Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Three musical wishes

1) to have spent a summer in Nohant in 1841 with all of them there.
2) to have attended the first ring in Bayreuth.
3) to have been there in Munich, 1910, premiere of Mahler's 8th

Very good one!

Partially echoing what others have already wished for ...

• To hear the music that great composers of the past would have written, if they had reached old age in good health. For example I wonder what Beethoven would have come up with, if given just five years more.
• To know the great composers thoughts on music written after their time.
• To get an overview of the music to come in the next 250 years.

1. I wake up and I have the most beautiful voice in the world, and
2. I always sing perfectly in tune,
3. and I can compose the most beautiful and expressive pieces on my piano.

1. Since someone has already wished for Schubert, Mozart, and Chopin to have 50 extra years, I'll wish the same for Gershwin, or maybe Debussy -- tough choice. Heck, even an extra 25 years would be wonderful.
2. Since someone has already wished to hear Chopin play (can I come along for that? pretty please?), I'll wish the same for Debussy.
3. I'd like to be talented enough to be able to play Chopin's Barcarolle. But it looks like I'll have to do it without talent, which makes it a lot harder.

1. To take several years of lessons from J. S. Bach.
2. To take several years of lessons from Beethoven.
3. To have more time (and physical stamina) to practice.

I bet you'd actually play it pretty well, since you know it's so challenging!
I played it pretty bad until I realized I wasn't really knowing what to do with it at all. (Then it became less terrible.)

My biggest beef with performances of the barcarolle, even by the greatest of players, is that they make the coda agitato. It should still be lilting, just grander!

1. Attend the premiere of "Figaro"in Prague. Not the Vienna premiere, but Prague where the reception was tremendous - "…Because they do not talk about anything else here than – Figaro. Nothing else is being played, blown, sung or whistled than – Figaro, no opera attended than – Figaro. And forever Figaro! Certainly a great honour for me!”.

2. Attend the premiere of "Don Giovanni" in Prague. Again the reaction was tremendous.

3. I would love to go to a concert in the Hanover Square Rooms in London. London's leading concert hall in the Georgian era, this was where Haydn's "London" symphonies were premiered. With Haydn present there would be immense excitement. Perhaps the final Salomon concert on 12 May 1794, when the "Military" symphony (no. 100) was played.

1. To have a piano concerto by Sibelius that was as good as, say, his 5th symphony or violin concerto.
2. To be able to notate music I've heard in dreams.
3. That Argerich, Denk, Ax, Pace (Enrico, not Ian), Bavouzet, Sudbin, Demidenko, Andsnes, Lortie, Aimard, Levit, and Ohlsson would all play and record the Alkan Sonatine.

Great one -- me too! (Or just even to remember it.)
Anyone else?

Mine always sounds like middle-late Scriabin -- wishfully I mean.
But when I wake up it's all gone -- all but just the impression of it.

I don't have any great wish to endow myself with superpowers, nor to see or hear composer-pianists of the past, because I suspect I'd be quite disappointed. Technique has moved on since.....

But as I'm selfish by nature and want something long-lasting & eternal for myself (and the musical world, if they would care to have it), what I wish for are the completions of:

Mozart's Requiem (of course).
Mahler's 10th.
and Sibelius's 8th (which he salvaged from the fire after chucking it in, and then completely re-wrote).

Not too much to ask for, surely?

Which gives me my #4:

To finish everything I've ever started.

Yes, me too. At one stage I used to keep paper and pencil by the bed and scribble things down as soon as I woke up. But when I looked at it later it was so trite I wondered why I'd bothered. I had better luck with things I heard in dreams and only remembered as impressions (as you said). I could retain the impression and then go from there; that worked well for me a few times.

1. To study Jazz Piano with Bill Evans
2. To Study Composition with George Gershwin
3. To have a casual conversation with Rachmaninoff over Coffee/Tea

1. Meet great composers from the past in live performances to get a sense of how their music were played. Not how music scholars from today think the pieces ought to be performed.

2. Find manuscript of obscure pieces from the past and be the first to perform them.

3. Play duets with someone who is musical in the family.
Once a relative who plays piano wanted me to be on violin doing an arrangement of Vivaldi "Winter" mvt. 1 from the "Four Seasons". After looking at the score, she wasn't confident getting into it and called it off.

Curra: Nice to see you!
We're both here less than we used to be, and so we don't cross paths very often. Great when we do!

yes - *waves*
I'm actually here most days - I just don't post much. Nice to see wr again, too.

One of my three wishes might be to give English composer George Butterworth an extra 50 years (just delete WWI) and see what he would come up with.

I have been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to think of something and have concluded that I am quite happy as I am. Although there are many musical abilities I do not have I cannot think of a single one the possession of which would increase my happiness. Indeed, it might have an adverse effect on how I play and create; wishes are risky things.

I don't get on with living musicians generally and certainly lack all desire to meet dead ones. Regretting this or that I did or didn't do while young is a supremely pointless exercise. Therefore I am left with the fully realisable.

1. I wish my wife would arise earlier in the morning so I could start working on music earlier.

2. I wish my piano tuners would take longer with the treble.

3. I wish people where I live would cease telling me what I ought to play and what I ought to like.

Nice to see you, too. I had decided to take a break from Piano World about a year-and-a-half ago. But I have started visiting it again (but, so far, not very often - maybe once a week or so).

During my time away, my life went through a fairly drastic change - I moved from San Francisco to the high country about 60 miles east of Santa Fe, New Mexico. That was (and still is) quite an adventure!