Insert sigh of relief here!

It's over, that's how I feel about it!

And I promise this will be the last post dedicated solely to my recital or practicing...
but it is important that I have this post to wrap up my feelings about tonight.

Basically I didn't take the time I needed to settle into recital mode. I jumped into the Bach and wasn't ready for it. I had a huge memory lapse on the first page - from which I did not fully recover. I spent a very little time finding a way to the fugue... as a result robbing the grandiosity that a piece of it's magnitude needed to get underway. From that point on, the fugue and all the dance movements were too fast. Between nerves and being thrown off from the rocky start, I didn't calm down, which led to some frantic playing.
It all went by in such a blur, I should have taken a moment to just breath and relax.

The Dance Improv was successful and comments were generally quite good. On a personal note, I know that my feelings about the first piece got in the way, and I don't think I improvised as well as I could have - granted I still did well and we kept lines of communication open and were very responsive. I think it translated into me being a little more restrained; not wanting to put too much at stake . I guess my logic was that the first piece wasn't impressive enough to my jury to justify going crazy for the second piece.

Finally the intermission came and I had a chance to calm myself a little. A few people knocked on the door to tell me how much they were enjoying it and offering preemptive congratulations. My initial reactions to these were to point out how things were going badly ie the first 5 minutes.. but they insisted I was doing quite well. Even now, I don't believe their reassurances BUT it did remind me that I was playing for an audience and not just my recital panel.

I think I played the Beethoven probably the best yet tonight. I played it with the utmost conviction. I thought that technically it was pretty secure and I maintained focus and conviction throughout. I felt good playing it and I felt good having played it.

The Liszt, great feedback from the audience I talked to. I LOVE THIS PIECE. I set the tone of the piece by reading the Lord Byron poem cited on the inside page of the piece. Having decided to read it today, it was definitely a difficult poem to read. Incredibly long phrases...so I went uber dramatic with my recitation. Apparently it was very effective- I used the poem as a bridge and started playing right after the poem ended - smooth transition.
Technically, I was pretty happy with it. I have and should have played the LH octaves much cleaner, but I was very happy with the way I played it.

Audience response was overwhelming. So many people I knew there and meeting and greeting seemed endless. My teacher offered some comments which are good to have fresh so that I can apply them in my head with direct reference, but perhaps within half an hour of the recital is a bit too fresh. So, I paid attention to pretty much only the compliments! He said I have a special talent - that whenever I play, I have the audience eating out of the palm of my hand. He went on to stress the importance that a skill like that comes great responsibility. When I have that power over an audience, I need to only offer them the best performance possible.

Anyway, I feel relatively good about the recital., but more importantly I'm glad it's over with. Now, I'm picking out jury music for my last 10 minutes of performance