After the week I spoke of in my last post (six concerts in 8 days) I was happy to have things slow down…until I got asked on Thursday if I would play in two concerts the upcoming weekend, with the first concert the next evening. “And why not?” I thought: “It’s less than I did last week!” It had its fun moments, as I was playing harpsichord on the Baroque selections while the regular accompanist doubled the chorus on organ, playing some of the accompaniment figures as well. Then there was the one piece I played piano on, where I heard it with the chorus for the first time during the concert itself! There was no room for errors…
The concert had some musical moments (the chorus was an unauditioned community group of seniors: lots of energy and enthusiasm). I had never heard the Pergolesi Magnificat we did, and found it to be a rather pleasant piece. The Domine Deus duet from the Bach B-minor isn’t a favorite of mine; the continuo part I was reading was terribly over-written, so I spent most of the piece leaving stuff out.
I’ll have a couple other posts coming up soon: one on a poem a local poet (Stan Morner) wrote about a rehearsal I led, the other on some new music I’ve written (in the midst of all these concerts I still found time to write).
I hope that at least one of my new pieces will be music to your ears, as well as to mine…