Senior Recital

After sitting through a friend’s three hour graduation last year, Luke and Ariel decided to do a senior recital instead of a graduation. Last night was the night. Actually, it was supposed to be last Friday, but Ariel had the extended version of the ‘flu. Then on Monday, she strained a muscle in her chest—not good for a violinist. I pumped Aleve into her and made her lay flat on her bed with a moisture heating pad. (There was no way the relatives were going to change plane tickets again.) By last night, the pain was gone, mostly.

Ariel played Mozart’s Concerto No. 3 in G and La Trille du Diable by Tartini, otherwise known as The Devil’s Trill Sonata. Tartini claimed he had a dream where the Devil asked him to be his servant. At the end, Tartini handed the Devil the violin to test his skill. The Devil played so well that Tartini couldn’t breathe. Apparently, at some point, he did breathe because when he woke up, he immediately wrote what he could remember of the music. In other words, La Trille du Diable is an early 18th century version of The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Luke plays the piano and performed Ballade by Debussy, Polonaise Militaire by Chopin, and Gavotte by J S Bach by memory. And he did Prelude in G Minor by Rachmaninoff with the music. If you’ve never had a child play a recital, then you’ve never met worry face-to-face. You can’t relax when the child plays. Instead, you think, “Okay, here comes a nasty section, don’t miss the C natural—oh, good, you got it. Now don’t lose focus, there are plenty of hard bits left.”

For a finale, Luke and Ariel played Bartók’s Romanian Dances duet. It’s a series of six dances that move from fun to spooky to Bacchanalian chaos. Thankfully, we found someone to move/turn the pages for Luke because the pieces move so quickly that Luke turns the pages by swiping his hand across the music stand and throwing pages to the floor—amazingly dramatic, but prone to problems.

During the last rehearsal of the Bacchanalian chaos, Ariel played so aggressively that her shoulder rest popped off. But during the performance, nothing popped. So, I was relieved. Once it was over, I thought I’d be relaxed. But it was then that my hands started shaking. I’d been cool throughout the program, or at least as calm as you can be while mentally talking and praying your children through their pieces. But now, I could hardly pour punch.

This goes to show when you’re thinking of a hobby for your child, teach them needlepoint or scrapbooking. This is way less stressful for the parent. Sadly, I have two more musicians. Gulp.

Here’s a picture.

Hemi-demi-semi

I don’t have a good sense of rhythm. That’s why I’m a poor musician, that and nerves. On the other hand, Jacob and Ariel have rhythm. Jake’s teachers usually assign him all kinds of fast syncopated music because he has nimble fingers and an “internal metronome.” (For the uninitiated, metronome is a device that makes “beeps” or “ticks” according to the rhythm of the music.)

This internal time keeper is not a gift they inherited from me—I run the treadmill and have for years because I don’t have the coordination and rhythm for aerobics. (I also do the treadmill because I can read my favorite detective novel/thrillers while I exercise—unless they fall into the washing machine. But that’s another story.) During Ariel’s violin lesson today, I discovered that this internal metronome is a scourge. Ariel and Jacob rely on their sense of music and don’t count. Both she and Jacob admit they rarely count, they just “feel” the music or hear it in their head and match it.

But, this doesn’t work for Ariel anymore—the third movement of Mozart’s Concerto in G won’t allow it. Her instructor told her, “Ariel, Mozart is among some of the most difficult violin music there is. You are not counting—you must be absolutely precise. You are just playing the long notes (a long note being an eighth or sixteenth note) and thinking that’s about right, and then moving to the next note.” Ariel smiles politely. Her instructor continues, “I know you are doing this; I used to do this too. You cannot respond to tempo—rhythm is a river.” This metaphor is lost on me, though I suppose there is some kind of organic theme.

Of course, after the first page, the tempo alters to something very fast, which causes her no problems at all—I think it’s all 32nd and 64th notes (also called hemidemisemiquavers, or in French quadruple-croche) or worse. As the lesson proceeds, he lectures Ariel on bowing, emphases, stylistics, ad nauseum. After the lesson, I said, “Are you okay?” Ariel answered, “Oh, yes, wasn’t it a wonderful lesson—he doesn’t let me get away with anything. He’s such a good teacher!”