This is a re-recording of one my earlier Mompou recordings. It's the Cancion y Danza no.6, which is I think the shortest of the set. My first version was quite sluggish; I'm so embarrassed by it. Like all the other Cancion y Danzas, the Cancion part is slow followed by the much livelier Danza part. I like this one a lot because it's very uplifting at the end (something I needed after playing a lot from Musica Callada....)

Mompou - Cancion y Danza No. 6

Hi Monica,
Thanks for sharing this nice piece. I cannot comment it very deeply, since I know little Mompou (but your rendition gives me the desire of knowing more about the man and the musician). I think you succeed in playing the piece with quite a catalan nature ! I just wonder wether the end should be more decresc. and vanishing (but I don't have the score...).

Hi Francois,
Thanks for listening. Mompou's Cancion y Danzas are really great...I love them!

Can't remember the original, Monica, but this one's certainly fine. Your Mompou is becoming one of your signatures.

Thank you, Stu. If I am improving, it's due to my hanging around here so much.
But the bad thing is that I cringe upon listening to many of my older recordings; my re-do list is growing and growing...

Hi Monica,

Your playing in this rendition certainly sounds convincing to me. The second section becomes very energetic. It must be challenging to play, especially getting those Spanish rhythms just right. A marvelous performance!

I hear you on your "re-do" list. I'm engaged in that right now. I learned a number of Rachmaninoff preludes and made analog recordings back in the 1980s. Now I'm relearning and digitally rerecording them. It's a lot of work but well worth the effort.

David

Thank you for listening/commenting, David. This is a cute one - I really like the feel of the Dance section. I'm glad it came out okay.

Regarding re-dos....I wish I had got a lot of my recordings right the first time. But at least it does seem to be easier to re-learn them than it was the first time. And most of my re-dos are pieces I still like. Actually, just last night I was sitting at my piano and wondered about what to play next. I have a couple things on my piano right now that I'm working on, but after I'm done with those, I have no clue what to look at. I've never really felt like this before. I can help other people pick out pieces but for reason I'm having trouble deciding on pieces for myself. Maybe I just need to take a break from piano; I dunno...

Also, I wonder what the next 'new' way of recording will be. Like how we went from analog to digital - from tape cassettes to CD's.. What does the future hold for our ways of recording? Maybe our pianos can have a built-in recorder or something....(I'm rambling)....

Hi Monica,



That strikes a responsive chord with me. I explored several paths laid down by the Russian late romantics. But after I completed my Scriabin project, I wasn't really sure what I should play next. It seemed so odd, as it was always like I had a map in front of me. That's what gave me the idea to revisit Rachmaninoff and to relearn and rerecord those pieces digitally. When I did the first one, the Prelude in F# minor, I didn't know if the idea would work for me, as I've never been a "full circle" person who likes to go back and do things I've done before. But after posting that piece and now the G flat prelude, I see it differently and now believe that I'm using my time wisely. I also find it intriguing that I find myself not playing those pieces as I did at age 40. Nowadays I'm finding new insights into the music as I labor over them. They are easier to learn again, which saves some time. But occasionally I'll hit one of those really tricky and difficult passages that was a nemesis then, and to some degree is still not comfortable today. But I overcome them, sometimes requiring several recording takes to do it right. So... I guess this is to say that if you feel motivated and satisfied to revisit and redo some of your favorite music, then enjoy doing so. And when you get a recording that really pleases you, it feels like a celebration!

I thought when I bought the Korg MR-1000 1-bit/2.8MHz audio recorder, that I had just bought the future, so was therefore "insured". Nope, the technology didn't catch on elsewhere to the best of my knowledge and did not become the wave of the future. So as the march of progress continues, some time in the future I'll undoubtedly have to rethink the equipment issue all over again, as when I left analog recording.

David

Yes, you're right...I like that!

I'm glad you are feeling good about your re-do project. My problem is that I don't currently have anything to be excited about. I've got a Mompou set to complete, and a about three other short pieces I'm working on, but then that's it. I normally have a stack of music I want to play but nothing has piqued my interest lately. I thought I had stumbled upon something the other day but when I printed it out and then played through it, I knew that it didn't keep me interested, so I put it away. Same thing happened the time before that. I don't like this feeling of not being excited about some new music.

Hi Monica,



Same here. I have a stack several inches high. When I start to play through some of the pieces, I get that same "losing interest fast" feeling. Or, I'll encounter some really difficult technical issue and find that I'm put off by it. Yet my enthusiasm for piano in general has not flagged at all. Far from it! So for the time being, practicing these familiar pieces from decades ago gives me a warm feeling about practicing and doing new recordings of them. Once I've done as many of these as I'd like, maybe then I'll get the itch to start exploring unfamiliar territory again. I think, for example, of the Catoire works. It felt wonderful introducing other pianists here to so much fine music they (and I) had never heard before.

David

I can't for the life of me decide which direction to go - like what composer, or style, or era, etc.... I too would like the music to be something we don't already have on the site.
Well, perhaps something will click when I get done with my current pieces, which I think will be in about a couple weeks. I really hope so...

I totally can't understand that. I have exactly the opposite problem - there is so much wonderful music around, I feel like a child in a sweet shop. Thanks to YouTube, and thanks to IMSLP and other free music sites. It helps having a catholic taste I guess.

Quite right and a lot of the good stuff is the familiar stuff and not only pieces that lurk in dark corners. Of course playing is different from listening and whereas the (say) Moonlight might seem boring, playing it is quite another thing. I find that playing A today and then playing B tomorrow and then returning to A the day after I am always surprised how it has become different, because of the infgluence of B - very often because there were tecnical issues with A which have been ironed out by B.

Another thing, of course, is that even though there is a pile of scorees lying about, there is no time to match!

Yes, that IS a problem for sure. But not a problem of such magnitude as not being able to find something worthwhile to play

I know there are tons of piano pieces out there that I haven’t played yet, but I usually have enough music picked out to last me months and right now I don’t.

The most fun thing for me is when I hear something new that really grabs me and then I locate the score and discover that we don’t yet have it on our site(that's a biggie!). And to make it better, the piece is part of a set where most of the individual pieces appeal to me. I love when that happens!! I listen to music at my desk at work, and a couple times I’ve heard something new and wanted to learn. That happened yesterday – I heard an impromptu by Massenet that appealed to me, but I can’t find the score. I guess I could go on Youtube to try to find something I like, but I wouldn’t know where to start. I wish I were still taking lessons; my former teacher always steered me into some great music that was new to me.

And now as I sit and think about this, I realize that I never sit down at the piano and play just for myself anymore. I mean, I don’t just sit there and play anything. It’s always music I’m working on. I never go back to formerly-learned pieces unless they need to be re-worked. Is this bad? Am I so bent on producing recordings that I’ve forgotten how to play for just the sheer joy of making nice music? Maybe I’ve been here too long? Maybe I’m burning out? Well, if I can’t decide on what music to play next, then I guess that will force me to take a break from piano. Oh well, time will tell…I still have at least two or three weeks of music to get through.