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I had a recital on Saturday night. I had hoped to be writing about the preparations leading up to the event, but I have been working so hard to finish preparations for the recital that I didn’t have time to write about them. Now, however, with the recital done, I have time to reflect on the event, and the preparation leading up to it.
My first thought is simply, “Wow, that was fun!” I was a bit nervous leading up to the recital, more nervous than I have been about anything recently. When I stopped to consider why I felt so nervous, it struck me… I haven’t played a complete trumpet and piano recital since sometime just before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I have had many concerto performances, performed on portions of recitals, and also done a fair bit of chamber music, but I haven’t actually played a complete recital. This is unfortunate, because in the end it was a really artistically satisfying event.
In many ways, playing a recital is the polar opposite of being an orchestral musician. When you play in an orchestra you are told what to play, how to play, when to play it, what to wear, and where you will play. No one consults with you; no one asks if you think this program will be effective. Someone decides all of these things for you, and your job is to show up and play them to the best of your ability.
When planning a recital, though, you get to pick the whole program. You can decide what direction you want the program to take artistically: should it be all modern pieces, or should you mix in some classical and baroque music. Maybe you should do an all-baroque recital, or perhaps you should write or arrange something yourself? Bottom line, you can do whatever you like. You simply pick a program that you think will be the most effective, and then begin preparing it.
On top of that, you get to decide how you want to play everything on the recital. If you want to capture a certain character with the music, you do it. You get to choose the dynamic, articulation, phrasing, tone color, tempo, and any other musical aspect you can name. In short, you are the musical dictator, and let’s face it, being a dictator can be pretty fun. The only people that don’t like dictators are the people being dictated to, which is surely why orchestra players seldom like conductors. It’s really a power thing. Whatever. All I know is that is fun to have such enormous control over your artistic effort. I think it is really the thing that has always drawn me to music, and the fact that I have so seldom taken advantage of the opportunity to program a complete concert of music, and exercise my own right to control my artistic effort is a shame.
In the future, I will put a great deal more focus on planning concerts and presenting them. Performing for a few hundred appreciative people on Saturday reminded me of how rewarding this experience can be, and quite frankly, I can’t wait to do it again.
BRAVO! A job well done!
When I read your article, “Where did he go George,” I noticed your brief mention of a recital and it jumped out at me like a mac truck! Who would not want to see and hear a virtuoso trumpet player, such as yourself, put on a live solo performance? As a college student, I have to say that it was an amazing learning experience to be a part of your audience as you executed a phenomenal program!
Rhonda White
Chris Gekker, my teacher from the Univ. of Maryland, equated orchestral playing to being a baseball player (get your couple of big opportunities in a piece with a lot of sitting around) and a recitalist/quintet player to being a basketball player (constantly running the floor). He always stressed being in shape for different “sports” by practicing short, intense spurts as in a Mahler symphony and long winded stretches as in an Ewald quintet or a sonata. Thanks for your articles and comments. They are always helpful and insightful. Mike