What a month!

What a month! It’s been a whole month since my last blog. Concerts, traveling throughout the Northwest. Practicing has been low! I have been playing for hours every day. I haven’t been practicing the Beethoven, unfortunately. Besides the concerts in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, there have been some very unfortunate and sad family losses and many changes at the church with our homeless shelter.

The good news has been that my studying of the material and Beethoven’s life has not stopped, and I knew I wasn’t able to practice so I spent any free time, away from the piano, reading and studying scores and books about Beethoven.

The other good news is that I practiced nearly 3 hours today and it is good to get back into my routine. I found that the time away has not been all bad. Some of those areas that were tricky practice spots needed some time away from the keyboard and they were cleaner, without tension, and more musical. That’s a positive sign. I practiced the 1st sonata, the 1st movement of the 2nd sonata, areas of the 9th sonata, and areas of the 5th and the 8th sonatas. I chose the easier sonatas for this practice session to get me back into my focus and discipline.

I also discovered that it helps to warm up with some Bach. Today, I warmed up with a few movements of the Bach “French Suite in C minor”. I have learned many of the French and English suites and I forgot how MUCH I miss playing Bach. When I was a professional organist, I used to play Bach any time I could. I used to listen to Bach’s music any time I could. I plan on writing my sermon for tomorrow’s service and the Bach B-minor Mass is coming out. What a GLORIOUS piece of music. A wonderful masterpiece that never gets old for me.

The Beethoven project is incredibly satisfying. I have found it interesting to realize that the notes for some of these sonatas are not complicated or technically difficult, it is the characterization and finding just the right dynamics and shading that I find so difficult on some of these easier sonatas. Making sure the dynamic markings are steady and not explosive when needed and making sure the explosive dynamics have the element of surprise but keeping the overall structure and infrastructure in place.

I used to listen to Barenboim all the time and will continue to enjoy his words and thoughts on Beethoven. I have found myself drawn to Claudio Arrau, who is markedly slower and heavier. It’s such a fascinating approach. He doesn’t veer into shameless romanticism, but I wonder if he has found an interesting medium where Beethoven was in. One foot in Haydn’s door and one foot out in a door that was just being discovered and he was trailblazing the lead.

I am tired and hopefully I will write more and take better care with sentence structure and punctuation. Hope to be back on here soon

Happy listening!