… for the last couple of weeks on the Stuart front, hence my lack of activity on this blog – I gave myself a bit of a break from serious Stuarting after my recital. Easter was a busy period, not the least because David was organising the music for the Easter vigil mass close to where we live and consequently there were copious rehearsals, arranging, practicising and other organisational tasks etc to be done, all of which took up much time and effort on both our behalfs.
Nonetheless, it went off very well and all of the musicians and choir did a sterling job under the circumstances. I played keyboard and organ, and considering I’ve been doing these things for while now I was able to adjust quickly when soloists didn’t quite come in at the right time …
Especially one time when the hymn stopped but the soloist kept going with the next verse – these little things do test you at times. In fact, I picked it up very quickly and no-one really noticed any difference!
On the Stuart front, I need to get back and do what I planned to do before and refine the recordings that I’ve made over the last couple of months, as well as developing a bit more repertoire for future recitals. I would like to explore some Schumann and Brahms, two composers I haven’t really got my teeth into for a while now, and there is some very interesting music from the former Soviet republics that I will look at as well.
It really is a question of time – how much of it, to be precise. I’m probably going to need to improve my time management in order to get everything done that I need to – and that is not going to be easy for someone of my limited organisational skills.
One thing I have found is that having to focus on performing again has really sharpened my mind and made me concentrate much more on the sounds I am hearing. When you play only for yourself, you tend to hear what you want to hear, but when other people are involved, for some reason or other you need to consider very carefully what your audience is hearing and that adds an extra dimension to your interpretation, which cannot be a bad thing. As I said previously, I’m much more relaxed sitting at the piano now, and my task is to carry that into any recordings or recitals I do in the future.
Fortunately, the piano makes that much easier than you would think.