Workshop: Day 2
We worked on the 1st and 3rd movements today during rehearsal and will focus on the final concert movements for the rest of the week. Since I keep bombing the hard part of the 1st movement, the coach asked me to just play the left hand. I also dropped out my left hand in the military section of the 3rd movement. I'm a little disappointed in myself that I wasn't able to show up fully prepared but c'est la vie.
We also played the second movement twice today, after I practiced the Trio with metronome this morning as advised by the coach. The interactions between piano and strings don't make musical sense and you just have to trust yourself and keep going and count the rests properly and then somehow it all ends up in the right place!
I had my piano lesson on the 2nd and 4th movements and it was really great! I got musical, technical, and pedaling advice. I never learned about half or quarter pedal and instinctively sometimes do light pedal but it's not really a conscious thing. He advised me to shift my foot back a little to have better control over pedaling lightly.
Turns out the piano coach is one of the top concert pianists in this country and he gave us a "little concert"! I thought maybe he'd play some Chopin or something but then he played Rhapsody in Blue as a piano solo for us. What a massive piece! It was fabulous. There are two other pianists here and one is an English guy who sounds really great from what I hear through the windows. He's playing Dvoลรกk's second piano quartet which is a wonderful piece and is at the top of my piano quartet wishlist. It looks very challenging, though.
In the evening, I met up with the cellist from my group last summer and we ran through Beethoven cello sonata No.2 and the first and second movements of No.3. I've only prepared the second one for a couple of weeks years ago to read with someone, and last year I was sight reading it with her. Somehow having it sit in my head for the last year made it magically better! I wasn't playing all the notes but I really did quite a decent job faking my way through it. I think maybe I should learn both of these sonatas. Even if I run through them once a week, if I keep getting better eventually I'll be able to play them properly. I used to think the Rondo of the second sonata would take a lot of effort to learn, but now I don't anymore?? I'm amazed. I think I've become a better pianist!
I hope I don't get overambitious with all my plans ๐ Though there's a big difference between "fun commitments" and "official commitments" and as long as I don't overdo the official ones I'll be ok!
