Christmas pictures
January 15th, 2012
Merry Christmas! If I post the pictures in mid-January, that means it’s still Christmas, right? Pass the nog.
Winnipeg Mochitsuki
January 15th, 2012
Mochi-making is traditionally a pre-New-Year’s activity in Japan. Sweet rice is steamed and then pounded into a sticky goo, which gets eaten in various ways – toasted, fried, with anko (sweet bean paste), etc…
Storace Passacagli
October 28th, 2011
If you don’t want to deal with youtube, here’s the mp3 directly:
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New (?) recording – Pavana Lachrymae
May 29th, 2011
Well, it’s far from new, at this point, but I should really post it on here as well as on youtube!
This is the Pavana Lachrymae from an all-Byrd concert last January. First time I’ve recorded the audio and video while I perform. I don’t have any sophisticated video equipment though, just my little tiny camera, so it’s pretty noisy video, but it’s nice to see what’s going on, I think!
You can also download the audio as an mp3 file.
Christmas 2010
January 10th, 2011
Another batch of Christmas photos! Maybe I’ll put more non-wintry ones on here soon too.
Francis Pigott… uh, who?
September 11th, 2010
Back with a new recording! I’ve been getting back to some of my favourite music – obscure Restoration English! This has to be some of the least-known harpsichord repertoire there is, and yet, I love it! Some of it’s pretty terrible, of course, but there are so many fantastically quirky and fun pieces hidden away!
This composer seems even more obscure than most – not many published composers don’t even have a wikipedia article, but Francis Pigott is one! His ‘set’ (i.e. suite) in C was published in A Choice Collection of Ayres for the Harpsichord or Spinett alongside pieces by Blow, Croft, and Clarke, (and John Barrett, but he’s another unknown, at least to me!)
There are 7 movements: Prelude, Almand, Corant, Sarabrand, Jigg, March and Minuet, but since they’re so short, I collected them together into one mp3 file.
I also positioned the microphone a little bit differently this time – right up at the ceiling, so about 3 metres away from the bentside and maybe 2.5 metres up. (good thing my ceiling is high!) I think it’s a bit more natural sounding, but it’s tough to get a really good sound in a relatively small space. I’ll keep working at it!
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I return – with Froberger!
August 14th, 2010
It’s been a while! I haven’t been recording like I had planned because I was working too much on the music for the Bruges competition. This is now finished, so I’m coming back to the blog!
I haven’t actually left Europe yet, so haven’t had a chance to record anything new. However, I have some recordings of concerts on this computer, and found a nice little clip of some Froberger from the 2009 Fredericton Baroque Music Festival. Here’s the Lamentation sur ce que j’ay été volé with accompanying Courante, Gigue and Sarabande.
- Lamentation
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- Courante
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- Gigue
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- Sarabande
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Bach C-Major Fugue, WTC II
April 3rd, 2010
And here, finally, is the fugue to accompany the prelude I recorded a while ago!
And about this, I just have to say that Bach is hard. So many little notes… even a short piece like this is exhausting to play! There’s really no chance to catch your breath once you get started! It’s really getting to be fun to play this though.
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Bach C major Prelude, WTC II
February 27th, 2010
It’s been a while since the last recording – I spent a week in Winnipeg, another week in Fredericton, accompanied a pile of auditions at McGill, and have been learning Scarlatti, and Rameau both of which take me forever.
But now I’m back with a bit of Bach! I always have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Bach. The music’s fantastic, of course, but it tends to be so dense with counterpoint that it never sits still – most pieces are essentially saturated with moving 16th notes! This in contrast to the D’Anglebert I recorded earlier, where, even though there are a lot of notes, and plenty going on, you still get cadences where you can catch your breath. Not so much in Bach! My goal with this music is always to let it flow as smoothly as if it were a ‘normal’
piece despite all that clutter. (Bach fans, don’t hate me!)
Here’s the C major prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier, book II. I’ll try to get the fugue recorded in another week or two, though I’m spending some time in Quebec city, so can’t guarantee anything.
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Clavichord
January 23rd, 2010
So, my clavichord started getting lonely with all the attention given to the harpsichord lately, and so I decided I should spend some time with it! Clavichord technique does not take kindly to neglect, I have found. It took quite a while before I could do more than butcher anything I tried to play.
I finally did get something recorded though: Attaingnant‘s setting of Sermisy‘s Tant Que Vivray. It’s curious writing for the keyboard – there isn’t a lot of French repertoire before the clavecinistes come in a hundred years later, and what 16th century music is out there is rarely played these days. But I think it has a certain charm, especially on the clavichord.
After uploading this, I realized that my computer speakers completely massacre this recording, even more than usual. I can barely even discern the melody at the beginning! Give it a chance with headphones or half-decent speakers, if you can.
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Don’t worry – no more recordings today. I have other work to do!