(Here is the higher quality, 192 Kbps:
https://www.mediafire.com/?y5mzyjyqytyThe lower quality, 80 Kbps is uploaded to the site below.)
Sunday afternoon, February 18, 2007
This written in the form of a blog entry, chronicles my first and only attempt at presenting Beethoven’s op. 111 in recital, a harrowing experience complete with some fantastic mistakes (ode to live performance, warts and all). I look back on this which at the time was a preparation for the future, a preparation of a piece I knew was so much larger then I could hold (oh, but what a piece!). I am fortunate to work in an environment in which I can safely do this, and this was actually my debut as a soloist there (I had played recitals as an accompanist in this space as far back as 2003, before becoming the full time accompanist in the fall of 2006). This was a shared recital with a cellist you’ve already met…we played the Shostakovich Cello Sonata just beforehand, an heart wrenching edge of the seat thriller which left me overloaded with adrenaline. Indeed I was still shaking after taking an abnormally long intermission (and how terrifying it is, that fist plunge into the storm of Op. 111, knowing there's no turning back!), but this extra jolt, though it took me a few minutes to control, played right into my conception of the piece at the time, which I may be ably to summarize in Friedrich Löhr’s hyperbolic statement on Gustav Mahler’s piano playing:
Mahler rose inexpressively above what his hands did. He could never have given an account of how he achieved what he did; every thought of technical difficulty was utterly canceled out; all was disembodied, purely contemplative, passionately and spiritually concentrated on all that, without conscious physical contact, passed from the keys into his being. In a way all his own, comprehending it with the energy and accomplishment of genius, bringing out every nuance, every shade of expression, he caused the music to ring out with all the force with which it had gushed forth from the soul of its creator. In Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 111 (No. 32), for instance, the storm at the beginning broke out in a terrible maestoso, shatteringly intense, with a wild ferocity such as I have never heard again; and similarly the finale faded out, pure, utterly luminous, in loveliest beauty, softly and softlier still, from closest touch with this earth out into eternity.
(Bear in mind, Mahler was not such a talented pianist! Bear in mind his illusion to op. 111 in the finale of the 2nd Symphony! The identical mood of the “Ewiger” at the close of Der Abschied from Das Lied von der Erde with the close of the op. 111 finale! Was he reaching to express in his larger than life compositions what he couldn’t really express with his own two hands? Note two, the similar hyperbolic statements of his conducting Beethoven’s 7th or Die Walküre, much more plausible and justified!)
You see that my dreams reach higher than I can ever attain; I was mildly disappointed that the walls were not on fire and the building was still standing at the close of the first movement, but then came the Arietta…oh bliss! To hold it in your hands is to step out into eternity, and for about 20 minutes I don’t know if I was conscious. It was an incredibly still glimpse of a realm without time (I'm one to get chills at the thought of time standing straight up), a music that is more than music (
I’m stealing from Pianowolfi’s blog. Oh, I feel I should dedicate this whole thing to Wolfi who’s given me so much, and he doesn’t know it. Wolfi, I hope I hear you someday, improvising and playing op. 111 in a cave! I want to be there! Oh, the Arietta following the first movement storm…THIS is ABSTRACTION!) Where was I? The applause was jarring, like waking out of a beautiful dream fearing I may never be able to return to/remember. This piece comes with a certain pain of vulnerability (I start a support group for those who have played it!). I’ve never given more of myself then I did in this half hour moment, February 18, 2007. It is more me then any of the improvisations I‘ve posted, or even compositions I’ve not posted. It’s a raw snap shot of my musical soul, with all its scars through time, and all the quirks which are kind of like a pianistic speech impediment. But ah, Beethoven transcends all lifting me where I can't go.
I’m adding a short, 50 seconds of my 93 year old Grandfather, who always has had an ability to speak profound things profoundly. This also, I link into the beautiful Arietta, which is just music of course.
Now STOP reading my too lengthy post and listen and devour Beethoven’s Op. 111!
Dave
Topic: Beethoven Piano Sonata no. 32 in C minor, op. 111