December meme for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schneefink: What's your favorite piece(s) of music to play, and why?
12/3/14 11:28 pmkateThis is an excellent question, and has about a million answers.
So let's start with assumptions: I am assuming by "play" you mean "perform" because trying to pick a favorite piece of music I listen to would be impossible. (Performing is also nearly impossible, but I'm going to cheat.)
So performance-wise, there are about a million categories of music, and I have favorites in all of them.
On piano, I do not actually have that broad a repertoire, but my favorite thing to play is the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It's really beautiful and haunting.
For clarinet unaccompanied, I think it's probably the Sutermeister Capriccio for Solo Clarinet in A. There are a lot of pieces for solo clarinet that I love, but that was one of my first and still is one of my faves. (My number one is actually the solo clarinet movement from Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time, but as that's one of my favorite chamber pieces, I'm going to include it there.)
For clarinet and piano, I love both Brahms sonatas, but especially the F minor (that's my first and it will always have a special place in my heart). I also enjoy Muczynki's Time Pieces, which I played on my master's recital and will always have a soft spot for. I also enjoy both the Honegger Sonatine and Hindemith Sonata very much. The Poulenc Sonata was one of the first pieces I played that was a challenge (back my senior year in high school) and I played it on my master's recital too (albeit sightreading - my violinist was pissed at me, so he didn't show up for my recital, so I had to fill the time, so I sight-read the Poulenc with my pianist, who was amazing - there's a massive story for another time there...).
For clarinet and orchestra, I wish I could say Mozart, but ugh, I performed it in 9th grade and while I did learn the nuances of it and got better at it in college, I have never loved it the way some performers do. My brother performed the second movement at my dad's funeral, though, so that will always have a special place in my heart. I've never actually performed with an orchestra, but if I could, I'm pretty sure I'd want it to be the Copland Concerto. Copland is one of my very favorite composers and that piece is just gorgeous. I think I would also like to try my hand at the Nielssen and Piston concerti. Those are the last two works I seriously practiced in my music career, and I never got to performance-level with them, so part of me always sort of wistfully wants to try.
For chamber music, there is just too much good stuff out there. I love nearly everything my trio played (when my violinist wasn't being a dick): Bartok Contrasts, Khatchaturian Trio (these are on the CD we cut (yeah, I cut a CD with my trio - it's kind of awful, honestly, but it was a fantastic experience - we played a ton of gigs, too, which was great experience and a ton of fun)), Milhaud Suite, Stravinsky L'Histoire du soldat (the trio version - which we brought a percussionist (the percussion professor, actually) in for and made a quartet), and a bunch more I'm sure I"m forgetting. We also made another quartet by bringing in a young and awesome cellist to perform Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, and we added lighting effects (I played the solo movement, memorized, in the dark - there were blacklights, and we were wearing white shirts, so I just danced around stage while I played) and it was fucking brilliant. BRILLIANT. My favorite performance ever.
And here is where I ran out of steam a little bit, and so this is just a bunch of lists of things I've enjoyed playing or that I want to play. :)
Memorable performances as a clarinetist in an orchestra
Beethoven 6 (college)
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (college)
Beethoven 9 (college)
Copland Appalachian Spring (master's)
Resphigi Pines of Rome (master's)
Brahms 2 (master's)
Mahler 4 (master's)
Stravinsky Rite of Spring (master's)
Copland 3 (master's)
Rinsky-Korsakov Scheherezhad (Hopkins)
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique (Hopkins)
Ones I'd like to play for the solos
Brahms 3 and 4 (almost got to play 4 at Hopkins, but sliced my eye open the day of the performance, ugh)
Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2
Strauss Til Eulenspiegel (Eb clarinet)
Pieces I'd like to play because I love them
Beethoven 7
Shostakovich every symphony ever
Tchaikovsky 4 and 6
Mahler 9
Mozart 40
Hanson 2
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
So let's start with assumptions: I am assuming by "play" you mean "perform" because trying to pick a favorite piece of music I listen to would be impossible. (Performing is also nearly impossible, but I'm going to cheat.)
So performance-wise, there are about a million categories of music, and I have favorites in all of them.
On piano, I do not actually have that broad a repertoire, but my favorite thing to play is the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It's really beautiful and haunting.
For clarinet unaccompanied, I think it's probably the Sutermeister Capriccio for Solo Clarinet in A. There are a lot of pieces for solo clarinet that I love, but that was one of my first and still is one of my faves. (My number one is actually the solo clarinet movement from Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time, but as that's one of my favorite chamber pieces, I'm going to include it there.)
For clarinet and piano, I love both Brahms sonatas, but especially the F minor (that's my first and it will always have a special place in my heart). I also enjoy Muczynki's Time Pieces, which I played on my master's recital and will always have a soft spot for. I also enjoy both the Honegger Sonatine and Hindemith Sonata very much. The Poulenc Sonata was one of the first pieces I played that was a challenge (back my senior year in high school) and I played it on my master's recital too (albeit sightreading - my violinist was pissed at me, so he didn't show up for my recital, so I had to fill the time, so I sight-read the Poulenc with my pianist, who was amazing - there's a massive story for another time there...).
For clarinet and orchestra, I wish I could say Mozart, but ugh, I performed it in 9th grade and while I did learn the nuances of it and got better at it in college, I have never loved it the way some performers do. My brother performed the second movement at my dad's funeral, though, so that will always have a special place in my heart. I've never actually performed with an orchestra, but if I could, I'm pretty sure I'd want it to be the Copland Concerto. Copland is one of my very favorite composers and that piece is just gorgeous. I think I would also like to try my hand at the Nielssen and Piston concerti. Those are the last two works I seriously practiced in my music career, and I never got to performance-level with them, so part of me always sort of wistfully wants to try.
For chamber music, there is just too much good stuff out there. I love nearly everything my trio played (when my violinist wasn't being a dick): Bartok Contrasts, Khatchaturian Trio (these are on the CD we cut (yeah, I cut a CD with my trio - it's kind of awful, honestly, but it was a fantastic experience - we played a ton of gigs, too, which was great experience and a ton of fun)), Milhaud Suite, Stravinsky L'Histoire du soldat (the trio version - which we brought a percussionist (the percussion professor, actually) in for and made a quartet), and a bunch more I'm sure I"m forgetting. We also made another quartet by bringing in a young and awesome cellist to perform Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, and we added lighting effects (I played the solo movement, memorized, in the dark - there were blacklights, and we were wearing white shirts, so I just danced around stage while I played) and it was fucking brilliant. BRILLIANT. My favorite performance ever.
And here is where I ran out of steam a little bit, and so this is just a bunch of lists of things I've enjoyed playing or that I want to play. :)
Memorable performances as a clarinetist in an orchestra
Beethoven 6 (college)
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (college)
Beethoven 9 (college)
Copland Appalachian Spring (master's)
Resphigi Pines of Rome (master's)
Brahms 2 (master's)
Mahler 4 (master's)
Stravinsky Rite of Spring (master's)
Copland 3 (master's)
Rinsky-Korsakov Scheherezhad (Hopkins)
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique (Hopkins)
Ones I'd like to play for the solos
Brahms 3 and 4 (almost got to play 4 at Hopkins, but sliced my eye open the day of the performance, ugh)
Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2
Strauss Til Eulenspiegel (Eb clarinet)
Pieces I'd like to play because I love them
Beethoven 7
Shostakovich every symphony ever
Tchaikovsky 4 and 6
Mahler 9
Mozart 40
Hanson 2
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
For easy organization later:
no subject
on 12/4/14 09:31 am (UTC)Follow-up question: Is there a big difference between your favorite pieces (for your instrument) to perform and to listen to?
no subject
on 12/4/14 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 12/4/14 11:08 pm (UTC)And yeah, I totally sympathize with it being hard to turn off the brain when listening to music you're familiar with. I get it with choir music and I know it's much worse for my brother, a violinist.
no subject
on 12/4/14 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
on 12/7/14 12:47 am (UTC)Now I want to go and listen to ALL THE THINGS!
RE: changing your ear, I find writing has done this to me as far as enjoyment while reading things.
Dinkum editing problems and spelling and punctuation knock me out of the dream instantly. Weirdly, I am much more tolerant of awkward noob work than I ever used to be, the squawks and awkward bits are less distracting (having been there myself I recognize where progress can be made, so it's not hopeless!) as it's easier for me to see the promise there.
Also, if I think something is well-written, I really enjoy it more intensely for the different levels.
I so find I'm getting increasingly impatient with world-building and history research issues and racefail types of problems.
no subject
on 12/9/14 04:16 am (UTC)Yeah, writing has spoiled me a bit, too. I am pickier than ever about what I read, so I read very little any more.
no subject
on 12/6/14 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
on 12/6/14 05:37 am (UTC)Sorry to hear about your voice!
no subject
on 12/6/14 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
on 12/6/14 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
on 12/6/14 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 12/9/14 04:14 am (UTC)