Recital stuff

September 21, 2000 General Comments Off

I’m very happy that my viola teacher is back from Europe now. Once she recovers from the big tour, I hope to get a few lessons. I’m getting a little scared about the upcoming recital. =)

While overall the Hindemith piece is the hardest, I must say that it is basically very straightforward. It consists of a lot of notes, and they’re really, really fast. The Schubert sonata, on the other hand, has some interesting problems that have to be worked around. The sonata was originally written for an instrument called an arpeggione, and since it’s about the only piece ever written for that instrument, nobody plays the arpeggione anymore. So, the sonata remains in the literature completely because of cellists and violists. As is often the case when playing music written for other instruments, certain things don’t work as well as they do on the instrument for which the piece was written. I can’t go into detail yet, as I have no experience with arpeggiones, but, certainly, this piece must be less awkward on that instrument.