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| Friday night, I finally heard Beethoven's Ninth performed by a symphony other than Spokane's. And it was awesome. There was Jane Eaglen and three other soloists, along with the Seattle Symphony and Chorale. We had seats about seven away from the stage. The view was great, although I think the sound is better when heard from the boxes we usually sit in.
I think Gerard Schwarz, who is known for excellent Beethoven, tends to take a classical approach to Beethoven. In the Ninth, sometimes I felt that that took away from its romanticism and extreme emotional power. At the beginning of the Finale, there are two chords in incompatible keys played simultaneously, and while I like the orchestra to crash into them wildly, Schwarz sounded too tame.
I though the slow third movement was beautiful. This time the understatement and elegance of the classical approach lent itself perfectly to the service of the music. The tempo was fast enough to not be sentimental, but it was wrought in such a way as to bring out all the genuine emotions in the music. And the classical approach definitely lent itself to a logical and convincing buildup to a wonderful climax. The finale of the fourth movement was glorious. The audience lept to its feet and roared its approval, approval at an inspiring performance of this deservedly-loved work, one of our greatest creations by God's grace.
"Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss for the whole world!
Brothers, beyond the star-canopy
Must a loving Father dwell.
Do you bow down, you millions?
Do you sense the Creator, world?
Seek Him beyond the star-canopy!
Beyond the stars must He dwell."
--Fredrich Schiller
Happy New Year! God bless.
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| On Christmas day, I had a fever of 102.5 degrees. I was not feeling well. Nonetheless, it was a nice Christmas. Since my gift was my piano, I only got a few small things, plus some rather large monetary gifts from relatives. I can start whittlling away at that shopping cart I have on Amazon.
On Thursday night, there was a sleepover at Karen Iglitzin's house. Karen is the coordinator for this big multi-faceted chamber music program here in Seattle called Chamber Music Madness. Every year she has this giant sleepover where the kids come and sightread chamber music all night and eat food before falling asleep sometime at 5:00am. Unfortunately, I was still a bit under the weather, so I only stayed for a few hours. There's always next year... I'm feeling much better now, fortunately. Now, to figure out how to spend New Year's...
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| Wow... It's been a while. Life has been indescribable, but being the reckless person I am, I'm going to try to describe it.
After that last update, we moved into a hotel while a construction company worked on our floors. We ended up having to stay there for a month. Events that happened during our hotel stay include:
1. A power outage at the hotel, which caused us to have to throw away the majority of the food in our fridge.
2. Dad picking up our car after having $1800 worth of work done on it and beginning to drive me to a performance, when the car breaks down in the middle of a turn, and gets stuck on a very busy intersection.
3. I had to travel every day to the Sherman Clay Steinway dealer in order to practice, so I only got between one-and-a-half and two hours of practicing a day.
4. The biggest one is that my grandpa's cancer got much worse, and we had to make plans for a trip back to Maine to visit him in hospice. So we left all our stuff in the hotel, and took the trip, and had a very blessed time. After we left, he went downhill very fast, and last week he passed away. We're so thankful that we had the chance to see him while he was still coherent and talkative.
We moved out of the hotel two or three weeks ago, and I got my new Steinway a week later!! I'm loving it!! It has such a gorgeous sound, and it's wonderful to play.
Seattle has been having some major power outages from a big storm, and we were extremely fortunate that we didn't lose power. We think the Lord had mercy on us because we had already been through so much.
To top things off, I'm sick right now.  I started feeling it yesterday, and it got pretty bad by last night. This morning, I feel very achy and I have a low-grade fever. But I guess it's a pretty good time to get sick--I don't really have any obligations.
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! God Bless!
~tpk
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| So I won an Honorable Mention! The guy who won has won the previous three years as well... you guys should do a search for "charlie albright trinity church". It'll turn up the website of a church in New York Charlie got to play at because he won the 2006 New York Piano Competition, and the website has a video of his recital. You guys will be impressed. He plays five or six Chopin etudes. He's extremely good.
But I'm happy with what I got, especially because I've only had the program for two months.
Now it's on to the Greig Concerto; I'll be preparing it to go through the circut of Concerto and Young Artist competitions here in Seattle. | | |
| Ah, today is the Washington State Music Teachers Association Competition.
I'm playing those four pieces that I've only had for two months.
I'm excited.  The piano is supposed to be horrible for the senior division competition; I'm a little worried about that. But my teacher is very good at preparing me for competition. He gives me all kinds of ideas to help give me an advantage--a fair one, of course.
For instance, I have to wear a tie that makes as dramatic of a statement as possible.
Vivid yellow with blackish-grey swirls... Yay!
I'll let you know how it goes.
~tpk | | |
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