The week in between

It´s now 3 days left until I´m on stage playing the Scriabin piano concerto with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. So this week has been the week "in between." It´s quite special to do two big romantic piano concertos within 1,5 weeks. I spent Monday in Oslo having a lesson with Håvard Gimse. Pretty "hardcore" coming straight from Moldova and Grieg. But it was really nice to shift the focus instantly like that. And not surprisingly, I´ve spent the rest of the week practicing the concerto. 

But here´s the funny thing: I feel like this has been the calmest May ever. How can I say that having 2 major concertos? Well.. it´s just 2 things. 2 times 30 minutes - that´s not too bad? Earlier I´ve had tons of things to do! I think it´s all the smaller things that´s stressful for you. If you have plenty of "little" things, it´s harder for the mind to cope with. Now I have 2 things. And it´s not possible to practice hours and hours either, because it´s so physical. And if you practice alot when your body and mind is tired, you might as well create more problems for you than you actually solve. So I think it´s better to take care of body and mind, relax, be in the present moment and enjoy everything that´s happening. If you think too much about the exam, you will be stressed out, and it´s absolutely useless. So you get more energy, and you can practice as much as you have to, in an effective way, and stop. This is probably also a reason why everything has felt calmer and more joyful this spring - simply a development of consciousness. Or maybe I freak out tomorrow after the first rehearsal with the orchestra and regret having said all this. Haha. 

I met the conductor today! A very nice and funny Lithuanian guy called Vytautas Lukocius. We went through the concerto and talked about some things. So I´m pretty sure that the rehearsal tomorrow won´t be THAT frightening. He was definitely not frightening and we had dinner afterwards. I actually look forward to it because it will be nice hearing the lovely music as it should be, not just with the solo piano part. It´s also nice to play WITH someone and having another person being in charge of the tempo for instance. It´s like the responsibility is less compared to doing a solo recital where everything is solely on your shoulders. Vytautas actually gave me credit for learning this particular concerto, because it´s really difficult compared to the effect. Meaning, you have to spend a lot of time practicing music that´s really difficult, but doesn´t necessarily sound impressive. Sometimes you play a heck of a lot of notes that you really don´t even hear because the orchestra is pretty much covering you. 

The british pianist Stephen Hough actually made a point out of this with the Rachmaninov 2. concerto. He says it´s perfect for a nervous pianist (like Rachmaninov himself) because the piece starts with some simple chords, kinda to try the instrument. Then you play all these fast broken chords that the audience won´t really hear because the orchestra has the main theme in fortissimo. So you could play nervous mistakes and it won´t matter anyway. And then you have this slow lyrical melody after this which is so beautiful that the audience will adore it. And Rach 3, the legendary and huge concerto, starts with a melody which is so simple that anyone could play it. Intelligent composing :-) The Rachmaninov concertos also has a lot of wonderful candenzas and other passages which are effective - it has an effect on the audience. They also end with some great virtuoso climax so that the audience will jump off their seats and shout "bravoooo." So it´s of course more tempting to spend alot of time preparing a concerto like that. Scriabin requires a lot of work and effort, but it´s not frequently performed. But I´m glad I did it! And it will be a great week I think.