retouch
First post of the new year (both Western and Chinese) and it’s now March. Life has gotten itself on an interestingly skewed track again and as soon as the confidence to put some persona of myself in the public returns, I’ll be back here more. I miss this semi-sanctuary and everyone one around it, but disrespect and ignorance hurts, and recovery is hard. Self-reflection has become almost as routine as a shower. Finding the courage to enjoy performing music – without fear, without inhibition – again is the first great obstacle. Family is beautiful.
So though there there’s been considerable slackage here, the reading list is still being maintained; not that there has been much time to read lately. The old habit of reading alongside a meal has been passed up to either not having the proper time to put towards this, to newspapers, or to having meals with kind, mostly new acquaintances – which is typically a good excursion too. In the meantime, every so often, something is written on the [Twitter] about the musical events around. And instead of reading literature, a few hours a week are spent reading a score alongside its recording. This activity is nothing entirely new (see previous posts on music) but lately it’s been happening on a kind of weekly basis.
I probably won’t include scores in the reading list though given that the manner of study is quite different from reading a book. I may start keeping list of performances, however, because I keep forgetting to sign into the myspace to update it.
This week’s composition of fascination is Michael Nyman’s String Quartet No. 2, particularly movements 3 and 4. I found the other three quartets somewhat underwhelming, but full of good intentions to complement the good writing. However, String Quartet No. 2 appeals to me in the same fashion as Bloch’s String Quintets and Gorecki’s String Quartet No. 3 – the intense but balanced exploration of culture, rhythmical architectures, and a certain kind of desperation and triumph pervading throughout.
Last week was Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major. That piece pretty much explains itself (especially if Martha Argerich is at the helm.) The second movement of the concerto is heartbreaking and unexpected while the overall intricacy and detail of the entire concerto is stunning. What was almost as surprising, however, was the ratio of string to wind players that were familiar with the composition. Apparently, many standard wind excerpts are taken from the concerto (The bassoon solo in the third movement is particularly impressive. During our next rehearsal together, my bassoon teaching assistant friend casually performed the excerpt for me on the spot – by memory.) but to many of my string colleagues, the piece is unfamiliar. I wonder which other pieces can be placed in this category.
March 07 2010 05:20 am | music and musings and waffle