Sunday, November 22, 2009

November 22, 2009

Today I'm back to the Mendelssohn, Songs without Words:

The Poet's Harp (Op. 38, No. 3): Was practicing to get the cantabile feel, particularly in the movement of the left hand. Was a bit rusty, definitely need to work on the chord section at the bottom of page 2. I played today until the piu forte section on page 3. The key was a little all over the place: I kept forgetting that D is flattened. Don't really feel that confident with this piece, and not sure if I'm ever going to get to a decent standard with it. I may well give it up for something a little easier.

On the Seashore (Op. 53, No. 1): Ah my favourite! Sounded lovely to be back with the Seashore piece, was concentrating on perfecting it today. Thinking about the pedal in the section with only right hand - need to rethink my pedaling here I think. Overall, though, it works well right now.

Reverie (Op. 85, No. 1): Nice. Need to watch the pedaling in this piece, which is frequently multiple lifts a phrase. Didn't adhere to the sf on page 2, and need to remember the pp at the final chord. I'm still unsure about the off-beats in the main melody**, really need an instructor to demonstrate what to do here. Also, would like to ask someone if the hair-pins above the treble clef are exactly that: for the treble chef only?** Hmmm. This piece just needs a little polish to complete.

May Breezes (Op. 62, No. 1): This piece is at a more advanced stage than I remembered, and actually playing reinforced the fact that The Poet's Harp is much harder than the other pieces I am playing, and I've decided to take it off the reportoire (post-it removed). Anyway, I enjoy this piece for the hand-swapping that goes on, its pretty unusual and fun.

As to what to play next, I've just googled 'songs without words opus intermediate level' and have these clues (in totally random order): Op. 30, No. 6 (definitely looks easy); Op. 38, No. 4 ('Hope'); Op. 38, No. 6 (interesting two melody piece); Op. 19, No. 6 (the other Venetian Book Song); Op. 53, No. 5 (Folk Song); Op. 38, No. 2 ('Lost Happiness')

And super cool!... just found a 'Mendelssohn Appreciation' group online that are learning intermediate songs from this collection. I'm going to join! :-)

Another question for instructor**: I want to understand how the whole opus numbering system works, why there's also a number to the left of the opening phrase? And why there is another numbering system in the book title as well?

Saturday, November 21, 2009

November 21, 2009 - Music Theory and History Reading

I'm reading Kirby, Music for Piano: A Short History at the moment. Thought I'd write down a few notes on Granados that I've learnt.

Granados is part of an Iberian movement in early 20th Century, heralded by himself and Isaac Albeniz, under the instruction of Felipe Pedrell. The Iberian movement was strongly influenced by French Impressionism. They both wrote music centred around Spanish dances, and also depictions of specific places in Spain:

"Indigenous Spanish dances are everywhere in evidence; the most characteristic type is in fast triple time with rapid subdivision of the second beat and incessant repetition of rhythmic patterns interspersed with a lyrical -- originally sung -- refrain, the copla." (p. 331)

Albeniz's major contribution is in his "impressions" called Iberia.

Granados was more of a traditionalist and nationalist than Albeniz, according to Kirby. Valses poeticas is an example of him taking a conventional type, and giving it a Spanish twist. The suite Goyescas is his major work for piano (inspired by etchings by Goya). He makes an interesting (to me) connection to Russian Romanticism:

"Goyescas in fact is one of the few large and important nationalistic pieces of piano music, fully deserving a place beside Mussorgsky's Pictures, both of which owe their inspiration to art."

Following on the reference to Mussorgsky, I looked him up in the index and learnt some very interesting things indeed. He is the most famous member of a group called 'The Five' or "The Mighty Handful', a group of Russian composers in the late 19th Century who abruptly broke from the prevalent French and German schools -- in part influenced by the Napoleonic Wars according to Kirby -- with extremely nationalistic Russian music. Pictures is then analysed in some depth.

Finally, YAY! I just requested this book from Berkeley Public Library: http://books.google.com/books?id=G0uPUIF8JpoC&dq=enrique+granados+history+theory&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s EXCITED!

November 21, 2009

Today I approached the Christmas music for the first time. Pretty much all the music I got is a complete fail. David Lanz is way too 'new-age' (read floral and off-the-mark entirely in many cases), Amy Grant does not have the melody in the piano part, it is accompaniment, and since I have no singers amongst me, this is not flying. Jazz at Christmas was a little unreadable to Classical-me.

The only thing that worked was an original copy of The Christmas Song that I have. It has a few complex minor chords to work out, and is a little jazzy in the rhythm I think, something that I'm not super strong at. But the melody was clear and it sounded pleasant...something seemingly hard to find amongst Christmas music.

And back to Granados... today I played only Fandango and Oriental. Not much to report, just working on the parts I've already mentioned, getting stronger all the time. The Lento Assai part of Oriental has me a little perplexed, I'm just going at it really slow, trying to manage the movement of the left hand.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

November 19, 2009

Today I saw good progress with my Granados pieces.

In Andaluza, I've been experimenting with rit.'s. Where there aren't any, I've been playing around with adding them in for dramatic effect. I think that's what Granados would have wanted - a spot of improvisation seems to be his style anyway (see Lento Assai part of Oriental).

Fandango is coming along, I played to the end of page 2 today, which seemed a logical place to stop. I re-learnt what fp means (thanks Chris), but need to do a little more research to understand how to use it properly (or is it up to the pianist?). At the moment I'm playing an emphasized one chord at the placing of fp, but I think it may be forte at the start of each new phrase? Will report back... I'm having some difficulty with the large moments of the left hand in the second section - something to concentrate on.

And then Oriental. I just love the sound of this, and can't wait to get it up to Andante speed. Have some fingering issues that I'm working on. I started a little sight reading of the Lento assai section, but haven't really commited to learning it truly yet.

I want to be playing Christmas music, and am about to start on Charlie Brown Christmas and Jazz at Christmas. That's for this afternoon! Yay!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

November 18, 2009

Today I'm working on Granados, 12 Danzas Espanolas.

5. Andaluza: Getting back to where I was when I played this last (2002). I need to make sure that the intro is correct in number of repetitions, and that the emotive dynamics are observed. Morendo means slowly dying away.

2. Oriental: First start today on this piece. I'm really enjoying how pretty it sounds already. I'm going at a tempo much slower than Andante, which is something I need to work on. Leaving off the trill for now until I get a handle on the melody in general. Again, dramatic dynamics need to be observed. I think that the rit. and dim.'s need to be more emphasized than what I'm doing at this point. Listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-M3vm0LJBU definitely helped.

3. Fandango: Not much to say about this yet, other than I'm getting there with the fingering, and that I'm excited about being 'energico'! Little confused though, as the recording on youtube seems nothing like the sheet music in front of me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxy5JrOavQ Hmmm. Could it really be that tempo will make it seem so different....

Oh, and I also played Moussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition: Promenade was going in full swing today, just a little bit of fingering trouble to look out for next time. Had some fun varying the dynamics. Tried playing The Great Gate, but wasn't really feeling it.