Photo – pavlen|istockphoto.com
I had a strange, roller coaster like experience with my performances at the Aronoff Institute last week. The Brahms clarinet trio that came on opening night was one of those performances where everything worked: the difficult sections felt easy, the ensemble clicked, it all fell together just so. But on Monday night, the Paganini La Campanella was an entirely different story. I picked a tempo that was actually too slow. I was tight and couldn’t loosen up. Everything felt difficult, and the difficult bits felt we nigh impossible. Then on Wednesday, the Penderecki Cadenza worked out basically fine, even with one less day to get the final preparations finished due to program reshuffling. Why did this happen? Because in performance, mental preparation is easily over half of the game.