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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
....I should have something recordable within the next few days...
Never have I ever said or thought any such thing without winding up being off a year or two.
Hence my caveat about only sharing via PM. But you're right. I listened to my recordings from Boston today and hated them. Another year or two would have helped for sure. (BTW, Robert sent me two recordings of my prelim recital, omitting the semis, so I'm actually less depressed than I should be, given the big flub in my semifinal round!)
As for Los Requiebros: (1) I ordered the Alicia edition of the complete Goyescas today from the only music store that still exists in the Washington Metropolitan Area. Nice fellow assisting me said "This is exactly the kind of project that I love." Hopefully I'll hear back from him within the next four weeks. (2) I have all the notes of Requiebros under my fingers, which means I am really starting to enjoy practicing it. Granados has an interpretive directive in roughly every other bar, sometimes several in a single bar. I'm now able to look at those closely and work them into what will eventually, I hope, be a cogent realization of the piece.
The more I have practiced this work, the more I have become convinced that it is great music. It has been a wonderful discovery. A frisson in every sense.
I thought about that after I typed it and realized I was going to get flamed. Thanks for not disappointing.
By way of explanation: Italian is one of my native languages and when I hear that name I always think Alicia Della Rocha. I have to always go back and see the correct way to write it. Part of why I used an acronym. Still epic fail.
When was stationed in the US Army in Brooklyn NY in 1970 I heard her perform a solo recital at Carnegie Hall. I mentioned the recital to a musician friend of mine at the Army base one evening. He told me that his roommate in grad school had studied with the great lady. I was impressed by that !!
Fast forward 22 years. I was conducting a national search for a position I was trying to fill in Dallas. Brought in and interviewed the top candidate from out of state. During the interview I discovered that this guy was in fact the same gentleman my Army buddy told me about 22 years earlier. He'd had his fill of concertizing and teaching piano at the university level and was looking for an arts-related career change. We ended up working together for about 2 years. He was still in touch with AdL and would often tell me about his lessons and friendship with her. Apparently she was a wonderful human being as well as a great artist !!
That is good to know. When I post a video someday (and I will), I will be sure to leave town and go somewhere where there is no cell service or internet.
Reading the comments, it makes sense to me that one would like to improvise a little bit while playing this.
Granados improvised freely when playing his own music.
Fellow musicians have reported that he seemed to re-compose his music on the spot, to the extent that what he played bore little resemblance to what was on the page. Quite a number of his piano pieces sound like improvisations on a theme or themes, with lots of frilly decorations, which make them difficult for pianists endeavouring to play all the notes as he wrote them.....
OK, here it is, you won't be able to find it doing a You Tube search because it is on "unlisted" status but I'm able to share the link: https://youtu.be/iMyhm3CJeGk
Interesting to watch your fingerings, which look pretty much exactly the same as mine. Your voicing and touch in the first quintuplet section seems to be right on track. My only suggestion would be to continue the slow practice (just as I am). Even with this piece, as saturated as it is with tempo changes, a metronome can be helpful in forcing a consistent pulse throughout. I can now get through the whole piece at eighth note = 60, which is painfully slow and absurdly rigid, but the rubato and other nuances can wait until I reach three times that speed.
So I'm up to about eighth note = 84. Progress! In conformance with our agreement, here's a sample practice recording at the end of a fairly long day of doing other stuff. I'll post the second "half" after I've found time to record it. This is not an easy piece, man!
PS - I'm glad to see we both suck at turning our own pages!
Nice! I recall you were worried about the ornaments, but they seem fine to me. I'm stuck on page 4, hopefully will be able to get past that. As for the page turns, for a while I was using my iPad with 4score and a Bluetooth pedal, it was a bit tricky but finally got the hang of it, but I'm gravitating pack to the printed score since I can read 2 pages at a time, while I'm learning I'm ok with the page turns, but when (if I ever) get it up to performance, I'll go back to the iPad. Unfortunately for now I haven't done much practicing, been busy doing lots of yard cleanup after the hurricane, but my mind is now elsewhere as my island (PR) got hit hard with 2 hurricanes in a row, so I might take a break for a while or maybe try doing a tiny chunk at a time, but hopefully I'll be able to catch up to you, as this is something I wanted to learn so it helps me a lot seeing your process. Keep up the good work, you are doing great!
A few years ago I spent an extended vacation on Vieques and grew to love the island and its people. My heart goes out to all of them and I keep waiting to hear of good news