One Giant Fantasy

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17605754.post-90916288100155199672007-05-23T01:05:00.000-04:002007-05-23T02:09:48.164-04:00One Giant FantasySorry for the long gap of non-blogging... I've been having nearly two performances every week, but after this week, things should calm down. The big news is: school is over!!!!! (For now, at least.) I also will be away from New York for a total of three and a half months - the longest time I've been away since starting college. The major work on all my recitals lately has been the Schumann Fantasy Op. 17 in C Major. Everyday that I spend time with the Fantasy seems to result in a deeper understanding with no end in sight. You may remember my Christmas post when I discovered the "<a href="http://classicalcraze.blogspot.com/2006/12/beauty-found-in-midst-of-sadness.html">original ending</a>" to the piece. My desire to perform the work with this ending led to hours of argument with my teacher (for the first time ever!). Even though she eventually relented, I had already decided to go back to Schumann's final ending (which delighted my teacher). But I went back to it for reasons of my own. In this usual ending, one could describe a passionate overflow of joy and ecstasy. And in the moment, it is the climatic embrace of the entire piece... but for me, it directly leads into the most tragic moment in the piece: the silence after the final chord. I know it doesn't make any sense so I'll try to explain some of it. When Schumann wrote the Fantasy, he was still separated from his love, Clara Wieck... and there was certainly no end of the ordeal with her opposed father in sight. I constantly struggled with why Schumann could end such an emotional journey with a glorious finish instead of something more instrospective or even darker. In my relatively little time with the piece (six months), the only way I've been able to convincingly pull off the ending with the energy and optimism necerssary, is to spin it all into a dream - or shall we say, "fantasy"? Anyway, it's worked. Maybe a bit too well for the audience. For as they smile and sigh with happiness in the moments following the end of the work, that is when I wake up from the dream. The glimpse of the perfect world is shattered. There's no Clara for Schumann and in that small moment of vunerability I realize that I don't even have a "Clara" about whom I could dream. The audience claps and I feel only tears... An hour later, my barrier is back up... it will not be let back down until I'm on the piano bench again. I recently saw the BBC's production of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. It brought back memories of the book that I read and loved several years ago. Sometimes I wonder if my barrier is one of pride like Mr. Darcy or one of prejudice like Lizzy Bennett. It is a horrid thought... Perhaps I am like Robert Schumann trying to win my Clara. But something far worse than a protective father stands in the way: myself. And as long as music satisfies me, I have no way of convincing myself to try reaching over the barrier - a barrier that has only been growing for the past several years. . . . . . . . . . . Ahem. OK. That got way off-topic. Apologies. The Schumann Fantasy is truly an incredible piece of music. I guess what I was trying to say is this: Isn't it fascinating that a piece that brought such warmth and comfort to me when I only heard it, now brings up such restlessness and sadness when I play it?The Classical Crazehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02406029163411351948noreply@blogger.com