Retrouvailles

So, off I went. To my surprise, I’ve managed to get the bulk of the piece learnt in about three weeks, spending between half an hour and an hour a day on it, although going back to the piano regularly to reinforce what I’d been doing.

As I got Retrouvailles under my fingers, I learned a few things that wasn’t expecting to learn from this piece.

Firstly, Carter is extremely expressive and lyrical. This is something that didn’t jump off the page at me to start with, especially when working slowly on the mildly intimidating flurries of notes.

The only experience I can relate this to is the moment I realised what a wonderful expansive melody the theme of the last movement of Webern’s Variations op. 27 has. As I said in my previous post, converts will be aware of this already, but Carter writes great tunes.

Secondly, it’s strangely memorable music; I’m lucky in that I don’t find memorisation too difficult, but in any case Retrouvailles worked its way into my head without my having to give it any real assistance.

As I played it from memory, I came to my final discovery. I realised that I had effectively stopped counting. In essence – rhythmically at least – I found myself playing Retrouvailles by ear. It was at this point that the spacing of Carter’s phrases started to feel completely natural.

And I wonder, especially with the more rhythmically-complex works, whether that isn’t the approach I need to take: learn how the rhythms sound, then stop counting. That would certainly tally with Joe’s comments, on my last post on the subject of Carter, about the first of the Diversions.

I’m now doing battle with the much harder 90+, and will be interested to see whether this approach works.

“Will Beckett’s March (Reprise)” from the album Mother’s Thinking Bath is receiving an airing on the very marvellous Bob Osborne’s Salford City Radio programme “Reformation” tomorrow night, between 9pm and 10pm.

This week’s playlist, apparently, is comprised mostly of artists associated with Invisible Girl Records – which is where the Mother’s Thinking Bath track comes in, as it was, of course, featured on the Invisible Girl Records compilation A Place In Space.

Salford City Radio is on 94.4FM or you can listen online.

On the theme of “Silence”, I’m now the proud owner of a 4′ 33″ t-shirt, which has the Edition Peters frontispiece on the front, and the “tacet” version of the score of John Cage’s mighty silent work on the back. I wore it to work, and gratifyingly nobody asked me about it.

The album’s press release reads:

A compilation of original artists from around the planet.

This global release has been made available on the winter solstice
(21 December 2008)

Music, culture, sounds and experiences express this diverse collection of unique (with a capital U) artists on the compilation.

Ranging from Portugal, India, Uruguay, Japan, and France to name a few, the artists are specially selected by Invisiblegirl from the MySpace social networking site.

A Place In Space is a truly fascinating listening experience.

A Place In Space is available online from iTunes, by following this link  

There are a few CD copies available in the award-winning independent record store Piccadilly Records in Manchester

I have been very aware of the need to learn pieces that are completely new to me, as well as revising some old ones. I allowed myself to cut corners when learning works in the past, and this is something I am determined not to repeat. Hence I have been plundering boosey.com and other online music shops for ideas, and have ended up with the following as beginnings of a new repertoire (needless to say, it’s almost all twentieth century material):

• Arvo Pärt – Für Alina, Variationen zur Genesung von Arinuschka
• Henryk Górecki – Piano Sonata no. 1
• Galina Ustvolskaya – Piano Sonata no. 6
• John Cage – In A Landscape
• Anton von Webern – Variations, op. 27
• Béla Bartók – Sonatina, Allegro Barbaro
• Philip Glass – Mad Rush
• Aaron Copland – Night Thoughts
• Chopin – Études op. 10 no. 2 & 3

At the moment that feels like plenty to be getting on with.

The Glass and Copland are still remarkably well in my fingers considering how long it is since I last looked at them in any detail; the Webern I have played on and off since I was 17, and it’s high time I undid some of the crafty (i.e. lazy) redistribution of notes between the hands and observed Webern’s own wishes. The Chopin op. 10 no. 3 is a bit shaky – I last performed it 18 years ago, so I suppose that’s to be expected – but not beyond redemption. The other pieces are all new to me, and the Górecki and Ustvolskaya pieces are demanding most of my attention. The Ustvolskaya piece in particular is a real revelation, using huge note-clusters to devastating effect – here is David Arden’s performance of it, which is disappointingly unfaithful to the composer’s intentions, but still gives a fair idea of the piece:

I also have my eye on the Ligeti Musica Ricercata, two pieces by Tavener, and some Sorabji. Goodness only knows whether I have the technique needed for the latter, but nothing ventured nothing gained…

Never once did I suggest to the esteemed Mr. Simpson that it would be acceptable to refer to me as “Stu”. There are about half a dozen people in this world who are allowed to call me that, and I’m afraid he isn’t likely to be one of them. I suppose I should be grateful that it is actually a photograph of me and not Karl Burns…

A couple of years ago, I was interviewed by Dave Simpson for an article he was writing for The Guardian newspaper, which involved his tracking down all former members of The Fall. Now, I have never been in The Fall, but Simpson’s definition of “being a member” involved all those who have played live with the group, which I certainly have done, when Mark E. Smith passed me a guitar during the encore at one of the legendary “Granny On Bongos” gigs at the Reading Alleycat in April 1998. I’ve recounted the story with monotonous regularity over the years as it has far more credibility than admitting to having sung backing vocals for Sarah Brightman, which, to my shame, I have also done.

Simpson has compiled material from all of those interviews into a book, The Fallen, prudently launching it at a time when MES is surrounded by something of a media circus again. I haven’t read it or even bought a copy yet, although my suspicion is that it’ll make far better reading than the bar-room babbling of MES’s autobiography. However, I was somewhat perturbed by this review of the book in The Guardian which claims that the aforementioned incident took place in 1989 in Leicester, at which point I would have been just 14 years old. Even more amusing is the fact that the “information” is in quotation marks, so either the reviewer is incapable of quoting a text properly, or Simpson is incapable of reading information freely available on the once-official Fall website.

Priceless. To quote the Hip Priest himself, “Check the record, check the record…”

Every now and again I get a bit stale – usually when I haven’t been kept in an airtight bread bin. To this end, I’ve dusted off my piano and decided to try and coax my fingers into playing the thing properly again. I used to be reasonably useful at it, once.

The idea is to be completely selfish about music-making again, and do it purely for my own pleasure – which is, I think, something I lost sight of. And if you stop enjoying something, you may as well not do it.

So, in order to achieve some sort of focus, I’ll be putting the folk music to one side completely for a while, as I continue to resurrect my tuba-playing and also embark on learning some 20th century piano repertoire that I’ve wanted to get the hang of for years. What interests me particularly is that the rhythmic vitality and articulation so necessary for playing folk tunes well has certainly begun to inform my piano-playing already, especially when playing material based on folk music such as Bartók’s Allegro Barbaro.

I may well continue posting details of my progress here. Who knows, I may even make a few recordings if my playing gets back to a satisfactory standard. Equally, I have no doubt that I’ll resume singing and playing traditional material once my “muse” has had time to refresh itself.

In the meantime, thanks for listening.