Practice Journal #9

What a week....blessed hashbrown tags.

Friday- last night, and yesterday, I gave four performances with the group from the school that I work with, then, I played for the great Reverend Mitchell Williams's retirement gala.  

My sweet Mama Cartier also dropped in for the night for a visit.  I had to perform at a FUNeral today.  Mom had to attend one as well.  After our respective shows of paying respect, we gathered and did a bit of shopping.

Tomorrow's prelude at the church house will be Debussy's "Reflets dans l'eau" from Images I, (Reflections in the Water), a luxurious semi-virtuosic showpiece, if not virtuosic.  Uber colorful, pretty difficult to play well.

I practiced that a long time.  Then, on to tomorrow's postlude "Le Banjo: Fantaisie Grotesque" by Louis Moreau Gottschalk.  The great Louisiana Liszt of his time.  I hope this piece isn't out of fashion because it is indeed a virtuoso showpiece.  The Stephen Foster song reference in it may be cheesy, alas, I enjoy this piece, and believe it to be a great way to send folks onto the glorious rest of their days.  Spelling of the title and Gottschalk's name may be spelled or laid out wrong, but, I don't really care.  Clearly, this is understandable.


My practice also included a light reading of Rachmaninoff/Rimsky-Korsakov or vice-versa "Flight of the Bumblebee" and then the Rachmaninoff/Kreisler "Liebeslied"

J.S. Bach:

• Italian Concerto
• Prelude & Fugue in A minor from WTC II (XX)
• Partita V: Praeambulum
• Partita III:  Bits and Pieces
• Invention 1, in C (I got all the Bach pieces out that I practiced because of the EXCELLENT video with Ben Laude & Seymour Bernstein)
• Invention in D minor

Samuel Barber:

• Excursions:
  • 1, 3, 4
• Sonata:  Opening page/s