A little sentimental journaling
A little sentimental journaling ... 😌
Audiences often ask us if we cry when we play.
The first day I arrived back at Orford, I was practicing the second movement of this sonata late in the evening, exhausted by all the challenges that have been overwhelming me these past few weeks, and suddenly I began to feel myself tearing up ... which happens often when I’m working on in incredible music like this. But this time, as I went on repeating that section where the main theme returns, I just allowed the raw emotions to take over, and soon I was crying uncontrollably. It felt almost indulgent, to just let myself weep like that as I kept playing. At a certain point, my fingers came to a standstill, but I still couldn’t stop the tears, so I just sat there in the silence, sobbing until I drained out all those emotions.
Practicing is a very personal experience, it’s a time you spend just with yourself and the music ... discovering, conversing, understanding, or not understanding ... it could be frustrating, mindless, tiring ... but it can also be joyful, invigorating, enlightening, empowering, exhilarating, and in this case, so inexplicably intimate and cathartic. Bringing us closer in touch with ourselves, with feelings we can not grasp or make sense of or perhaps weren’t even aware of that we were holding in or toughing out. The self-discovery that can happen when practicing attentively and purposefully is truly amazing. I love the moments when I would be in the middle of playing and find myself suddenly stop, smile, and savor the realization, “Wow. I’m so happy to be here doing what I am doing. This feels so damn good. This is why I do what I do.”
As always ... grateful for the never ending work of trying to do justice to this music 🥰💘🎶
#rachmaninoff
