Category: Current Local Events

Tuesday evening was my Fall recital for my students. This time, I invited Leann Cupp to present her two new students as a joint recital. Recitals are one of those things that I believe to be vital to the learning process of playing any instrument. It’s a time to show off the result of a lot of very hard work.

Tuning and warming up prior to the performance

I am always pleasantly surprised that the students do better than they did in rehearsal. Something about the slight edge of nervousness that enhances the performance. Or maybe it’s the superb acoustics at the Lord of Life Lutheran Church. Whatever it was, every student did better at the recital than they had been doing previously.

My Fall 2010 Students

Now, to start the preparation for the Spring recital in May.

Saturday evening, my wife and I went to hear Mariusz Patyra play the Paganini Violin Concerto #1 in D Major. It was an interesting evening.

Mr. Patyra immediately struck me as an interesting character, with just his appearance. He is tall and thin, and has a slight resemblance to John de Lancie (“Q” in Star Trek TNG) with an Art Garfunkel hairdo. He wore an Erroll Flynn-style flying-collared shirt with a mismatched coat & pants that were about 3 inches too long, giving the appearance that he had been dressed against his will. The appearance was quite comical.

However, given the piece he was going to play, and given the fact that the Plano Symphony is a very good orchestra, I figured he could handle it.

He turned out a superb performance. But you had to close your eyes to get the best effect, because he basically just stood still and played (a lot like Heifetz did). With eyes closed, however, you could easily forget that you weren’t listening to Heifetz. He was simply world-class. The audience gave him a standing ovation at the end of the first movement (some folks consider that a breach of etiquette; you are supposed to wait until the whole piece is over), and another after the end of the third movement.

My Patyra then gave an encore. I did not understand the name of the piece, nor did I recognize it. It was far less technically challenging that the Paganini, but an excellent piece to demonstrate the gorgeous tone of his “Il Cannone” 1742 copy made in Dallas in 2000 by John B. Erwin.

The remainder of the evening was not nearly so memorable. After the intermission, we heard Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, followed by Respighi’s Roman Festival. The PSO is a fine orchestra (you can close your eyes and forget that it’s not the Dallas Symphony Orchestra), and the William Tell Overture was enjoyable, but Mr. Patyra’s performance was a tough act to follow.

I did not particularly enjoy the Respighi piece. That’s not because the PSO did a poor job on it — they played quite well. I just don’t care for the piece. To me, it isn’t really music, it’s just a long collection of only marginally-related sounds, and I found myself wishing that I had gone home early in order to get some extra sleep.

I could have gone home after listening to the Paganini, and felt like I’d gotten more than my money’s worth.

Howard Harkness at Piano Recital, May 18th, 2010

In my quest to learn piano, I am subject to doing two recitals per year, right along with the other students — mostly kids aged 6-12. Here is a photo taken by the mother of one of the other students at the recital on May 18th. I did two pieces at this recital, a modern piece called Autumn Harvest, and a simplified version of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”

I’m happy to say that I did substantially better this time than I did at the December recital. I also put in many more hours of practice, so much so that my dear wife was getting really tired of hearing it. Fortunately, I have an electric piano with headphone output.

The extra practice paid off nicely. I was able to perform both pieces well enough that I could actually express some of my own interpretation of the music. It’s a nice feeling to be able to actually feel the flow of the music, and not just the sequence of notes.