 minutes of speeches will take 40 minutes to deliver.

The program, as stated, will last over two hours.

If I were you:

Opening Remarks and Introduction

Shostakovich Prelude in C Major
Two Chopin Waltzes
Beethoven Appassionata

*intermission*

Bach P+F in Eb minor
Grieg Concerto

Closing Remarks and Thanks

PDQ Bach Suites (or just one of them if playing both would be longer than 8 minutes)

Thanks, guys. I agree; it's quite long!

I like Kreisler's Idea - I'd only do the first movement of the Appassionata and the first movement of the Grieg, not all three movements, though. (And the entire 2nd P.D.Q. Bach Suite, which is about 8 minutes long)

Perhaps instead of the two Chopin Waltzes, I'll do one waltz and the Raindrop Prelude. Or maybe a Chopin Waltz and a Grieg Waltz or a Chopin Waltz and a Brahms Waltz...

Any other ideas? This is fun! :p

So here's what I'm thinking...

*Opening Remarks*

Shostakovich Prelude in C Major, Op. 34 No. 1
Chopin Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34 No. 2
Chopin Waltz in F Minor, Op. 70 No. 2
Beethoven "Appassionata" in F Minor, Op. 57 - 1st mvmnt

*Intermission*

J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat Minor, WTC I
P.D.Q. Bach Suite No. 2 for Cello All by its Lonesome

*Closing Remarks*

Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16 - 1st mvmnt

**FOOD**


****

Other possible rep. alternatives:

Chopin Raindrop Prelude, Op. 28 No. 15
Chopin Revolutionary Etude, Op. 10 No. 12
Chopin Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28 No. 4
Shostakovich Prelude in B-Flat Minor, Op. 34 No. 16
Shostakovich Prelude in E-Flat Minor, Op. 34 No. 14
Shostakovich Prelude in G Minor, Op. 34 No. 22
J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, WTC I
J.S. Bach Inventions 1, 2, 8
P.D.Q. Bach Cello Suite No. 1
Saint-Saens Allegro Appassionato for Cello and Piano
Romberg Sonata in E Minor, Op. 38 No. 1 1st mvmt for Cello and Piano
Schumann Traumerei
....

And I can always learn more....

I should probably think about encores, too.... (one piano and one cello)

Maybe Chopin Revolutionary Etude and Saint-Saens Allegro Appassionato...

ok, seriously, PDQ Bach doesn't even exist right? Everyone's treating it like he exists!

Quite the contrary! Peter Schickele, musicologist, composer, humorist, and "inventor" of the fictional composer P.D.Q. Bach has composed music that has been published and that he (Schickele) has attributed to the fictitious P.D.Q.Bach.

If you want some information about Schickele and a good laugh - particularly some of the titles he has given to P.D.Q.Bach's pieces - scroll down the following link. Also note how many albums Schickele has produced.

http://www.answers.com/topic/p-d-q-bach

Regards,

Here are the program notes that came with the score for the Cello Suites:

P.D.Q. Bach's composing life has been divided, and not a moment too soon, into three creative periods: the Initial Plunge, the Soused Period, and Contrition. That the unaccompanied cello suites hail from the last of these periods is indicated by the fact that they harken back, stylistically speaking, to the composer's father, Johann Sebastian Bach, yet they lack the poignant anarchy that is so characteristic of the works of the Initial Plunge, the other period during which the scourge of Wein-am-Rhein was in a paternally emulative mode.

The original manuscript (or "m.s.", as we professionals say) bears the inscription "For Clara Bow." Since P.D.Q. lived more than a century before the silent screen star, there has been speculation that the composer was musically and/or romantically (or both) involved with some German ancestor of The "It" Girl, but if there was indeed such a person in his life, it seems more likely that she would have been connected (either as dedicatee or performer [or both]) with the CONCERTO FOR TWO PIANOS VS. ORCHESTRA IN Eb MAJOR, since, in German, "Das 'Es' Mädchen" means not only "The 'It' Girl," but also "The 'E Flat' Girl."

It turns out, however, that "Für Clara Bow" is not a dedication at all, but rather an indication of what kind of bow is to be employed when performing the pieces; that is, the curved bow that P.D.Q.'s father is presumed to have intended for the performance of his unaccompanied cello suites is to be eschewed for these works in favor of an English "clear bow", the word "clear" used here in the sense of "straight," as in, "you can see clear across town from this window; that bump on the horizon is the tax collector's aushaus."

Nevertheless, the first person to play these suites was, in all likelihood, another woman, the fiery Russian cellist Pia Tigorsky. Her virtuosity in juggling paramours was as legendary as was that which she displayed when involved with her instrument, and she is known to have been in Baden Baden Baden at the same time that P.D.Q. Bach was there, perpetrating the works of his Contrition Period. This "brilliant comet in the musical heavens," as the English historian Chuck Burney called her, thought of herself as Cleopatra, and spent her highly nomadic life looking for her Antony, who, in addition to being the love of her life, would help her start a music school. She was born in Siberia and died in Philadelphia, having failed to find Tony or found Curtis. (Incidentally, Pia Tigorsky was, as far as can be ascertained, the first woman ever to play all six of the unaccompanied cello suites by J.S. Bach above the Arctic Circle.)

Professor Peter Schickele
Department of Musical Pathology
University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople

(In vernacular English, "P.D.Q." stands for "pretty damn quick".)

haha thats funny. but i still dont get this. I've seen P.D.Q Bach, Bach C.P.E, what the heck is the difference?

Carl Philip Emannuel Bach was one of J.S. Bach's real children.

oh.....so he had children....(dunce)

you're playing at your own graduation? I've always thought about that for myself, I have two more years. But I couldn't get the courage i need to play in front of my whole class. Good luck, u got some heart

thats the sad part

Bach had several important kids:

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach - an important early classical composer, wrote an important treatise on playing keyboard instruments that was used by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and pretty much everybody else.

Johann Christian Bach - Also an important composer, moved to London and, with Abel, began a series of subscription concerts. The symphonies performed at these concerts were heard and emulated by the very young Mozart. If you listen to a JC Bach symphony and an early Mozart symphony, the similarities are amazing.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach - Not as well known perhaps as the others, but nevertheless an important figure in his day.

PDQ Bach - a fictitious composer, "discovered" by Peter Schickele, who is also an excellent composer of more "serious" music

Actually, I am playing at my own graduation, with my high school orchestra (I'm playing the cello).

What I'm doing two weeks beforehand is a graduation recital, followed by a reception in celebration of my own freedom from 12 years of child labor.

Some people have graduation parties where they get drunk and high and arrested by the police. Not so for me, though - instead, I'm having a recital where I will play P.D.Q. Bach, which often has the same effects, anyways.

hah. i see. So you're not playing the piano? only the cello? or both

LOL.

At the graduation ceremony, the orchestra plays and the choir sings. I play cello in the orchestra.

At my recital, I'll play mostly piano, but I will also play the P.D.Q. Bach Cello Suite No. 2.

oh ok. Which is better and harder? piano or cello?

Both.

Piano is harder because you have to read two lines of music instead of one, and you get chords of up to 12 notes or more, whereas on cello you only get chords of up to 4 notes.

Cello is harder because you don't have keys to guide your fingers - if your finger is a milimeter off, the note is out of tune, it sounds gross, and you don't get those wonderful ringing overtones.

Piano is better, because, with the exception of a single cello sonata from each, Chopin and Rachmaninov did not write any music for the cello - mostly piano.

I prefer the piano because I am much more familiar with the piano literature, and because I am a much better pianist than cellist. But I love the sound of a cello - and then there's the dynamics - you just can't create the same sort of crescendo or descrescendo on a piano, can you?

I also love winking.

I'm not a big fan of Chopin's waltzs as much as some of his etudes.

Personally, I'd substitute one of the walztes for the revolutionary etude, unless you've performed it a ton.

Congrats on completing highschool and all that.

Gotta throw in that last line, yes? Thank you.

Yeah, I was thinking about doing that. Of course, there is *always* an encore at a graduation recital, two if the student plays two instruments. So I was thinking of reserving that for an encore, but then maybe playing Chopin's Raindrop Prelude in place of the F Minor Waltz (Op. 70 No. 2).

Play Heroic Polonaise. Practice it. Now.

*blinks* I'd be playing 4-5 intruments at mine..

Oh goodness.. *goes off to practice*

what instruments do you play?

mm, not to pull the topic astray, but..
Percussion (Snare, marimba, timpini, etc.), Clarinet, Sax, and a little guitar. I meant 4-5 because that would include a marimba, snare, clarinet, piano, and possibly a multiple percussion solo. ^_^ Yeah, but I can't cook, honestly.


Jerome, would you have a second piano for the grieg, or an midi recording?

My teacher will play on a second piano for the Grieg. Unfortunately, we can't get a second grand because the guy who usually moves the pianos is busy that day, but she'll have a nice upright.

Play Heroic Polonaise. Practice it. Now.[/b]

LOL. I wish...

I have to polish up the Grieg and Appassionata 1st movements first!

I am going to practice now...