UPDATE 1/12/12:
Well, it’s a measure of how disoriented I was during December that when I wrote this blog post, I had forgotten that I had already done a blog post with the video! But the video has gone missing, so I’ll just leave the text up & you can imagine a performance! Or something.
I compose music for other people, too; but you already know that, right?
Anyway, Keith Snell performed bunches of the Verbs from Book 2 at Church of Beethoven in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 9 October 2011.
(Yes, that was the same day I performed with Lee Bartley at Piano Source in Albuquerque. That was pretty much a blow-out day, in a very good way.)
I am rather pleased with how the 24 preludes — Verbs Book 1 & Book 2 — turned out. Of course, I’ve always assumed that, as a composer, I ought to be pleased with my music. If I didn’t like it, it would be my responsibility to change it. Why would I ever inflict music on you that I myself didn’t like?
Still, I was writing for left hand alone and since I had never done that before, it seemed to me that the result was definitely in doubt. I didn’t ever say that to Keith, at least not in words, but there were many times I wondered why I had said I’d compose twenty-four preludes for piano left hand alone. For someone whose piano technique is bigger than mine, even with one hand resting in his lap. Had I lost my mind?
I see the first 12 preludes, Book 1, as being much more “my style” of music, whatever that really means; and there are several from Book 1 that I have learned and even performed. At the same time, I believe that my writing was much stronger in Book 2; or at least more ambitious and also more suited to Keith’s technique.
So it pleases me that I actually like the preludes, all of them. And here is a video of Keith performing 8 of the Verbs from Book 2 at Church of Beethoven.
Oh, hey: he’ll be performing all of Book 2 in a studio concert at my place in March. Stay tuned.