ConcART Review

The party was a great success. In total, we had about 65 people show up over the four hours, and Johanne sold six pieces. 50 people came in time for the recital, almost all of them arriving in a flood between 1:00pm and 1:05pm. They took their seats right away and by 1:15pm we had a packed house and were ready to start on time.

I gave a little introductory spiel and then launched into the program. Luckily, the people who came were interested in hearing a classical piano recital. So we had a very attentive and very appreciative audience of 50 crammed into our living room. And I think their attentiveness rubbed off, because I was able to focus intently on the music and it went great. I'd say it was one of my best performances ever.

A couple of highlights...

• Many people commented that they appreciated the little stories I told before each piece. Instrumental music can sometimes be pretty abstract, so if you know to "listen for the little bird fluttering in and out" or "the right hand is supposed to sound like water cascading over rocks", it adds a more concrete dimension.
• I was most worried about The Maiden and the Nightingale, since it's a difficult piece and this was my first real performance of it. But it went great. I described it as a battle between the maiden trying to be dark and dramatic and the happy little nightingale trying to snap her out of it. I suggested that people listen and decide for themselves who wins the battle. Later, one of the guests wrote in the guestbook: "The nightingale got the last word!"
• The Danzas Argentinas are always a great way to end a program. The big build up to the final, piano-wide up-down glissando and crashing cadence puts an exclamation mark on everything. The audience responded with laughs and shouts and a blast of applause that seemed to go on and on.
  

I should also note that things wouldn't have gone nearly as well without the help of several people. In particular:

• Gary, for tuning and adjusting the piano
• Libby, for handling the art sales
• Laura, for working the back door during the recital
• Melissa and Debie, for keeping the food and drink areas stocked and clean during the party

We're encouraged by the good results to do it again, maybe twice a year. That means I have to go get to work on repertoire!

ConcART!

On Sunday, October 19, Johanne will be having her first solo Art Show at our home here in Austin. The show will feature her latest pastel painting series on Rocher Percé, her new wood burnings and a couple of new wood sculptures.

To kick off the show, I'll be giving a recital on my new piano. We're expecting 40-50 people. (If you're in Austin, or think you could make it and didn't receive an invitation, let me know. I'll get one out to you).

I wanted to give a longish recital. Most other opportunities involve multiple performers where each is limited to one or two pieces. This is an opportunity to stretch out a little and design a nice program with some variety. The problem is that when I laid it out, it was too long. And removing pieces is a sad thing. But after much hair-pulling, I've whittled it down to...

1. El Puerto (Albéniz)
2. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (Liszt)
3. Sonata No.8 (Pathétique), 2nd movement (Beethoven)
4. Impromptu Op.90, No.4 (Schubert)
5. Quejas, ó la Maja y el Ruiseñor (Granados)
6. Danzas Argentinas (Ginastera)

There are a couple of glaring omissions, but even still, I'm worried it's a little long. I figure it runs about 40 minutes. Make it 45, since I plan to tell a little story to introduce each piece. But I think the flow/variety of the program would suffer if I removed any more. (Not to mention... it would break my heart).

So what do you think? Would you sit through those 45 minutes? Even if you were coming mainly to view the art?

Recital Recap

I played my second recital at the Orpheus Academy Saturday evening. They have pretty regular recitals for their students. One of my neighbors studies classical guitar there, and she talked to the owners about letting me participate in their "Adult Impromptu Recital" series.

The first recital was last Spring, and I played El Puerto (Albéniz) and Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (Liszt). The piano in their recital hall was an older Petrof and when I got up to play I noticed that it had only two pedals... no Sostenuto. I use the Sostenuto all over the place in El Puerto, so I offered to play something else. But they had a nice Kawai (probably an RX-2) in another room, so I played there. I'm sure they were all thinking "Who is this ass... thinks he need three pedals!". Anyway, it went well, and I really liked the atmosphere and the attitude of the organizers and students.

This time I played the three Danzas Argentinas (Ginastera). We used a different room again. The piano was an old Sohmer & Co. It belonged to the owner's grandfather. The strings were pretty dead, but I snuck the lid open before the recital and it was fine. I thought the performance went really well. The Danzas are a challenge to perform. If you can maintain calm, they're fine. If you tense up at all, you lose the handle and it's a trainwreck. I'm glad to say no trains left the rails.

And while I'm recapping recitals, I might as well mention my Ottawa recital, too. I guess it wasn't really a "recital". I thought it would be fun to get my Ottawa music teachers together and play for them. My mother's friend Paulette offered her new Steinway B for the event. What a gorgeous piano. In attendance: mom, dad, Johanne, Paulette, my piano teacher (1978-1985) Edith Orton and my Music History teacher (1983-1986?) Sandra Cooke. I played most of the old pieces that I've worked back up, but also threw in an unripe performance of Granados' Quejas, ó La Maja y el Ruiseñor from Goyescas.

Me at Paulette's Steinway B (next to Paulette's Baldwin L1)

I'd like to keep a record of these performances, and the blog seems like as good a place as any, so...

December 21, 2007: Cal Janacek's Christmas Recital

• Étude Op.10 Nr.3 (Frédéric Chopin)
• El Puerto (Isaac Albéniz)

May 24, 2008: Orpheus Academy of Music Adult Impromptu Recital

• El Puerto (Isaac Albéniz)
• Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (Franz Liszt)

August 8, 2008: Paulette's House

• El Puerto (Isaac Albéniz)
• Arabesque I (Claude Debussy)
• Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (Franz Liszt)
• Danzas Argentinas (Alberto Ginastera)
• Quejas, ó La Maja y el Ruiseñor (Enrique Granados)

September 27, 2008: Orpheus Academy of Music Adult Impromptu Recital

• Danzas Argentinas (Alberto Ginastera)

Video: Danza del Viejo Boyero

This video was really just me experimenting with the camera and audio equipment. But I've been hoping to get a little less formal about posting here, so what the heck.

Here's Alberto Ginastera's Danza del Viejo Boyero. Of course, the downside to posting this is now I have to do videos of the other two Danzas Argentinas. (And by "downside" I mean either "downside" or "upside").

Video: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

Here's the product of my second video adventure. This time the lighting and video quality are quite a bit better. Thanks to my friend Bassett for lending me a real video camera. I still need to work on improving the audio quality, but I'm actually quite happy with the performance. And I'll take a decent performance over video/audio quality any time.

I was recording the video on the Labor Day holiday, and every time I hit Record, somebody on the street would start making a bunch of noise, or Maple would walk by and shake her collar, or Shiner would start meowing. Then around two o'clock in the afternoon, the animals settled down, the neighbor across the street stopped grinding metal plates and the neighbor next door put away the lawn mower. I sat down, hit the red button, and that was it.

The piece is Franz Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, one of my favorites to play.

Pianoversary

One year ago I was driving a rental from Regina to Saskatoon to catch a flight to Minneapolis where I would end up having to spend the night before flying to Memphis trying to get to Austin.

I was on my way home from the Antonini family reunion where my uncle Marty entertained, my brother and my cousins performed, and my aunts and uncles sang and danced. At one point in the weekend, Uncle Lui asked if I would play the piano. I couldn't: I didn't have a single thing I could sit down and play.

On the long road home I had the chance to reflect. It sucked that I didn't have anything to show for all the lessons, practice, recitals, competitions and exams. I decided I needed to get it back.

The story from then on appears in this blog. After one full year, I've built up a decent repertoire, played some recitals, made some recordings and bought my first piano. And I feel like I'm playing better than ever. So Uncle Lui, next time I'm up north and there's a piano nearby, I have some pieces I'd like to play.

Until then, Happy Pianoversary!

Art Facts Video

I was hoping to post a video of the new piano shortly after it arrived. But man, there's a lot of hardware and software that just doesn't work well. I'm not going to rant about all of it here, but I would like to single out YouTube for not being able to maintain the audio/video sync in .wmv files. Amazing. If I figure out a workaround, I'll post a replacement video.

Anyway. The quality is kind of crappy and the piano is ready for its acclimation tuning. And there's a clam at the end and a minor train wreck in the middle. But it's time to post the darn thing.

Update (July 28, 2008): I've managed to improve the audio/video sync somewhat by kludge. This is the newer version.

Update (September 12, 2008): YouTube fixed their audio problems, so here's another version with better audio (but the sync problems are back... sigh)

Lyre Bottom Followup

Well, I was wrong about the lyre bottom being the least important part of the piano. It turns out the pedals and pedal hinge blocks are attached to the lyre bottom, not the lyre box. Makes sense. So Steinway Dude showed up with a lyre bottom including new pedals. It only took a few minutes to remove the lyre, unscrew the lyre bottom and install the new one. (Man, a piano looks stupid without a lyre).

As luck would have it, the new pedals run a little smoother than the old ones. They're the exact same model, but they're aligned a little better and don't rub at all. It was on my list to have the old ones adjusted the next time the tech comes out, but now I don't have to wait. I made one small tweak to the damper lyre rod nut to shorten the damper pedal dead zone and now the piano plays better than ever.

Props to Steinway Piano Gallery and Steinway Dude for being so responsive. They replied to my email within an hour of my sending it and were at my house replacing the part just a few days later. I highly recommend them for all your Steinway piano buying needs.

What Shall We Do with a Broken Lyre?

O misery.

I noticed the other day that the wood of my lyre bottom is chipped in the front corner on the una corda side.

"What's a lyre bottom?", you ask? Luckily, it's probably the most unimportant part of the piano. It's a rectangle of unfinished wood screwed to the bottom of the lyre (the pedal contraption thing). See the schematic:

Anyway.

I emailed Steinway Dude about it. He emailed me right back suggesting he could send someone out to look at it or I could send him a photo. So I got a couple of pix and it looks like it'll be pretty easy to replace. At first he said he'd need to take the lyre for two days. Man, my heart dropped. The thought of going without pedals for two days was totally depressing. I half considered calling off the repair so that I wouldn't have to part with the lyre. But the exposed screw scares me a bit from a structural point of view:

Luckily, S. Dude discovered he has a spare lyre bottom and he can replace it on site in about a half an hour. So he'll come and fix it Friday morning. I'll let you know how it goes.

More Piano Pix

The delivery day pictures didn't really highlight the piano itself, so I tried to get some better shots. It's not in the brightest room in the house, but here it is.

All closed. Waiting.

Half-lid.

Open.

And finally, a closer shot of the keyboard and fallboard: