Jeremy Denk has a pretty clever “interview” with Sarah Palin regarding Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata.

Several music bloggers have already written about the recent unveiling of Deutsche Grammophone’s online store for high bit-rate (320kbs) mp3 files without DRM (digital rights management).

I decided to wait until I’d actually gone through the process of purchasing and listening to some of their product. Especially nice are the several hundred previously out-of-print titles that have been reissued as downloads (100 of these are exclusive to the DG web shop).  Here’s a brief summary of my experience at the store. [Read more →]

I almost rethought my title to today’s post, because if you remove the “i” from “recital”, you’ll get a decidedly different impression of what I’m writing about…

I’m getting ready to start the long, arduous road towards giving another recital this year, and this time around I think that it will largely be a solo affair, rather than the mostly chamber music version I gave last spring. I went to the music store and bought a new copy of the Shostakovich Viola Sonata, which I also did the the Bloch Suite (1919) this summer. I find that after a while, especially when I haven’t worked on a piece for a long time, that I need to start fresh and from scratch without any pencil markings from my life as a student or from the first time through a piece to influence me.

I think that I’ll also do the Kodaly Adagio (postponed from last spring’s recital) and the Hindemith Meditation from Nobilissima Visione to round out what is already shaping up to be an ambitious program. I like to mix pieces that I have a history with with those that I’ve never done before. The Bloch and Shostakovich are pretty firm in my mind right now, but there are other pieces vying for the two smaller slots, among them the Enesco Concertpiece and Britten’s Lachrymae.

I’m also planning on doing a recital of all new pieces (at least new in that they were written within the last five years) if I can really get my act together. That will most likely happen in early 2008, with the more conventional pieces happening in April or May 2008.

Stay tuned…