A Second Castle in Spain

Unfortunately the bad mood of yesterday is not all gone, but it is much better. I've become something of an expert at deploying tricks to regain a serene state of mind; these tricks are not more complicated than applying moderate doses of activities that are at once cheering and sedating, like reading and music. In the evening I researched and drafted a preliminary outline of the places I'll see in New York, and now that most of that is over (I should still research bus routes, train routes, and bakeries), it's quite a relief.

On the piano I practiced the E flat major and minor scales (the whole caboodle: ordinary scales, four-note chords, arpeggios, chromatic scales, and diminished and dominant sevenths; legato and staccato and detached). I also endeavoured to memorize another half page of Beethoven's Sonata appassionata and to become more familiar with Rachmaninoff's Prelude in g minor (Op.23 No.5). Then I played these pieces:

J.S. Bach: Concerto in d minor, Mvt. 1
Well-Tempered Clavier, Preludio IX (E major)

Schumann: Kinderszenen (No. 1-4 and 6)
Albumblätter, "Impromptu"

Schubert: Sonata in B flat major (D960), Mvt. 1

C.P.E. Bach: Solfeggio in c minor

Beethoven: Deutsche Tänze, 1-7
Bagatelles (Op. 119), No. 1
Sonata in c# minor ("Moonlight"), Op. 27 No. 2

Bedrich Smetana: Song, Op. 2 No. 2

John Field: Nocturne No. 5 in B flat major

Astor Piazzolla: Milonga del ángel

Claude Debussy: Page d'album

Perhaps a week ago I realized that I could devote myself to playing music for much of my life and be content with that. At moments my playing still is or seems horrid, but it has been much more horrid, and the chances seem better now that I can play an entire piece without distracting errors and with good technique, expression, and intuition. Secondly, learning music theory and history, and practicing scales, no longer hold the terrors for me they once did; I've long felt that the true test of my devotion to a field is my willingness to plough (for lack of a more exalted metaphor) staunchly onward even through its stony and arid patches. Thirdly, I've grown into the music much more and become much less self-conscious. I only wish that I knew if I was middling, good, or, in some respects, great.

So the whim has seized me to send an audition CD to Juilliard for early admissions in February. I am probably atrociously overrating my abilities, and might convert this plan into a more modest one. But at least a miracle has occurred in the shape of me playing scales and finger exercises without hating every minute of it, and purposely memorizing pieces for the first time in at least two years. It also provides me with an agreeable aim. The repertoire that I am learning for the CD or some other purpose is the D major preludium-and-fugue pair from the Well-Tempered Clavier (Bk. II), Sonata appassionata, Kinderszenen, and Rachmaninoff's prelude. I think it's a good programme: varied yet not wholly dissimilar, not boring, sound as a "narrative arc" (to employ a most pretentious phrase), and put together from some of my favourite music.