Edinburgh Festival Fringe recital

[ronde_des_sylphes]

From last weekend.

I was presenting a nominally themed programme centred around some of the more famous pianist-composers of Paris, but also leaving scope for some of my own material. There was one rather unfortunate mishap, of which more later.

Here is the full recital, in playing order: Liszt, Alkan, Saint-Saens and Thalberg being the chosen composers.

Some of my own miniatures (improvised in 2020 and now notated), followed by an "in-concert" improvisation and then one of my operatic paraphrases:

By the end of the Sonnambula fantasy, a few things are probably obvious... twenty minutes before the start of the event I cut my rh thumb open on a razor blade I had no idea was in my travel bag, hence the bandage on the thumb. It had been borderline under control in the first half of the event, but by this point it really wasn't, and I was having to wipe bloodstains off the keys between pieces.

It's probably remarkable that I was able to play at all, but I was determined to get through everything come what may...

... and in truth, the adrenalin and general inclination to let off a bit of steam after what had been a rather stressful event meant that my encore pick wasn't the rather more sedate setting of Casta diva which I had planned 

(It's the finale of my sonata, and the title probably says enough.)

[ted]

It all sounded pretty good to me Andrew and congratulations on pushing through everything; those loud, fast octaves must have been particularly awkward as you couldn't avoid using the thumb. You were obviously sparing it a bit in the improvisation but the idea flow was fully up to your usual quality anyway. Overall I do feel your playing deserved a much larger audience than you had here though.     

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks, Ted. Yes, you can see me playing chords with 235 in the improvisation, and I used some finger substitutions elsewhere, but there wasn't much I could do about it in fast octaves! Arpeggios and scales were fine, but it was certainly a stressful experience. As you say, a shame to only have an audience of about 20, but still nice to get a chance to air an unusual programme.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I've edited together the various clips into one full video, and that can be watched here:

I've of course discreetly edited out from the original filmed video the parts where I had to wipe blood off the keyboard between pieces Eventful, if a touch stressful.