Hello! I just finished my 25th summer at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival in Blue Hill Maine. As every summer, including this one- the teaching and performing experiences were incredibly rewarding and, as always fantastically inspiring- but this summer all of that was even more extreme for me because we learned and performed the Anton Webern String Trio, Op. 20. This has to be one of THE most difficult works I’ve ever learned and played in my MANY years of playing viola and chamber music. My quartet (the Audubon Quartet) often played Webern’s 5 Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 5 and his 6 Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9 but this Op. 20 is…well… let’s just say it took over my whole life for the past several months!! I was even ready to call our artistic director who suggested we perform this piece to say that this was just too difficult for us to put together during just one week of rehearsals. But I’m SO glad I didn’t.
So- first, to learn the notes, articulations, rhythms, dynamics, gestures, phrases and how they all fit with everyone else… then make a playable part- I find it’s necessary to play off the score. And while page turns would have been MUCH easier with an iPad I still much prefer paper but that certainly created some challenges for appropriate page turn places- like right between the small sections. And then, comes the most difficult challenge of all. I was finally able to play my part pretty well by myself (after lots of hours of NOT being able to do that!) but once I got together with my colleagues they/their parts threw me off completely!! There are very few down beats and very few times that we all play something exactly together. I had even tried listening to recordings of the piece before we got together in Maine but even then, I had a tough (actually impossible) time following the score a lot of the time!
Anyway, after 6 intense days of 3 hour rehearsals filled with lots of “bad” words :)) and tons of laughter with my amazing mates – WE DID IT!!!
Here is the link to the performance video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuYy7jRclgQ. Or you can google it at “Kneisel Hall Youtube” and click on Week 4. I believe it is only supposed to be up for 1 week (until 2nd week of August?) But in any case, I am SO proud of us (and myself, if I may say) that we were able to successfully present this incredible work of genius and creative gestures. It is indeed well worth the challenge and effort to put together..
Lesson learned again! DON’T GIVE UP!
