Bach's Blessings

As the great cellist Pablo Casals said, "Playing Bach everyday is a blessing on your house".

I was greatly blessed on May 2nd to play two works by Bach from the French Suite, No. 6 in E Major at Tamara Loring's master class. I played the Allemande and the Sarabande and it was some of my best playing. For once, I was relaxed and focused.

In preparation for the class, here is my "rendition" of the Allemande (click on Allemande to hear the music) recorded April 29, 2009.

And for fun a "rendition" of the Allemande from April 2008.

The French Suite at Six Months

I began working on Bach's French Suite, No. 6 in E Major last September. With two months off to work on my December 2007 concert program, I've now been working on the pieces for six months. Below are links to sound files for the works recorded at the end of April. My mentors for the project have been Tamara Loring and Bruce Potterton.



http://renditionsmusic.com/allemande_22-Apr-2008.mp3

http://renditionsmusic.com/courante_22-Apr-2008.mp3

http://renditionsmusic.com/sarabande_25-Apr-2008.mp3

http://renditionsmusic.com/gavotte_22-Apr-2008.mp3

http://renditionsmusic.com/polonaise_25-Apr-2008.mp3

http://renditionsmusic.com/bourree_22-Apr-2008.mp3

http://renditionsmusic.com/gigue_22-Apr-2008.mp3

Of course, I'm not done with this project. I hope now to begin to perform the French Suite and to continue to refine and perfect my playing of these remarkable pieces.

Ah Ha!

While recording the Sarabande today...I had one of those "duh" moments. In my lessons with Tamara she kept asking me for more sound when I played the Sarabande. We tried adding pedal, rolling the chords slower, just playing louder --- nothing was working. She told me that my left hand kept disappearing while I was playing. Today I realized what was missing. I've been forgetting that my left hand is a voice as well! I was thinking of my left hand as accompaniment partly because of playing the chords without ornamentation to fix my rhythm problems and to clearly hear the harmony. As one of my other teachers, Eliane Lust, always says ---- "for every solution there is another problem" and in this case, I my left hand was not an equal voice with my right. Now I hope my left hand begins to sing as boldly as my right hand.



http://renditionsmusic.com/sarabande_25-Apr-2008.mp3

Recording the Gigue

At long last a sample of the Gigue!

http://renditionsmusic.com/gigue_22-Apr-2008.mp3

In trying to articulate the left hand, there is some unintentional slowing of the tempo. In general my left hand does not seem to be to comfortable when the right hand has trills or sixteenth notes. It is time to:

1. work the left hand alone;
2. practice the left hand louder than the right;
3. lighten up my right hand; and
4. slowly put the tricky passages back together.

Then will all be right with the Gigue?

Glenn Gould

And now clips of a master playing the French Suite in E Major No. 6!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwV_Tul1Ywc (everything but the Gigue)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O16VtyoxKM (just the Gigue for some reason)

New Audio Files

We have sound files on our computer again! So the Sarabande and Gavotte sound better from an audio standpoint. I'm changing almost all of the ornamentation on the Sarabande, so I'm not as thrilled with my recording as I was on the day that I made the recording. Are pianists ever happy with the way they sound or the way they have interpreted a work? Rarely, I think...

http://melisma.tripod.com/sarabande.mp3
http://melisma.tripod.com/gavotte.mp3

Sarabande Recording

http://melisma.tripod.com/sarabande.mp3

While there were some technical issues (the sound is not working on our computer), so with the Sarabande and the Gavotte the recording clips are not at their audio best, but I did manage to recording my playing yesterday. I'm posting this clip, even though after my lesson yesterday, I'm changing almost everything.

Recording the Sarabande

Today I recorded the Sarabande...I hope to post-it unless there are technical problems. It's sad to admit, but I refuse to learn how to operate the recording machinery. I feel that learning the notes is hard enough! However, I did set-up the equipment today and hopefully I did get a take I can post. I usually press a wrong button, or the mic is to close to the piano or not turned on or something silly like that. I really felt inspired today. I'm sure there are technical aspects to address in my playing of the Sarabande, but I hope the feeling of the music comes through. Bach's E Major Sarabande is so sexy and sensual and I feel slightly salacious playing the work. Dance at a Glance says that the Sarabande is expressive, highly ornamental and that there are equal stresses on the first and second beats. Not to mention that there is freedom to stretch time within the beat. Did I achieve that? Please listen.