Today's post will be pretty quick, because I have a lot to do. I'm going up to Stanford tomorrow for my first ever St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar — 10 days to be spent working on, and finally performing some of, the Schumann Piano Quartet. I'm really excited about this opportunity to take my chamber playing up a notch!
I have yet to meet my collaborators in this project, other than on Facebook and LinkedIn, so all I can really say about them at this point is just to give their names and instruments: Julie Lee, violin; Ivy Zenobi, viola; and Adriana Pera, cello.
The Schumann work is amazing. The core of it, for me at least, is the third movement. It's just so beautiful, that I (almost) can forgive Schumann for never giving the piano the unforgettable melody that he lets each of the other instruments have at least once. There is a bit of danger for the cellist, who has to tune her lowest string down a full tone from C to B♭, while the rest of us continue to play for a moment without her. All this is so that she can sustain that low B♭ for a very long moment near the end — something the piano would otherwise have to attempt somehow and doubtless fail at.
I haven't seen Stanford since the 2007-8 academic year, when my partner's sabbatical spent at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences offered me the opportunity to reconnect with the place in my 30th reunion year. Now it's my 35th reunion year and I'll back, this time even staying in a dorm room. Not Cedro House, but something nicer up on the Mayfield Row.
OK, well that's about all for now. Off to do loads of laundry, pack, and practice my Schumann!
About Me
- Steven Schwarz
- The picture shows composer Christopher Theofanides looking on as I sight read the third movement of his piece "All Dreams Begin with the Horizon". The occasion was my 50th birthday party (February, 2007). My partner Miles had worked with Meet the Composer (its web site) to commission Theofanides to write this piece as a surprise birthday present. Pianist Tanya Bannister (her web site) had a few minutes earlier given the world premiere (she has since recorded the piece on her Albany Records CD titled "This is the Story She Began") and Chris had presented me with the score. I'd had a few glasses of champagne, so I decided to go for it. You can read more about the growing trend of commissioning new work to mark personal occasions in this Wall Street Journal Article: link. (If that link doesn't work, google the phrase "Even Bach needed Goldberg" and get the article from google's cache.)
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