Musical confessions

[Nick Armstrong]

the agnostic Ralph Vaughan Williams ... once declared .. “It ought no longer to be true anywhere that the most exalted moments of a churchgoer’s week are associated with music that would not be tolerated in any place of secular entertainment.”

Says it all !

[kea]

I have been playing the piano since I was six years old, have had at least three years (non-sequentially) of lessons and I am now 25... and I still make the most basic elementary mistakes in Mozart's K. 576, can't play arpeggios smoothly to save my life, and have pathetically weak 3rd and 4th fingers on both hands. I also sometimes catch myself sticking my pinky out when playing five-finger exercises or drinking a cup of tea. Even more embarrassing is that I have always had a strong desire to be one of the Best Pianists In The World and tackle extremely difficult repertoire along the lines of Sciarrino or Ligeti, and yet, when it comes down to it I doubt I'd pass an ABRSM Grade 6 exam. This mismatch between ambition and reality causes me a significant amount of shame but I can't stop imagining that maybe if I practice six hours every day and then win the next Van Cliburn competition I'll be able to get there. I hope this gets better after one turns 30 and no longer has any hope of amounting to anything.

I also have a bad tendency to write 18th and 19th century style pastiches not just for fun or personal edification, but to express certain personal emotions in a heartfelt manner (but that I, evidently, do not know how to express in normal music).

[Serial_Apologist]

I have been playing the piano since I was six years old, have had at least three years (non-sequentially) of lessons and I am now 25... and I still make the most basic elementary mistakes in Mozart's K. 576, can't play arpeggios smoothly to save my life, and have pathetically weak 3rd and 4th fingers on both hands. I also sometimes catch myself sticking my pinky out when playing five-finger exercises or drinking a cup of tea. Even more embarrassing is that I have always had a strong desire to be one of the Best Pianists In The World and tackle extremely difficult repertoire along the lines of Sciarrino or Ligeti, and yet, when it comes down to it I doubt I'd pass an ABRSM Grade 6 exam. This mismatch between ambition and reality causes me a significant amount of shame but I can't stop imagining that maybe if I practice six hours every day and then win the next Van Cliburn competition I'll be able to get there. I hope this gets better after one turns 30 and no longer has any hope of amounting to anything.

I sincerely hope it does not come as bad news, kea, to tell you that at 71 + years of age I am probably no further on than yourself in the performance department; yet I still get a huge amount of pleasure from just noodling around at the joanna, most usually during TV ad breaks, or at other times bothering, even, to get out a Messiaen piano piace I bought many years ago, and merely deriving great enjoyment from just playing its scrunchy chords and figuring out what they are "doing there".

I also have a bad tendency to write 18th and 19th century style pastiches not just for fun or personal edification, but to express certain personal emotions in a heartfelt manner (but that I, evidently, do not know how to express in normal music).

Well my jazz piano style, such as it is when falling across a standard such as "That Rainy Day" midway through otherwise absent-minded ruminations, is effectively poor imitation Bill Evans. Obviously, to someone such as myself, who always prides the best jazz on its originality, this provides no basis for "coming out" and declaring myself in full public view; but, again, it is pleasurable from the point of view of getting at least somewhere approximating what sounds like music of some sort.

Keep at it, is my strong recommendation!

[ahinton]

Says it all !

Indeed so!

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed so!

It's kind of sad in a number of ways, isn't it, that our white ancestors imposed the very Christianity, Bible in one hand, gun in the other, that helped legitimise the Empire, and in the long run gave rise Stateside to the Spirituals and Gospel musics that are so strong a part of the success of fundamentalist churches today on both sides of The Pond, and not only among the descendents of Caribbean and African ethnic background and descent - analogous in some ways with regretting that a composer such as Wagner could compose such beautiful music and yet be anti-semitic? or loving Georgian architecture - which as it happens I do - while at the same time realising its architectural merits to be inseparable from the wealth deriving from slavery that gave rise to it?

[P. G. Tipps]

It's kind of sad in a number of ways, isn't it, that our white ancestors imposed the very Christianity, Bible in one hand, gun in the other, that helped legitimise the Empire, and in the long run gave rise Stateside to the Spirituals and Gospel musics that are so strong a part of the success of fundamentalist churches today on both sides of The Pond, and not only among the descendents of Caribbean and African ethnic background and descent - analogous in some ways with regretting that a composer such as Wagner could compose such beautiful music and yet be anti-semitic? or loving Georgian architecture - which as it happens I do - while at the same time realising its architectural merits to be inseparable from the wealth deriving from slavery that gave rise to it?

I blame the Romans, S_A ...

If they hadn't started all this major empire-building, and had not invaded the British Isles massacring our nice, friendly tribes in the process, we would all be just fine now.

The Romans set a very bad example forcing order and civilisation on the rest of us, imv ...

[Serial_Apologist]

I blame the Romans, S_A ...

If they hadn't started all this major empire-building, and had not invaded the British Isles massacring our nice, friendly tribes in the process, we would all be just fine now.

The Romans set a very bad example forcing order and civilisation on the rest of us, imv ...

You've been at the Monty Python again, PGT!

[P. G. Tipps]

You've been at the Monty Python again, PGT!

[Alain Maréchal]

There was always Beethoven in my childhood home (on records and radio) even though wartime experiences prejudiced us against anything German (I think the "van" made him acceptably Flemish). In 1957 I was sent to an English school to get a "proper" education, and that gave me access to London and concerts. Reflect - 1957 onwards - Beethoven - London - and the answer is Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia. I attended everything I could, I bought all his records ( I even bought his interpretation of Franck symphony, so you can understand how besotted I was).

I do not think I suffer from "the first purchase is the gold-standard" syndrome, because I had heard many others before, Toscanini or Furtwangler had conducted those domestic records, there was radio from around Western Europe, and concerts - there was nothing wrong with local hero Franz André's Beethoven. I have subsequently bought or borrowed many other cycles, all the obvious ones and some not so. I have heard recordings and attended concerts where a not so famous conductor and a provincial orchestra, faced with LvB, do him justice. In fact, really poor performances are rare, and the music still comes through.

So here is the confession - 60 years on - I still think Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia are my first choice on record. Desert Island Choice - Symphony 4. (my favourite symphony anyway, Cesar Franck's being hors concours.)

prompted by a sleepless night preceding fête de la musique