Another piece for me - Träumerei, by Robert Schumann. It's number 7 from his "Kinderszenen".
I largely neglected Schumann when learning the piano. He wrote a great book for advancing youngsters, "Album for the Young", and I learned a few of those when I was at primary school, but although aware of Kinderzenen, I'd just not bothered with any of the pieces, which was a big mistake. Curiously, Enid, mentioned in the previous post, recently told me that the pianists in the music group were supposed to learn them when we were in our final year. I have no recollection whatever of that requirement. Possibly explains why Enid got a B. Ed. degree and I had to make do with a mere Cert. Ed.
However, I digress. Jan and I went to a local concert a few months ago in which the great
John Lill visited Southend (he comes here pretty much yearly to perform, which is a great honour for the town) and he played all 15 of the Kinderzenen as part of his recital. I bought the sheet music and have been learning them. They are not overly difficult, but are the sort of thing that top virtuosos use as encores - well-known pieces which let the audience go home satisfied.
We have a very lovely friend named Ruth (well, we have two very lovely friends names Ruth, but the one I'm referring to at the moment is not OTP) who has a birthday coming up on Friday. Ruth, who played the clarinet, was in the same music group that Enid and I were. I thought I'd record Träumerei for her - I know it's right up her street. I did a pretty basic recording using my Iphone and was reasonably satisfied. Then I thought I'd find a few Youtube videos of it. Yesterday I found Valentina Lisitsa's encore from some concert or other. Jan came in part way through me listening to it and I had tears streaming down my face.
Needless to say, I've scrapped my original recording and done it again, this time with Dez's decent camera and my Tascam stereo recorder. I'm pleased with the result, which is a lot better than my first attempt. I'll post it on Friday after Ruth has heard it.