Another long trip back took me from home-Brazil to home in London…  Ahead of me was one week in which to prepare the two Piano Quintets by Gabriel Fauré. A few months back I was asked to perform/record them with the Fine Arts Quartet, for Naxos. Whenever in the comfort of my piano-less Sydney flat, I tried to listen to a recording of both the Quintets, absorbing their unfamiliar idiom as if through an aural Intra-Venous drip! Those works were not at all the accessible, sweet, sensual music I for one, associated with that composer, nor were they in the same verve as the lovely Quartets. Only very slowly did I start to enjoy their strange appeal. There are sometunes but most of which happen in the strings … no passionate piano solos:  one bar here and there! Actually, the real reason why I accepted this recording deal was Franck’s monumental F minor Piano Quintet – due to happen later in the season: having recorded it for EMI when I was so very green surely, light-years later, I should have a lot more to say in any score!
Let’s wait and see!

So off I went to Milwaukee, where we rehearsed and played a concert at Wisconsin University where the FAQ is the resident Quartet, then met up a few days later, in Purchase College, upstate NY where the recording took place.

Ralph E, the FAQ leader – (not of the Internet) – told me that when the projected record producer had cancelled at very short notice, having exhausted all other possibilities, out of desperation tried for and got through to Steven E., top-class guy who happened to be free:  sheer luck!  He was a joy to have at the other end of the mike. He gently handled the hard pressed sessions brilliantly. Though I for one, am never sure of anything, it was finally declared “in the can”, in good time and we all rushed away: it was December 22nd!

Back in Europe, arriving in Paris, I found there was pandemonium at CDG: Air France claimed that due to fog in the UK most afternoon flights to London were cancelled but, after a delay of 4 hours, mine did go! Good luck seemed to have come back in my horizon and I arrived at Heathrow just in time to help with some preparations of our Christmas Eve dinner: a close call you’d say, talking of which:
“Best of luck, Steven: I do hope you have got the two Faurés well covered!”

Next March we’ll be concentrating on the Franck: performances in the USA (NY and Washington DC) will precede the recording, which this time round will take place in Switzerland. I can’t wait for that one.

A note on recordings.
Throughout my recording life, when any of my producers said: “we have that covered…” I could never be too sure. One can always do it better; why not use any remaining time of a recording session?! Ideally once everything "has been covered", I like to play for my own enjoyment, with the tape running: that is how I produce my best! On another note there is so much to keep track of … the producer too is human, he/she could miss noticing a few things wrong, especially given that he doesn’t play the score… Oh dear, also it’s so much easier to record alone there being no-one else to worry about. I find it safer to stop short, it being the only way you can be sure that the take will not be used. But consider a whole orchestra sitting there – here, a Quartet -- and because of a couple of smudges, the pianist decides to halt recording every time, no way! If only problems happened to all at the same time, it would help!
The other snag with string players, cellists specially, is they press onto metal, after a while must hurt and/or take its tow on their flesh. I recall the “Complete Villa-Lobos” with Meneses: by 4 pm, with many hours of the evening ahead of us to my dismay he would pack-up to go! That’s it? We pianists can have a short break and return for another couple of hours… Funnily enough although on paper I would have thought: Fauré, easy-peasy. Gosh: for almost a week my right arm hurt from the strain of those days!
Do you know the best cure in my case? A few tennis matches which seem to work wonders, believe it or not... After all apart from strengthening my feeble right arm, it’s the most complete of sports! If any of you think me a freak, I will agree gladly!

Christmas & New Year.
Christmas in London and in Brazil can never be compared: my family is so vast that it’s hard for many to keep track of all the names whereas, small is beautiful is closer to the scene here: since both our daughters live away, there’s only his 96-year-old mother now besides my husband and me. To have our younger daughter around is a breath of fresh air. As a friend of mine put it: ”she comes into a room like sunshine …” Her sister’s visits no longer coinciding with hers, she has to do with friends. The seasonal meal, cooked for some years by my husband has now become our Christmas’ Eve dinner: a delicious goose plus all its trimmings. I certainly wouldn’t have managed any of that by remote control, from the air. My side of the deal, apart from an extra occasional vegetable and the final dessert, will forever be Brazilian feijoada* --derived from “feijão” the Portuguese name for black beans, its main ingredient. Eating it at night time is rather crazy because it requires at least a few good hours if not a whole afternoon plus a nap, in which digestion can begin to complete! But the girls wouldn’t miss it for the world!

With that over, our haven in the south of France appeals to us where many of our friends have made us part of their festivities, a treat of conviviality and generosity! So much eating and boozing … help… it must stop! But who can resist especially wine like theirs?  Only the other night, following her own gleaming blanc and velvety rouge, our hostess of one evening Patricia A., was proud to open a bottle of a 1999 Monbazillac, rated 100 out of a 100 by famed American critic Robert Parker: it was a liqueur for all senses! Thank God, January is upon us!