Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Rostoskys serious thread. (by request)

WOW guys,!! this has got very interesting, and encouraged me to learn about something new!
As you are all aware I have not been well this week, and therefore the DID has suffered again, for this I am sorry, but wish to thank everyone for their kind best wishes for me to get better.

I am about 94 percent better now, so cannot, and will not complain anymore!!

Our lad is coming for his dinner today, he has had a week of University interviews, and I really hope he gets a place at the first of his choices.

This means I will have to cook a large meal as our lad seems to judge the value of the meal by the actual quantity of food served to him!

I would say "he's a growing lad" but he is fully grown ( hopefully) allready!
So, I will leave it at "He has a healthy appetite"
Which means of course, there will be no "leftovers!"

PPP, thanks for such an informative discussion.
Rossy, congratulations and best wishes for your lad! I'm sure all your hopes will be fulfilled pretty soon. And you'll be 120% better after he arrives
But don't you think dudes and dudettes here also deserve a party on this occasion??? At least prepare some digital foods for us

What's for dinner?
No worries on the DID, don't feel pressure to do it every week, every other or 3rd or 4th would be easier for you, rossy!
As for complaining, isn't that what men do when they're ill ?

You are correct PianoJoy, men do complain dont we? I did a chicken curry and rice with cauliflower with butter and pepper!! It was good, young Rossy ate all of his as per usual!!
And then started looking at our plates!
Will be back in a little while, have to entertain young Rossy for a while!

I thought complaining was in our job description, Piano Joy! After all, illness is one of the few times we guys get to complain.

Hi everyone! I'll be back a little later with a few postings. Rossy, I'm so glad you're feeling better! Have a nice visit with your son!

Thanks Griffin, it was a good visit, he is so full of all the University interviews he has been to!
It looks like he has made a good choice!

ANYWAYS!!!! Here is the first of a five parter, Describing how Beethovens Piano came back "Home" to Britain to be restored..

Probably one of the most valuable Pianos in the world,

This is of course a Broadwood, owned by Beethoven, then Liszt.

Enjoy folks!!!

part two of Beethovens Broadwood restoration!!

And part three!!!

Part Four.

And the last part , five.

Hope you all enjoyed, amazing eh?

Roosy, it’s a fantastic documentary, thanks so much for posting this gem.

I wish the best of luck to your lad.

Hi all,

PPP, I'm not annoyed at all, but there is plenty of evidence for use of thumb across the Baroque era. Take a look at Couperin's instructional writings of the period, for example. Take a look at the surveys conducted by Newman, and others, of contemporaneous indications.

Where the thumb 'doesn't occur' is in the middle of runs of any kind. Then you're into strict 3-4, 3-4, 3-4 crab-style or similar. But the thumb does occur at the 'beginning' of runs, where '1' is a suitable start. In other words, there is no actual avoidance of '1'. And the thumb - and 5th finger - is essential for all sorts of chords (which were not, as is sometimes assumed, always always spread), like 7-5-3 or 6-3-octave or 9-5-3. I don't know about you, but my 2-5 does not stretch to 9-5-3, and my 2-4 certainly doesn't.

I think it is Newman that pointed out somewhere that there was no actual 'Baroque method', but rather a range of approaches across time, place, and composer.

As you say, the short octave arrangement does allow for certain wide spreads in the bass clef - but it also prevents you from playing just about any composer that uses chromatics, and that includes not just JS Bach, but also earlier ones, such as Purcell and Froberger. (I did try playing some Bach on a short-octave instrument, and it was a complete 'mare.) I doubt very much that any of these composers would have regularly used a short-octave instrument i.e. it would seem unlikely that they used instruments that could not be used to play a lot of the music they were writing.

(And one last point: the English tended to reverse the numbers used for each note, so that 1 became 5, and 5 became 1. This has perhaps also caused some superficial confusion.)

I'd say that the idea that 'there is no 1 or 5 in Baroque' is folkloric mis-information.

Good morning everyone. Sorry for the delay in my Classical postings. I'll have them shortly. We went to Daylight Savings Time in the U.S. today, and I'm off with my sleep and schedule.

Stay tuned!

I've decided to dedicate my postings today to the work French trumpet virtuoso Maurice Andre who died on February 25 at age 78. I first started listening to Andre's recordings in the 1970s. He was probably the first classical trumpeter I started paying attention to. He will be missed. However, he's left a rich legacy of music for us to continue to enjoy.

My first offering will be André's performance of the Concerto E minor by Telemann with the Muenchener Bach Orchestra under the direction of Karl Richter. This is a four-part composition:

1.Andante
2.Allegro
3.Largo
4.Allegro

My next choice is Andre's performance of Trumpet Concerto in D Major by Giuseppe Tartini.

Somehow it seems fitting to conclude this dedication with Mr. Andre's performances of Ave Maria by Franz Schubert and by Bach/Gounod.

My final post for today is part of my continuing research on the works of Samuel Barber. I leave you with this performance of his "Chorale for Ascension Day."

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

thanks for the music, Griffin, lovely, esp. the harp on Ave Maria. I dare say that instrument is best suited for this piece....

I HATE daylight savings time - takes me a full week to adjust either way, ugh
Good day, all!

Rossy, excellent posts! What an amazing instrument. It's like a piano mechanism trapped inside harpsichord body :-)

I just love this song: Purcell's 'So, When the Glitt'ring Queen of Night'. From The Yorkshire Feast.

Christine Brandes, with Mary Springfels on viola da gamba, and the Arcadian Academy.