Playing (at) the piano

[rsc]

One of the things I planned on doing when I retired, 5+ years ago, was to get back to playing the piano seriously and regularly. I took piano lessons (classical) from when I was five until partway through college, and I think I got to be pretty good somewhere along there (although I was never anywhere within hail of being able to play professionally). Since then I've kept it up sporadically, but after I started taking voice lessons I found myself playing the piano less and less -- when I had the time and energy for serious musical work I generally put it into singing.

But once I stopped working I figured I'd have time to do both. My piano technique had suffered considerably from neglect, of course, but I decided to start with some of the late Brahms pieces that I'd been playing since my teens and get them back into shape. After that I started to work on a Beethoven sonata (Op. 31, #3, in case you're interested) that I'd kind of stumbled through at various intervals but never really worked on.

Since then it's been both rewarding and frustrating. I'm not quite motivated enough to do any systematic exercises, without which I'll probably never quite get up to the level of some of the pieces I'm working on -- maybe I wouldn't anyway, at my age. A couple of years ago I got the Beethoven up to an almost-acceptable level, and put it aside in favor of the Mozart A minor sonata, which I also learned in my teens but hadn't visited much since then. I chose it in part because I think it's a wonderful piece, and partly because I wanted something that would challenge me without being completely out of reach. I got the challenge, anyway; I'm not sure about the other part.

However, I've gone through a couple of periods since then when I didn't play much, and didn't work at all. And then I always lose ground during the summer, because the piano in Gloucester isn't very good (and therefore isn't much fun to play), and also because between gardening and baseball there's not much time left for the piano anyway.

But I put some money into the Steinway this summer, and I want to enjoy the result (which I hope will be, at the least, that it will hold its tune better than it has recently). So now that I'm back in Cambridge full time, I've been putting in an hour or so every couple of days, and the Mozart is almost good enough to give me real pleasure -- except that there are a few places here and there that I just don't seem to be able to solve, or more likely that are just beyond my current capabilities. I've kept the Brahms up, though, and they give me real pleasure to play, even when they're not perfect.

I'm torn between trying to "finish" the Mozart and starting to learn something new, just to keep from getting bored. I borrowed some Faure pieces from my voice teacher, but I haven't decided if they're quite worth the effort they're going to take. (I think maybe I'll let them wait awhile, since I'm once again singing Faure, and that may be enough Faure for the moment.)

Anyway, I'm having fun with it for the moment, and despite the frustrations I think I'm making some forward progress. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up (and not lose it all next summer). The tuner is coming this Friday, which should motivate me even more.

Comments

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

So, when's the recital? ;)

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

You beat me to it. But if there is a recital, won't there have to be a special guest vocalist?

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Well, if spwebdesign is willing to put with me, I'd be glad to accompany him. The only playing I've ever done in public (outside of student recitals as a lad) was accompanying a couple of vocal recitals by sopranos in my latter days at college.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Ha. Not likely to happen. At this point I don't envision my technique as rising above that of Lucy Honeychurch in E. M. Forster's A Room with a View:

"She was no dazzling executante; her runs were not at all like strings of pearls, and she struck no more right notes than was suitable for one of her age and situation."

Mind you, one of Lucy's pieces is the Beethoven Opus 111, which I'm not about to attempt.

As it happens, about 25 years ago (or more) I composed a recital program in my head, consisting of pieces that I was playing at the time. I'm not sure if this is all of it, but it included the Beethoven Op. 90, the Mozart B flat K.333, and the complete Brahms Op. 118. Not that I ever supposed, even then, that it would ever happen.

[unzeugmatic.livejournal.com]

As my mother puts it, my parents got their Steinway the same time as they got me.
At that point my father went through a period of serious playing which lasted until
just about the point my memory begins.

It was my father's mother who was the pianist, as in the professional pianist who taught
and performed in New York City in the 30s, 40s, and 50s (to no particular renown, although my
father has a recording of her performing on a radio program.) My grandmother studied
at the Conservatory in St. Petersburg, which she continued to call St. Petersburg for
all the years it was Leningrad. This is the same place (at approximately the same
time) where Jascha Heifetz studied, as we learned from his obituary in the Times.
Had my grandmother still been alive when he died she would at that point have claimed to
have dated him, no doubt.

To the best of my recollection and understanding, my grandmother's relationship with
music was entirely different from my father's (and mine for certain). I don't
think my grandmother would have understood the idea of music divorced from performance.
It's not fair for me to conjecture about her at this point, of course, but I know she never
understood my parents' involvement in the folk scene at all.

Anyway, after my grandmother died my father played the piano practically nightly
for about a year. He played the oddest things (to my ears) --things his mother had
taught him, of course. What I remember in particular is his playing Czerny (although I
was no longer living at home at this point, so my view is selected). Czerny? How common
is that?

A couple of hours a night for a year and my father did get some of his technique back,
to the extent that a friend who visited me at the time was impressed. But then he worked through
whatever he was working through by his playing, and that piano-period ended.

Maybe when my father does finally retire he'll get back to i

[unzeugmatic.livejournal.com]

>Maybe when my father does finally retire he'll get back to i

Comments about rabbits will be discarded as outliers.

[jss]

Harrumpf.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Czerny? How common is that?

Czerny is mostly known as the composer of a vast number of exercises, so a lot of pianists have had encounters with him. I can't remember if I ever was prescribed Czerny, and I have no idea if teachers still use him.

Czerny did write some "real" music, but if your father played Czerny for pleasure, that would be pretty unusual.

[unzeugmatic.livejournal.com]

if your father played Czerny for pleasure, that would be pretty unusual.

That would be my father.

What you say here makes sense of this to me - that Czerny exercises are "prescribed".
These are likely exercises my grandmother would have assigned to my father, whose
piano education was sporadic - my grandmother would sit him down for a lesson at whim it
seems. Not to be too heavy-handed about this, but my father was certainly playing
"for" his mother here.

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

My piano teacher in college made me buy and use the book of Czerny exercises. I think it's still common.