Mighty Musical Week

September 15, 2011 at 11:05 AM

Tuesday was a happy day for me: some weeks ago, I applied for the 1st Amateur Workshop with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (am I the only one missing the v.com festival calendar?) and today I found the invitation in my mailbox. Very rarely do emails bring that much joy to me.

After a pause of several weeks, I met again with my string quartet friends. However, nobody felt much like playing the scheduled piece, Brahms' op. 51/2. While it is by all means a great composition - and sounds beautifully if played by the masters - I never succeeded in bringing off my part as well as I would like to. Reading the score while listening to the rendition of the Amadeus Quartet, everything seems logical to me - left alone in front of the music, I'm in very deep water.

Anyway, we decided to put Johannes to the back burner and put some Haydn pieces on the stand: op. 20/4 and op. 33/3. Both were an extremely interesting and somewhat challenging sight reading experience for me, but Haydn's musical idiom feels much more natural to me than Brahms'. Quite satisfied with my performance - and all the others enjoyed themselves, too.

Next week, I'll take part in an orchestra workshop in a nearby city, where we intend to play a shortened version of the final set of Beethoven's 5th as well as the ouverture to Handel's Fireworks Music.

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