Finally, a year after my degree recital, I gathered the courage to go back and listen to the one sonata I haven't been able to face since that performance: Prokoviev's D Major. It came up my iPod while I was at work last week, and having an entire half hour to devote to thie sonata, I decided I could finally brave this piece.
Prok's D Major should have been the crown jewel of my program, but it was nowhere near where I wanted it to be for my recital. Even immediately after the recital, as everyone was offering their congratulations, I couldn't help but feel disappointed in my performance. The tempo was sketchy at best, my runs were sloppy, etc.
Unsurprisingly, a year later, the edges of that memory have blurred even with the aid of a recording. I was not as bad as I remembered, although there were definitely some unpleasant surprises.
I laugh to hear how tired I sound after just an hour of playing when these days, my most common gigs are four hours and involve switching between three related-but-different instruments. By the last half hour, I'm about ready to pack it all in, but I'm still sounding pretty good.
Funny how perspective shifts like that.
I started thinking about how many times in this past year I've tried to close the door on classical music. (The number of times I've done it in my thirteen years as a flutist is staggering and quite possibly should have been taken into consideration before I chose to get a degree in it.) The memory, even if inaccurate, of the Prokoviev had something to do with it, I'm sure. But then, I landed a job as a studio teacher. When I tried to quit flute entirely, Ash and Rowan found me.
Every time I try to walk away from classical music, something comes up like Center Stage Opera or Creative Access or even a friend asking to play a duet. Sure, I could decline--but somehow I can't bring myself to say no. I don't
want to say no to
Falstaff or Villa Lobos or Beethoven, Dvorak or Hindemith. I don't even want to say no to concert black or late rehearsals or instability.
Well, I wouldn't mind saying no to instability.
What I do want to say no to is the stigma of snobbishness, condescension, angst, melancholy, seclusion. That's not what this music is about. That this music is frequently associated with suits and pearls doesn't mean that it doesn't belong just as much to the jeans-and-t-shirt crowd. It's not about all the ceremony and intrigue surrounding the music. It's about making sense out of the world around us. It's about celebrating and lamenting, laughing and crying. It's about the earthy and the heavenly.
And
that is why we play it.
