Sprightly

It is difficult to get anything done in the summer, with the infernal temperatures and interminable rehearsals. However, the recording project continues to creep along. The second movement, Allegro, begins with a similar 'theme' to the other sonatas in the minor keys, no.s 2 and 3. It is interesting to see how Mr Marcello took the material and went off in different directions with it. This movement has more legato to it than the others and, rather than ending with a flourish, sort of dissipates with the descending chromatic figure. Perhaps I'm betraying the paucity of my musicianship, but that's about all I have to say about it, other than that the continuo player got an unusual workout in the movement and was not at all happy about having to (try to) play this passage. click below to listen

Last week, we played two programs at Ravinia. A) Brahms, Piano Concerto no.1; Symphony no.2 B) Brahms, Symphony no. 3; Piano Concerto no.2 Christoph von Dohn á nyi, conductor Emanuel Ax, piano (There were six two-and-a-half hour rehearsals for these two concerts.) In preparation for the two programs of familiar pieces, we managed to squeeze the work of three rehearsals into only six – any efficiency expert who happened to look in on the proceedings, including listening to the final result, would have gone away seriously scratching their head. If the point of rehearsals is the preparation for a concert, I can't say the majority of the time was well spent. However, if it is to indulge the urge, latent in many who fancy themselves 'leaders' of one sort or another, namely sadism , then the week must be chalked up as a roaring success. The Marquis , peering down from heaven (or wherever he ended up), must have looked at the fifteen (15!) hours of rehearsal time wi...

The {redacted} SO season at Ravinia got underway last week. As all things Ravinia go to short term memory only, I can't say if it is unusual or not to begin a season without the music director on the podium, but it seemed like it. At the stroke of the new year, you're supposed to grab your SO for a kiss, not your ex. Things went as well as could be expected through the first two concerts. A decent rendition of Symphonie Fantastique (except that the sluggish second movement could have been renamed from Un Bal to Medicine Ball ) followed an all Lang Lang first half, which I did not play – comments about his hairdo from players coming off stage at intermission made me even more happy with my lot. The following night, omens (like the piano soloist having to stamp his foot to keep things together in rehearsal) foretold of rhythmic accuracy being on the sacrificial altar later that evening. But the gods smiled on us, and the Rite went better than it had a right to. On ...

After taking some time off, then coming back to listen to what I'd done before, it struck me I had probably messed around, trying to 'engineer' too much (tweaking the EQ and levels, etc.) with Sonata no.3. I also was experimenting with placing the microphones a little farther away from the instruments. I'm not so happy with the sound of that, so for no.4, I went back to the close mic placement, and other than a very slight reduction of high frequencies on the room mics, which seemed to pick up some hiss, most probably due to sub par preamplification, I did nothing but pan the tracks left and right. A brief note on how I've gone about making these recordings. The image above is the tempo track for this movement. A click track came in handy at the beginning, as well coming out of the fermata. The midi version of the continuo part followed the various nuances in the tempo track and provided a guide while recording the solo part. The continuo part was recorded lis...