Author: jacobtw

I’ve been teaching this girl online and this is one of the pieces that she brought to me. It’s important to be familiar with the piece in order to teach it so I’ve played through it a couple times. It’s a simple piece full of youth. It reminds me of daydreaming in classroom, thinking about all the other places I could be. The melody is innocent and full of child like longing. When I was teaching this piece, the thing I emphasized the most was the singing line. It’s easy for the other notes to clutter the melody hindering it from singing it’s little heart in circles.

The water is rippling ever so slightly. It glimmers of the sunshine of possibilities. It glitters with the darkness of secrets. It ripples endlessly. The sea has always been here and will exist long after the bones of our offspring return to dust. Out of the calm rivulets of water is a voice so sweet and enchanting. Its purity and beauty is unworldly and strikes at your heart. You cannot help but lean into the water, perhaps to gather more of its ethereal sounds into your ear. Wide eyed in wonder, you are drawn to the water as the voice invites you in. Its purity is blemished by a hint of desire that vanishes before you can capture it in your mind. Who possesses this enchanting voice that has taken hold of your heart?

‘Tis the water nymph Ondine.

This week was very busy for me. I had chamber music performances this week (sorry I didn’t record them! I think I will get the professional recordings soon). I played the last movement of the Mendelssohn c min piano trio in a performance on Thursday night and today (Saturday morning) for a masterclass. It’s a passionate movement that begins with a tumbling cello line, out of breath and crazed.

I chose to work on this piece because I actually played the first two movements when I was in high school. So, I wanted to finish the piece and get this glorious ending. My high school piano professor was in a professional piano trio that toured for many years and I remember him telling me that the ending of this trio is just so much fun to play. The flying fingers and rush of accelerating to the end is just so exhilarating. Mendelssohn’s music is…. a bit notey to be honest. He was a virtuoso pianist and he really shows it in the piano part. It actually works out so well because the piano excels at playing a lot of notes in a short amount of time but has a natural disadvantage to sustained long notes. In contrast, the strings excel at playing long sustained long notes. So while the strings play a luscious long melody, the pianist gets to fly around the keyboard, filling out the harmonies and the empty beats with arpeggios. Often this frantic frazzled feeling is unwelcome but here, it is quite fitting- though only if you stay in control and have all the notes under their fingers.

Einfach means simple and easy and that is exactly how I want to play this little movement. I overthink things a lot so it’s like a breath of fresh air to just play. To play this beautiful line and just let it sing by itself. It doesn’t need any interpretation. It doesn’t need a new idea. It doesn’t need a new perspective. I think the melody just speaks for itself. If I were to tamper with it, it would change the simpleness of the mood.

This is the last movement of Rach 2 and most likely the last post I’ll be making about this piece. *disclaimer* there is one very very very wrong note in this piece and I hit it quite hard but there wasn’t any time left to record so I just kept on going *disclaimer over*

This movement always scared me. It scared me in a good way because of it’s virtuosity and it’s glamour. To me it felt like I was excited to jump off a cliff. (like those cliff jumps into some lake or whatnot) This is the height of pianist virtuosity, there’s a sharpness in this piece that begs for attention both from the audience AND the performer. Up until the last week before I recorded this movement, what ran through my mind was always “faster! more brilliant! more powerful! more charismatic!” So that was how I played- sometimes I played as fast as a could and with as much of myself as I could and it would fall apart and crash and burn like dropped ice cream cone– splat on the sidewalk. Somehow I came to the realization (even though my teachers and friends were ALWAYS saying that I played too fast), that I could play it in a more controlled manner and have it actually sound better. Less maniacally and more dance like. The thousands of notes aren’t there for virtuosity’s sake but for added flourishes and garnishing of the melody and theme.

No doubt some will still say that I play too fast and out of control and I would have to concede “yes, that’s probably true”. However, I think I’ve come a long way from maniacal dancing around the fire like some pagan ritual to a more refined form of dancing. Less stomping around the fire chanting and more light two step flying around the ballroom. Hope you enjoy!