Beethoven "Tempest", a little boozy

The "Tempest" was one of the first Beethoven sonatas I studied with my dearest teacher and mentor Boris Konovalov - without whom I don't think I would be here still passionately pursuing and believing in this career. It's always a special experience to rediscover a piece that has simmered inside us while we grow as people and artists. This was a really personal and meaningful way to conclude my time at LAMP 2020. Thank you, for the millionth time, to everyone involved to make this happen.

Now, the boozy Beethoven story behind the scenes…

One of my most memorable and delightful experiences at LAMP was the second to last night - an immensely personal, intimate, liberating, slightly ridiculous and perhaps foolish (‘minorly’ tipsy) practice session (if you can call it so).

Having completed all my collaborative performances (4 trios, 3 violin sonatas, 1 violin recital project within two weeks!), I celebrated with the now iconic instant noodle feast + 1 or more stellar local NS beer(s), and sat myself down on the piano bench in the now emptied hall. I had one solo sonata left to prepare, and I was planning to have a low-key, energy-conserving practice session just to clarify some passages and ideas.

But somehow, as I started poking the keys a little, I found myself settling into this most drowsily happy, silly, imaginative mood.

I started improvising a bit, listening super-duper intensely to the resonances of each register of the instrument throughout the hall, each articulation, each shape, curve, colour. And since I was now derpily swaying around with my eyes closed anyways, I got up to turn off all the lights, sat back down, and started working through the sonata in the dark as daringly as I liked. As ‘recklessly’ and ‘exaggerated’ and spontaneously as I felt. Not in a ‘shredding’/comedic manner, it was still with all the ideas I genuinely aimed to achieve and express in the music, but somehow just a little bit more wild. More eccentric, more liberated.

I took all the time I wanted, over romanticized, sentimentalized, somehow created and heard colours I have never heard before, totally over indulged … but I was so filled with this almost guilty-pleasure-like, elevating happiness. It wasn’t just the minor intoxication I don’t think (!), perhaps that contributed, but it was just noticing how much potential this timeless treasure of a piece still holds, how fresh and new and alive it is. Happy birthday, Beethoven. He would’ve wanted in on this fun.

It was the awareness that I’ve went on this amazing, awing, personal discovery this past month, and somehow knowing that this was the last night for a long time to come I will have this gorgeous space, the acoustics of this beautifully warm intimate hall, to bathe in the sparkling lyrical tender passionate fierce joyful touching shocking sounds of this instrument … all those sensations came together to make me all the more appreciative and present in the moment.

It was such an unrestrained, childlike fun. ‘Practicing’ in such a way. There are all kinds of rehearsal and practicing techniques, to be effective, efficient, precise. But I also love occasionally the daring, silly, joke-like practicing. To shake it all off. To laugh at how unacceptable something can be, to break the rules and disregard the preconceptions, to actually step outside the box. Simply put, to go from practicing to … just playing. Playing the piano.

Everything connected to create that mysterious ‘flow’, as it’s often called. I had my eyes closed, the movements of my body physically felt so natural and amazing, connected, free. I heard in the other room across the hall my dear friends sight-reading some Haydn quartets. And I’m here. Just myself in this dark empty hall. I have the privilege and time and space and ability to experiment with sounds like this. How incredible.

And so I thought, if I could perform convincingly, publicly, while still expressing any moment of my silly personal explorations that night - to also move myself, to surprise myself, to not just give some well-crafted ‘performance’ but to really feel those spontaneous timings and dynamics and shapes and gestures and ideas … how incredible that would be.

Well, the next day, it seemed like Beethoven’s boozy spirit was on my side. It was the perfect last day in Lunenburg - the glistening autumn sunlight, the peaceful walk to the market to pick up my tomato/goat cheese quiche + chocolatine, the midday stroll through the cemetery overlooking the back harbour, and wow, that final sunset before the concert - with every minute the sky changing into another shade of stunning pink/yellow/orange/red … I truly was touched. I reminded myself, be bold, be brave, take risks, take courage, have faith. I love performing, I wanted to take the time to discover something with the audience, to hear and feel something live in that moment together.

And I think perhaps I found a little of that, it was a very heartfelt and spontaneous and vibrant twenty-minute journey. Thank you Beethoven, thank you LAMP, thank you NS breweries. <3

P.S. A somewhat related thought on this magical concept of ‘play’, here’s a little segment I wrote a while ago in my [blank] journal story:

rubato | semplice

Steal. Stealing Time. From whom? And why do I have to give it back? 

Simplicity. Simply profound, this terrifying sublime, the intensity of sound and silence, poised and poignant. But of course, it isn’t simple at all, right? How do we find them? Simplicity and freedom, the most modest and relentless prison guards.  

Keep playing. “Find the key to simplicity.” 

The gift of “play”. Of being in awe, of finding amazement. Of life, of indulgence. Self-inflicted injuries. Bandages. 

I love this word, ‘play’. Even in itself there is wit and charm. Playfulness. Joyance. Play play play, practice practice practice. The need for play, the beauty in play. Play music, play rests, play games. Discovery, freedom, imagination. Carefree, perpetual pondering, the physical sensation of playing, the excitement of different rhythms at play. Play with memory, memory playing with yourself. 

Wait, come back. Why is it called “play a note?” Well, how can you play the note if you haven’t wondered?  Act, move, imagine, laugh, cry, fight, have fun –! Work. Live. Laugh. Play! Play this poetry! 

(rest)