Dear Readers,
Just a quick entry about a particular kind of concert I give a few times a year: a recital in a retirement home.
I started doing these years ago, when I was about 9 years old. I've always juggled a lot of repertoire at once, some new, some old, and I've never liked to stop working on a new piece without performing it somewhere. As a student, that meant anywhere from a Curtis Institute student recital to a master class given by a visiting violinist, to a play-through for a visiting conductor after a Baltimore Symphony rehearsal -- and somewhere along the line a friend of my parents moved to a retirement home and said that if I ever needed a venue in which to try out a recital for the first time, I would be welcome to visit the retirement community and perform it out there. I did, and I discovered that there are many people in retirement homes -- people the age of my grandparents -- who love live performances but can no longer get out to concerts as frequently as they used to.
Since then, I have given many of my first performances of sonatas, chamber pieces, concertos, and solo violin pieces in retirement homes -- and last night I played my first Elgar concerto with Hugh Sung (the wonderful, can-do Curtis staff pianist with whom I have played many times over the years) at a retirement center near Philadelphia. A friend of mine, a Curtis horn player who's staying in Philadelphia for the summer, came along as pageturner. Hugh has a fantastic ability to make a piano sound like an orchestra, and rehearsing and playing a concerto with him really gives me the feel of a full orchestral performance. So, as a result, that's become an important part of my preparation of new (for me) concertos in these past few years.
The Elgar -- which I'll be playing for the first time with orchestra next week -- is one of the most massive concertos in the violin repertoire, even lengthier than the Beethoven concerto, but full of sudden tempo changes and mood swings, and devilish chains of arpeggios, as well as numerous feats of right-hand virtuosity. It was written in 1910 for the great Austrian violinist Fritz Kreisler. At the same time, it has to rank among the most beautiful and romantic pieces for violin and orchestra -- a great favorite in England, though less commonly played elsewhere. Legend has it that when Kreisler stepped out for the first performance in London in 1910, he was white as a sheet (probably, I'd guess, from holing up in the practice room all day).
Anyway, Hugh and I enjoyed performing the piece, and the audience was very receptive. To complete the program, we added a Mozart sonata that was also new to both of us -- the Sonata in F, K.377, a piece that sounds almost prophetic of Schubert. Afterwards, we talked with some residents of the retirement community, then quickly changed clothes, packed up and left. Unfortunately, in the excitement of departure, I left my concert dress backstage -- not a good thing to do. I called the retirement center this morning, and the security people there said they had the dress in their office, so I guess I'll retrieve it when I get back from Boston.
Speaking of which city, it's time to go to the airport. I'll write next from Boston. Till then!
Yours from Philadelphia,
Hilary
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Rehearsing before the concert, as seen from the balcony
Onstage, waiting to play; the audience listens attentively
l to r: me, pageturner Michal Emanovsky, and pianist Hugh Sung in concert
The audience's view
A different angle
The two suits at work
A jigsaw puzzle on my table, and a shot towards my window
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