Piano and Online Reading

Yesterday I essentially played the piano and read books at gutenberg.org. The piano playing went really well. Perhaps my favourite piece for the piano is the B flat major sonata by Schubert; I think it requires great depth and sincerity, and in my point of view the relative ease with which one can play it as far as the notes themselves go means that it is intended that one focus on the nobility and beauty of the music. At the same time I try to avoid playing too much legato and piano, because that is, I think, not true to the music either (the only recording of it I've heard is one by Clara Haskil, who, as far as I remember, plays the whole sonata with the notes detached). I've played the sonata quite often, and especially when I began playing it I felt how tragic particularly the beginning of the second movement is. Anyway, yesterday I played it close to the way I think it should be played. But I didn't really feel melancholy or anything, particularly because I was pleased with how well it was going, so the true sincerity was lacking. I'm guessing that the older I become the better I'll play it.

Anyway, my scales and studies are going splendidly. I've already played all the scales through; yesterday I played the E flat scales again (forgetting, however, the minor ones). I've also discovered that in some difficult spots in pieces I rotate my wrist toward me, which is strenuous and counterproductive; since I've been strictly rotating parallel to the keyboard things have gone much better. My arpeggios are still rubbish, but I've learned to take them in stride. Lately I've played quite a bit from the Well-Tempered Clavier, and I've also played Débussy's Claire de lune with far more ease than before. Yesterday or the day before that I played bits of Beethoven's early sonatas, and that went really well too. The sonatas are very satisfactory to browse through particularly because they cover the range of melancholy to grand and powerful to cheerful so fully.

I think it was yesterday morning that I woke up with the determination not even to try to play the piano professionally. Of course I'm probably overrating my abilities anyway; but what I was mainly thinking was that I'd be happier and better if I kept the piano playing for private occasions. That does not, however, mean that I don't want to take lessons. It may just mean that I'll end up becoming a piano teacher rather than performing.

As for my online reading, it began with the Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Some of the definitions I wrote down, and here they are:

ACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

ADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

ADORE, v.t. To venerate expectantly.

AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.

HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

IMMIGRANT, n. An unenlightened person who thinks one country is better than another.

By the end of my online reading session I was wondering seriously if I hadn't better begin reading the non-fiction and more elevated fiction on the website, but I think I still don't have the self-discipline. I demand something that cheers me up, and the collected works of Edmund Burke won't do it. I reread Infelice by Augusta Jane Evans recently, becoming increasingly aware of aspects of it that I don't approve of. On the other hand, it is often unintentionally funny. For instance, the following sentence: the guardian (who will marry the heroine, of course) looks at the heroine probingly, then asks of a nun who has taught her, "Is the intellectual machinery at all consonant with the refined perfection of the external physique?" The nun answers in nearly equally elevated language -- as a matter of fact, all the characters (except the slaves) speak in language "consonant with" the highest oratory excesses of the Romantic poet.

P.S.: The photo below was taken from http://www.suedwestweb-berlin.de/struktur/v0349/s0349.html .