Piano Lesson-January 23, 2006

We began the lesson by sharing perspectives on the Jody Graves recital. I made the comment that I felt that there was something sacrilegious about conversing with the audience during the recital. With Powerpoint slides to boot. Because the performer spent time talking about the composer’s history (it would’ve been better to just include all of that in the program notes, IMO), she didn’t have time to perform some of the pieces that I had been eagerly awaiting (e.g., Rachmaninoff Prelude in B-flat Major). While some may argue that the audience has changed over the years, I sort of view it as “selling out”. I may sound like a complete snob by saying this, but I think most of those who really got a kick out the Borge-esque routine were probably the ones who showed up primarily because they had to write a report on it for their music class. You’re catering to the wrong audience that way. In some way, it’s related to how because most kids nowadays care more about what they wear and who they socialize with than what they’re learning about in school. To quote one of my high school teachers: “The reason we don’t have AP Chemistry or AP Biology because not enough students have showed enough interest. ” So those who actually are in school to learn are held back by the ‘mainstream’ audience.

I think a post-recital talk would’ve been better. I went to a Garrick Ohlsson piano recital at Mandel Hall (Chicago) in 1997 where he gave a post-recital talk (Q&A session). The reason it was pretty neat was that traditionally speaking, the performer onstage has a supernatural quality to him/her and when s/he takes off the coattails after the recital and talks with the audience–truly ‘down to earth’, so to speak.

Spent the first 35 minutes or so on the Bach Prelude and the last 25 minutes on the Brahms Rhapsody in G minor. Happy to say that this was one of my better lessons (I think that my self-imposed break from poker is helping).

Bach Prelude XXI in B-flat Major (Henle edition)

Dr. N thought I played the piece well. It was for the most part rhythmically precise, the notes played clearly, and she liked the overall style. A couple things she wanted to focus on were the overall dynamics structure and bringing out the second voice (top notes in right hand in main motive). While we want to start the piece with forte, the bottom note should be played somewhere between mf and f, the top right hand note be played mf. We added some cresc. and dim. markings throughout the piece. Much of the dynamic markings correspond to the melodic contours.

-There’s a dynamic progression in b.4 (starts out mp while decresc. –> b.5 starts out mf while descresc.–> b.5. starts out f while decresc. So the trend is to get louder with each passage work for these bars.

-The trend is reversed in b. 11 –> b. 13, –> b. 15 leading up to the chords.

-watch rhythm in b.17. (the dotted rhythm should be played faster).

-b.19. watch rhythm after the mordent.

-start practicing with the B-flat major Fugue.

Brahms Rhapsody No. 2 in G minor (editor: Gebhard; Schirmer Edition)

Played the piece at an acceptable tempo (acceptable = the tempo at which this is played in most recordings) with some mistakes here and there. But overall, decent playing. I’d say it’s about 33% memorized after maybe 4-5 hours of total practice on this piece thus far. Some tips for improving the piece:

–Don’t pause in b.5

–Dr. N mentioned that she had heard someone say that with Brahms, the bottom note of a chord is the more dominant note if the chord progression is downwards (e.g., b. 14); top note if going up (e.g., b. 22, 23, etc).

–Make sure your triplets in right hand are rhythmically sound. Because so much emphasis/attention is left hand melody, it’s easy to forget about the right hand rhythm. In the Gebhard edition, there is a tre corde in b. 27; Dr. N is using the Sauer edition which doesn’t have a tre corde in b.27, but rather, in b. 29. Dr. N and I agree that it makes more sense to have tre corde in b. 29 instead of b.27 to give the performer room to crescendo from b.27 until the climax in b. 31-32.

–b. 65-83. The notes played by m.s. should tail off. In other words, play the b-flat (mp), and d (p). The dominant notes in the passage are in the top note of the octave chord.

-b.123. Last chord is held for only two beats with no fermata. Lift hands and feet at the same time.