enGROSSEd (I love puns...)
Hey everyone,
It's Liz here, captivated by a US Open match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. Watching excellent tennis on TV is a nice way to finish off a day of traversing the gnarled, craggy contours of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge. Greg and I performed Beethoven's very own four-hand arrangement at Juilliard's Convocation this afternoon, in honor of Juilliard's recent acquisition of the long-lost manuscript. The manuscript itself is a fascinating document, revealing the frustration—creative and otherwise—of Beethoven as he was penning the four-hand version. As sloppy and illegible as the manuscript is, Beethoven's radical vision and genius burn through.
Regarding the performance, Greg and I did our best to make sense of the abstruseness of the score. Unfortunately we didn't have nearly enough time to rehearse due to all sorts of conflicts (i.e. travels, solo recitals, apartment business, the wedding of one of our best friends, etc., etc.). But excuses are ultimately useless because this is notoriously difficult music, and putting this together would have been challenging regardless! Despite our frantic preparation process and the complications of this version, the performance went quite well and I have to say we ended up loving the piece!
It's Liz here, captivated by a US Open match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. Watching excellent tennis on TV is a nice way to finish off a day of traversing the gnarled, craggy contours of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge. Greg and I performed Beethoven's very own four-hand arrangement at Juilliard's Convocation this afternoon, in honor of Juilliard's recent acquisition of the long-lost manuscript. The manuscript itself is a fascinating document, revealing the frustration—creative and otherwise—of Beethoven as he was penning the four-hand version. As sloppy and illegible as the manuscript is, Beethoven's radical vision and genius burn through.
Regarding the performance, Greg and I did our best to make sense of the abstruseness of the score. Unfortunately we didn't have nearly enough time to rehearse due to all sorts of conflicts (i.e. travels, solo recitals, apartment business, the wedding of one of our best friends, etc., etc.). But excuses are ultimately useless because this is notoriously difficult music, and putting this together would have been challenging regardless! Despite our frantic preparation process and the complications of this version, the performance went quite well and I have to say we ended up loving the piece!
posted by Anderson & Roe Piano Duo at
10:01 PM
1 Comments:
Liz, I am greatly in your debt. I noticed several days ago, while wandering around on the Anderson-Roe website, that you and Greg were scheduled to undertake the Grosse Fuge at the Juilliard Convocation, and I've been wondering ever since how you'd feel about the performance, once you'd taken your final bows. So this post of yours answers a question I was very eager to have answered. And I'm certainly pleased you were pleased.
I can readily understand, though, how pressed you and Greg must have felt. After all, the Grosse Fuge is a vast and intricate thing, and preparing a work on that scale for performance at a major venue is -- well, let's just say that Krystian Zimerman would probably have insisted on budgeting at least two or three years for the project. "Ambitious," it seems to me, is far too meek a word to describe the task you two set for yourselves there.
And yet, despite all the adverse circumstances, you pulled it off, too -- which, I think, can only be interpreted as further proof (as if any were needed!) that you can Greg are capable of an eerie sort of pianistic telepathy. For pulling off the Grosse Fuge -- at the Juilliard Convocation, no less! -- without an awful lot of rehearsal time clearly calls for much more than just chops. No, I'm putting it all down to one of those Vulcan mind melds that, back in the day, made Spock and Kirk so effective a team. Damn, you guys must have been amazing to watch up there.
Oh, and speaking of amazing to watch, today Roger Federer won the US Open for the fourth year in a row. Lots of people were vastly impressed -- including me, and, I'm willing to bet, including you, too. But if Federer had been there at the Juilliard Convocation on the 5th, instead of out on the practice courts warming up for his match with Roddick, I think probably you and Greg would have impressed him at least as much.
Oh, and since Greg is on the record as a passionate admirer of your interpretations of Beethoven (or, as I prefer to call him, The Master), I figure it's a safe bet you already know and love this stuff:
http://tinyurl.com/smeea
But then, maybe it'll be new to you -- in which case, maybe I'll have made at least one tiny little step toward expressing my gratitude to you for being such a terrifically engaging artist.
-- Laurens
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