Schumann Op.15 No.1
This morning’s practice began at 6am & went to about 7.30am. The first half piano, & the other half was spent working on stick control, which led me to think about some big picture ideas.
Piano began with the Schumann Op.15 No.1 - which i rediscovered yesterday, after hearing a recording of the great Martha Argerich. A recording so impressive, I put it on Remi’s latest spotify playlist of classical music - a list which includes among other things, the Swan from Sain-Saens, Bach arranged for five cellos, & Debussy’s Arabesque 1 played on guitar (Remi #35). We are both actually re-listening to it as I type this journal entry.
It occurred to me that the Op.15 No.1 is kind of perfect for use with beginner/intermediate piano students. It’s less than one page & includes a lot of repetition within. Basically one cadential theme that repeats in the beginning & end. The middle is the smallest possible development section; basically a four-bar stroll according to the harmonic phone number (473-6251). To top it all off its in the relatively elemetry key of G major, with only a few handful of accidentals to provide the typical dimished functions similar that call to mind nearby secondary dominants.
I focused on the first 8 bars, first separating the texture into its 3 vertical voices: bass, then the middle triplet arpeggios, & finally the very basic top melodic line. I analyzed each in terms of the tones solfege functions & then practiced putting the entire 8-bar section in the air over & over, focusing on rhythm & bringing out dynamics. I also thought a lot about how a relative beginner may be able to learn these 8 bars in a single lesson & perhaps be able to confidently perform the section with a week’s practice time. In two lessons they could learn the perform the entire piece, which leads to some more instantaneous satisfaction than trying to tackle longer pieces over many weeks. Lastly the piece is simple but can be quite beautiful sounding when fully interpreted, as can be heard in the Argarech version.
