Reflections on the "Concerto Workshop” which was held in the first week of AUGUST, chez moi, in the south of France.

Whenever I tread unknown territory, which is often, I choose not to expect that anything will go wrong. As among my eight guests there were Irish, Brazilian, Malaysian, Italian, New Zealander, Czech and British subjects, some unusual behaviour - due to background alone - could be expected. But to judge from this experience, there were moments when I thought I should have provided expert psychiatric counsel as well as a doctor in-residence, to deal with what was in store…

Having never developed any skills as an organizer, when MeiYi and Maggie proposed an ‘order of play’ for the week, I was quite happy to go along with it…
--- but when Marco burned himself making pizza - enough for an army, right? – somebody else had to take his place, the following morning…
---or when the exhaustion from playing round-the-table ping-pong after dinner, in order to burn away some of that lovely Bordeaux, meant that an earlyish start became closer to …one pm!
In all fairness, Alex and Gui certainly deserved some rest, having travelled all the way from southern Brazil to join us! Good excuse, boys!
--- You may also remember, the HEAT that week was unbearable: we had 50 celsius by the pool! That wasn’t much of a help, either … I just chose to stay indoors, making crumble after crumble: plums, bananas, blackberries and apples, you name it, all eaten at a speed, not to be believed!
--- Then, a nasty virus (unfortunately not a computer’s) hit almost half of the group causing havoc on the timetable and a couple of trips to the doctor’s, for bagfuls of antibiotics to treat a cough and fever (the latter, taken so constantly, as to rapidly raise the possibility of their imminent deaths – surely not the plague? - under my roof! It seems this bug was brought over by a guest who drove … from Spain! Muchas gracias!
… Of course it may have been simply too much for some of the youngsters to cope with…

Dare I say, I couldn’t have done it without Nigel, always good-humoured and brilliant piano technician who arrived from London for the week, and simply “saved the day” by slowly-but-surely bringing up the pitch of the old Windover babygrand, to match that of the Steinway concert grand, until it held – athis, after the French tuner had told me to forget it: “there is a split on the bridge and it might NOT bear the stress of tuning”! Honestly, I could have done without that unecessary week of nightmares, worrying about not ‘coming up with the goods’ perfectionist me, desperately searching for a “piano d’occasion”. I even considered calling the whole thing off! I could conceivably welcome the participants, by announcing: “there’s a change of plans, folks: just have a good time, lie in the hammocks, listen to the birds or the donkeys, read or swim to your heart’s content, but “Miss Otis regrets” to say that the 2nd piano… has just exploded!“ … Sounds like something from ‘FawltyTowers’!

At least my friend Adam Skoumal, brilliant pianist-composer from the Czech Republic, who had come over as The Orchestra - could forget about any subtlety on that 2nd piano, but not have to use ear-plugs as well!
I’m really grateful for your help and expert cooking: your chicken “a la tcheque” was exquisite! You can come back, anytime! (The perfect guest, if it weren’t for the fact that he beat-me-silly at ping-pong singles - and I’m not half-bad…)

--- My good friend Brenda, who came from New Zealand to lend me a hand running things ‘in the fringe’ (how courageous of her to accept such an invitation) could hardly believe the goings-on! Luckily, we had planned so that she stayed on for an extra week, when the two of us, ‘washed away’ the excitements of WWW - ‘the WORKSHOP WEEK that WAS’ with our daily “sun-downer”. Cin-cin !

“Notes @ MasterClasses”

While listening to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, I thought I would not say much… but had to demonstrate that one can swing, without that horrible ‘dotting’ of every other pair of eigths – a stereotyped belief of ‘classical’ musicians, to “jazz things up”… I’d say it’s rather a question of rhythmical flexibility, or even better, a bit of what we Brazilians term: “jogo de cintura” (or looseness of waist - literally translated) plus a steely sense of the beat - believe me: this is not a contradiction in terms! On top of which, the score should be treated with the same respect due to any other composer.

In Beethoven’s 1st Concerto, I tried to instigate, first - a sense of fluidity while accompanying the clarinet solos in the gorgeous 2nd mouvement – unless one is Richter, it won’t work if played too slowly; then, so evident and unique in the Finale, that intangible shimmering of… should I say… C majorness , “flutter-flutter”!

In Mozart’s K 453 and Prokofiev’s no 1, for that matter, my main concern was to make the players aware of the way both these composers bring moods and colours to the score simply by their choice of instruments.

Grieg’s A minor Concerto suffered mainly from a lack of that almost “fjordishly” emotional-yet-cool personality which pervades all of his music – ie in that F major section, with flute solo or the Finale, based on such light danses; one can almost imagine clogs-clad peasants swirling around … (As a matter of fact in my case, what better reference than having a mother-in-law, who’s a Norwegian force of Nature!)

I also had a wonderfully intense Class with Mozart’s K 595, the most perfect ‘last’ Concerto of all: as if Mozart were indeed taking leave of the world, blissfully…

To me, playing Concertos has always meant making music with a large body of musicians, certainly not the approach, generally encountered of “ME, plus accompaniment”. A performer must be totally aware of who’s playing what and where! This will provide many clues not only on tempi but also on nuances - a FF on the flute will require a totally different accompaniment from one on the horn. .. Learn your score inside-out, and you are half-way to winning the equation!

Enough technicalities!

One of the pianists whom I had invited to stay a bit longer, gently asked if I were not “too sick of teaching” , if she could play a Beethoven Sonata for me and maybe a Scarlatti one? … “That’s the whole point of being here, take advantage while you can!” …Sick of teaching… I absolutely thrive on polishing my experience and musical knowledge in solving any perceived technical or stylistic problems in someone’s playing. And when the lessons are over I’ll apply that same treatment to my own benefit, often amazing myself at how, previously dormant details, ‘jump’ at me from the score! Following this week of Master Classes, I feel as if I’m ‘revving’ at the piano, rearing to… restart the season!

To cap it all, there was a real surprise in store for me: when Maggie came up trumps, on her decision during that week, to ‘give up smoking’ … YES: I’m reallly happy and proud of her!

Humm…next time, a few things must be altered. And maybe Summer wasn’t such a good idea… too hot, too many distractions… Perhaps it would be nice in October or even May - lovely time in the year here … Oops… I got carried away, there! “Buh-byee”!