To play or not to play...

Coming soon: a recital in the Lenten series at the Congregational Church across town. For those who are local, it is Wednesday, March 14, at noon.

I played the Grande Pièce Symphonique in this series last year and wrote at length about it: this links to the last of several postings on the subject:

I wished that I had gotten the piece settled and thoroughly prepared at least a month in advance; instead, “my preparations were more on the order of cramming for a final exam.” I determined to do better this year.

I selected music for the program: the Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, by Franz Liszt. I had it fully fingered by August, with hopes of getting a First Workout through the piece, and taking it over to the church for registrations before the fall term. That did not happen. Nor did it happen during the January school break.

We are less than six weeks out from the concert, and I am not yet through the First Workout – in other words, it lay untouched through the fall, Christmas, and the first half of January. I have worked at it about six hours this week, and am about two-thirds through the workout (at the piano). I wonder if I can play it.

I was ready to give up on Wednesday, and went so far as to select an alternative program: one of the Franck Chorales and a piece by Howells. The Howells is solid; I played it for Evensong a few years ago. But the Franck is not yet fingered. I played it decades ago – it was the first “big”organ work that I learned, back in the late 1970's – but I was not careful of such matters in those days.

What to do? Take the time to start from scratch on the Franck, or press on with the Liszt? By spending most of today on Liszt, I have made my choice. There are essentially just two passages that are thoroughly virtuosic. If I can work steadily at these every day, I should be fine; the rest of the piece is well within reach – I think.

I am intentionally doing the First Workout at the pianoforte. Liszt was one of the great virtuosi at the piano, and carried that style of playing to the organ. My hunch is that solid work at the piano will be better at this point than a lot of work at the organ, which does not build strength and endurance in the same way.

And I must be patient. Even though I know better, I was speeding up on the passagework and getting sloppy. Unless the fingering is absolutely ingrained, I will not be able to play these passages. And that will happen only with lots of slow practice.

It is going to be another example of “cramming for a final exam.”

Here is a program note and a YouTube performance of the piece (in three parts):

Part I

Part II

Part III

The program will also include the Bach Fugue on a Theme of Corelli, BWV 579. I plan to play it considerably slower and more quietly than the organist on the YouTube clip. But his performance is convincing; I hope mine is, too.

As the program note above says, Liszt first composed the Variations for pianoforte. Here is a performance of that (much shorter) version by Vladimir Horowitz. I hope I can carry some of these ideas and the intensity of this rendition into the organ version when I play it.

[Edit 1/29/11 -- The Bach piece will have to wait: I added up the timings, and the combination of Bach and Liszt is three minutes over the time allotted to me. But I have something that will fit even better: a very short little piece from late in Liszt's life, "Resignation." It is only two minutes long (twenty-nine measures), very soft, and will serve as a good introduction before launching into the "Weinen, Klagen."

And I learned yesterday that I have a wedding to play on Saturday March 17. That will make for an interesting week.]