14 Days Left: 1st & 4th movements
I am so, so exhausted today. I tried to sleep in but my stupid cat decided that today is an early alarm day. I felt like I could hardly even keep my eyes open, but I forced myself to practice.
This was Day 3 of alternating days of the 1st movement so I had to work on it, and then I'll take a week's break before coming back to it if I'm brave enough to stay away that long.
And then I worked on the 4th movement and it's magically better than when I last worked on it maybe 2 weeks ago! At the time I had taken a long break on the 1st movement and then come back to it. Now it's time to switch. I think I may cheat slightly on some little parts, plus on the fast parallel hands I tend to just drop out the left hand (my weak hand) and rely on the right if my LH can't keep up. I feel a lot more confident that it will be ready!
Today I did a lot of work on transitions between sections, especially in the fast section where there's a repeat and I have to do a different fingering the two times because of what happens next, so it can be confusing.
Who hears the "Shostakovich bit" and loves it?? Also if I can play the Molto Presto at the end really fast it'll be amazing. Last year for the Dvorak we only did it once during rehearsal but our coach was like "go go go!!" and we went! It was like we were racing down a hill and it was amazing!! We sounded like professionals (I hit all the notes right) and I have seriously never had so much fun playing before!! We never mustered up the courage and energy to accelerate like that again though, with our limited practice time. The Brahms is harder to play fast at the end, the Dvorak only had two bars of "pray for it" sections in the right hand with really fast octave jumps and there's more going on here but it feels achievable.
Also I think I never mentioned before but I have hyperhidrosis (genetically sweaty hands and feet), so they are either very wet or very dry. If dry but one of them starts to sweat then it's over, they're wet. I actually got used to having that little bit of extra traction with damp hands and I prefer that to dry. And thank goodness it's better than it was when I was a kid, and sweat would literally drip off my palms. So unpleasant and embarrassing!! But anyway, that's why I always have a dishcloth in my hands.