Whores, every last one of you!
Yesterday was Concerto Competition. I worked half of my day at the ballet and then had lunch and came to the school. This left me with 3 hours to practice before the competition. I used a fair chunk of the time and was feeling prepared. I listened to a few friends play and was impressed.
I don't know if I've ever watched Brendan play as a soloist, and I've heard lots of him bitching about how things aren't good and whatnot, so in all honesty, I took his word and didn't have high expectations. Nevertheless, I was quite impressed. It was a very musically involved performance with excellent tone and musical line. The technical elements of the flute are far different than that of piano, and fast runs and all that left me in awe. I've tried playing clarinet/flute before, and the coordination of which fingers to lift and to place down always throws me off. So yes, hats off to Brendan.
Every time I hear Deena play the Grieg concerto, it gets better, which is a good natural progression that musicians always aim for. Her cadenza was super terrific. She had done a masterclass with my teacher about a week or two ago, and it was exciting to see what a difference can be made in one sitting. She had been unsure of how much of the changes she could incorporate on her own, without someone coaching her in the background, but I think she found a way to incorporate most of them in a way that was comfortable to her. This was an impressive chunk from the Romantic Repertoire and it was performed very well! Yay Deena!
When I first came out of my performance I drank water and went piddle, but then I opened my score and made a listing of all the little things that went wrong in the concerto. Just as an acknowledgement so that when I have to play this again for my jury, I know what to work on. Once I finished making the list, I was able to affirm to myself that none of the misplaced notes or shaping of phrases were that big of a deal. I felt, and was reassured by Deena, that I had pulled off the piece quite well. And that is how I felt about it: quite well! I made one mistake, which in my mind was unforgiveable; I cut the orchestra (Beckie) off early for one of my entries. I know exactly why it happened. It was right before the big octaves section that I had worked so hard on, so I was anxious about that as well as the fact that I've never really counted how many phrases actually go in that orchestral tutti. This is something I need to rectify. As a result, I was leniant about taking the octaves as fast as I should have, so this section was further, less impressive than it should have been. Nevertheless, the octaves were at a speed that was still impressive, a noticeable speed up from the orchestra heard right before. Overall, I think I was more expressive than I have been other times playing in lessons and whatnot, and I paid much more attention to the musical line. In Rubinstein's own writings on his own music, he exclaims that the music is less about the exact notes as it is about what they mean. This statement totally does not line up with modern performance practices, but to hell with that, I'm justifying my actions here, phooey on that!
I had decided going in to the performance that if things had been going badly in the first half, I would just improvise my cadenza on a theme of 'mary had a little lamb'. I even went as far as playing through that theme in the opening key of Gb major and knowing how it related to the harmonic progressions suggested by Rubinstein. I could feel the anticipation of Beckie beside me, and my own as I was playing the Gb Major chord and wondering if I actually should...
I ended up not doing it, regrettably, but oh well. The cadenza went well the way Rubinstein had intended it. I think next year, when I do this competition, I will improvise my own cadenza. Maybe by then, I will be good enough to pull it off.
All in all, I felt very good about this competition and now we all play the waiting game. I really hope I am one fo the winners, because next year will likely be my only chance to play with the U of M orchestra. Anyway, there were a lot of great performers from what I've heard and others heard. Good luck to all!