Oh dear! I’m only back from Germany but 24 hours and I’m already on the blog! Could be messy – I’m still well up on cloud 9 so please bear with me while my excitement runs its course!
The professional recording of the Alte Philharmonie playing the flute concerto on April 3rd 2011 is now up on the recordings page at last. I think it’s marvellous, so please have a listen. They played it again on May 15th just gone and it was even better! They are such a good orchestra, and of course Gary Woolf’s flute playing was a sensation. Thank you to all who played, and thanks to the audience for coming to hear it. It truly was wonderful.
After the April performance I added some more details to the score, like articulations and dynamics here and there to help clarify a few bits and this made such a huge and positive difference to the May performance. A musical score is a bit like a painting – you can poke and prod at it for years trying to make it that tiny bit better each time it’s played. I have learned gallons and this excites me terribly, for I am eternally greedy for knowledge. I feel so lucky to have had this piece played 3 times by such good orchestras and each time it has got better and better. I can feel it “growing up” with each performance – like a little child developing and finding its feet. The German reviews have been very positive and encouraging, for my good old Irish Catholic, Convent up-bringing had me fully prepared for a complete flaying to the bone. And I felt I could cope with a total slaughtering from the critics because I now know this piece is right, good and honest from my heart, I mean every note and I believe in it whole heartedly, so I have no problem with the thought that it won’t be to everyone’s taste and there’ll be people who won’t actually like it. That’s fine with me. Having said that, it was still a great feeling that many people did like it very much, the critics included, and that was so lovely for myself, the music and the wonderful people who worked so hard and played it so passionately and with such electric, bristling vigour.
After our rehearsal on the Saturday night Gary had another wee surprise in store for me. He whipped me back from Graven into Munster, frog-marched me into a large building so fast I had not even time to fathom where I was. In the huge foyer I glimpsed a sign saying “Konzert” and I thought we were dashing straight into a concert and that this must be some big main munster concert hall. But no, up the stairs Gary ran 3 at a time, me running to keep up. I could hear people practising in rooms all around and it suddenly reminded me of my college days.
“Where are we, Gary?”, I asked, as he kept opening many doors to look inside, clearly searching for someone or something. He had this little smirk on his face, too, obviously enjoying my extreme puzzlement.
“Munster Conservetoire of music”, he replied casually, and I gasped in shock. Lord God!
Suddenly he sighted a man at the end of the corridor, fleetingly introduced him to me as Sebastian Kurz and whipped us all into a large practice room. I gasped again in shock, for Sebastian Kurz and Gary have played my 1st flute and piano nocturne (on recordings page) and they’re working to perform other pieces of mine, too, in the future. I was pleasantly ordered to sit and next Gary was whipping out his flute again as Sebastian strode to the piano, placing up on it a load of music I couldn’t see from my angle. My God, they were going to perform to me now! What were they going to play?
My heart started racing like mad and I was positively shaking in my seat. I hadn’t even recovered from the concerto rehearsal yet, for God’s sake! As soon as Sebastian played the 1st chord my breath caught and I thought I was going to faint. Really, I did. For they played for me my Oakmount Nocturne I had written for them nearly a year ago and now they’re going to premiere it in a concert in early July. Apart from only ever hearing it in my head and on computer playback, this was my 1st ever hearing of it live, by real musicians – and I nearly fell over with shock! What a gift they gave me that night! Oh God, what a dream! It was so beautiful how they played it and had mastered its character and personality so expertly. That’s great musicians for you – I am in AWE!
So look out for their recording of it some time in July and I’ll soon put up the concert details on the Forthcoming Engagements page.
So, as you can see I’m still in airy-fairy land and smile my way through the days as I relive my wonderful Germany weekend over and over in my mind. I must keep writing and working as hard as I can, for I’m so greedy and spoilt rotten now and I want more and more of this music-spirit-freeing.
Onwards and upwards!!!!!!!
Gerry.