Hectic Times

A very busy couple of weeks. I’m polishing the remaining third of my second novel, a psychological thriller, and am waiting to hear back from an editor on the first, same genre.

Meanwhile, I gave a piano recital a couple of weeks ago with works by Chopin, Mozart and Liszt. Received more than £200.  Not bad going, but doesn’t compare with the hundreds/thousands some artists get. I’m currently working towards another recital and learning three of the Chopin nocturnes.

Not much time for photography.

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A Chopin Recital

I’m planning to give a piano recital featuring Chopin’s solo works.

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Friday’s Concert

The piano recital went well.  I played Grieg’s piano sonata in E minor, four of the preludes from the op 28 set by Chopin, Hungarian Rhapsodies no 5 and 12 by Franz Liszt, Chopin’s “military” polonaise,  Debussy’s Clair de Lune and the arpeggio study in C minor from the final set of Chopin studies.    And I wasn’t even that nervous.

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Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day of the concert.  I think the programme is at a reasonable standard, although I feel I haven’t fully mastered the first item of the recital, the Grieg Piano Sonata in E minor.   I’m particularly looking forward to the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies at the end (nos 5 and 12).

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Piano Recital

The piano recital is now less than a week away.   Everything seems to be going to plan, although I keep getting slight memory lapses in the final movement of the Grieg piano sonata op 7.  I’m also working on encore items and have started polishing up one of the Chopin  studies – the arpeggio study in C minor.

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A Piano Recital

It’s creeping up on me…on Friday 26th June, I’m giving a piano recital at St James’ Church in Muswell Hill, North London, at 8pm.   Fortunately, I managed to memorise the programme several months back, but I’m still hoping to perfect it and work on my general piano technique.    See earlier articles on Czerny, octave practice and the composer Liszt.

The programme:

• Grieg – Piano Sonata in E minor
• Chopin – Four Preludes
• Liszt – Hungarian Rhapsody no 5, Hungarian Rhapsody no 12

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Composer Liszt

I rarely blog about music these days, but I’m still very much involved in it.  I’m working on a classical piano recital programme that I hope to perform several times in the next couple of months.

Originally, I studied music at degree level at Dartington College of Arts, Totnes, Devon,  specialising in composition and the psychology of music.   About four years later, I got interested in piano performance.  Earlier, I’d avoided performing in public due to performance nerves and stage fright, but this hasn’t been too much of a problem over the years, except for those occasions when I suddenly get a feeling of unreality as I’m playing before an audience.

My favourite composers are Beethoven (mid sonatas), Chopin, Liszt, Grieg and Rachmaninoff.  The following, I believe, is an outstanding performance of Liszt’s 12th Hungarian Rhapsody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAqA2E5D0lI

I’m studying the same work for a concert, but can’t imagine getting it up to the same standard in the clip.

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