Medtner’s and my Minacciosa

[furtwaengler]

Quite intense and frightening music to be presenting in the setting of a nursing home recital (summer 2015), but I’ve never been beyond challenging these older audiences with new experiences. The chorus of hearing aids, swing of the doors, hum of the kitchen, and ironically placed calls of distress made for a surreal backdrop for this most foreboding of Nikolai Medtner’s sonatas. Somehow the mistakes of execution in the playing and the forgetting to change the recording setting from when I was recording a church service for content plays into this drama. However on the personal level of risk and reward, I will note that after playing every month for 5 months in a row at this particular facility, often greeted with much enthusiasm, were it not for the one lady applauding at the end - a relative of a patient - this was received with awkward silence, and I was not asked back again  Though they stated it was a budget issue...I acknowledge I may have stepped a bit too far out of the box on this one. But the memory is preserved and I pass the faint image onto you.

On the same disk as this was an old improvisitory piece of mine which I’ll include as my own minacciosa storm. It was recorded in a high school auditorium and just as the Medtner the recorder picked up some surprisingly fitting background noise from the nearby cafeteria.

Take cover and enjoy the sounds.