December 2007

December Recital Progress

December 15, 2007 20:18

It's been almost 4 years since I returned to the violin after a 25 year hiatus. My progress has been bumpy, with two countervailing forces, the improvement in technique and musicality on one trajectory, but the decline in reflexes and memory of aging on the other. Diligent practice, mental maturity, an encouraging teacher and optimism bumps up to reality of performance under the cold harsh light of a recital.

After the technical wizardry of youthful adolescents, I was the second performer in the second half. My program was the Meditation and Scherzo by Tchaikovsky. After playing it more than ten times over the course of the day, I was no more prepared for the nerves and clammy hands I faced as I waited for my first note. Remembering to focus on the story, and not to let anything distract me, I emerged unscathed through the first section. But just when I thought I was crusing along, my fingers decide to take an unorthodox shift, not one I ever tried before, and four notes were missed. At that moment, my daughter was just thinking, "gee, looks like Mom hasn't messed up yet." Remembering to breathe and count, I continued in the second section, and precisely hit the first three runs, but lo, I missed another three notes going to the screaming climax, and slipped another two on the way down. Surely I thought the recapitulation should be easy, and it was, but then thinking a little ahead to the mounting excitement of the runs ahead made me smush through a few easy expository declarations. That's it, those three triple diamond jumps are coming up. Got the first one, major descent, whew. The second one, make sure it sounds dissonant enough. Great, got it. And the third one, wheee, jumped all the way down and landed on that strong G, so I pumped it for all it was worth with a flourish. Adrenaline really jumping now, I took deep breaths for the finale, the quiet creeping to the reflection, ghost of the theme, and creeping higher and higher into the stratosphere, and because I had practiced this so many times, (even with a small piece of tape on the high D - removed two weeks ago), I made it, a ringing D and ringing to the end.

The Scherzo is supposed to be crazy, I tell myself. And I'm feeling like a jumpy cat at this point. I know I'm swaying and bobbing, but I don't care. I know my teacher is grimacing. He's Russian and Heifetz is the ideal, cool as a stone and precise as can be. I tore into Scherzo like a madwoman. And while I did miss a jumbo set of chords, (what I call the tick-tock chords), I was able to continue to the mouse runs up the clock and out jumps the weasel section, slamming cupboards and jittery teacups to the lyrical happy go lucky theme. No problems there, it was smooth sailing, by now, the pastoral imagery in my head has calmed me down and I'm really floating in the clouds. But wait, a nagging worry, and then back to the scherzo. I realize it is almost over, and I have one last chance to redeem myself, through the jumping out from behind the gravestones, the tick-tock, the mouse up the clock, then the weasel jumps out, the cupboards slam, the teacups jiggle, and I totter towards ending past two jack-in-the boxes jumping up and the final cat screech to the top of the roof (back arched in fright).

Even though my performance was far from perfect, and I made mistakes in strange places, in reflection I know that if I hadn't practiced the way I had, there would have been many more places I would have fallen down. So I did the best I could with the time that I have left, and know that in some small sense I contributed to violin appreciation. Now my fun assignment is to fantasize about what out-of-reach piece I'll play for the next recital. My teacher told me to go think about it. Maybe Beethoven? That's certainly a memorization challenge for sure. I'll really have to crank up the storyline to roadmap that piece, or I'll surely get lost somewhere in the twisty turning passages. But enough for today, the recital is over and I can enjoy the Christmas holidays.

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December 2007

December Recital Progress

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