Beethoven's Last Sonata

May has been a month of many things. The life-equivalent of either a transition, development, but most definitely, a coda. Zheng and I are leaving Rochester for the foreseeable future. And this has also meant some lovely parties and gatherings. There will be more to come, for sure. 

My church choir at Elmgrove United Methodist Church had a final choir ‘picnic’ and also had a rehearsal imbedded in there somewhere. D.N. and B.N. hosted the dinner, and as good Methodists are want to do, we “brought a covered dish to pass.” 

I will share some photos of this party in a later post, but I wanted to take the time now to share this remarkable gift:

It is a vase, with an image superimposed from the beginning of Beethoven’s last sonata, Opus 111. His last three sonatas are a titan trio, epic in scope, emotionalism, and the technique to really play them. Beethoven treats the piano in many instances as an orchestra. 

My “serious and focused solo training” blended into collaborative studies (and, frankly, work and career) about ten years ago. So imagine my surprise, and delight, when I was asked to:

a) sit down to the piano 
b) download the score onto my phone 
c) play some of the opening! 

(Luckily, there is a slow introduction to Opus 111 before it really “gets going.”).

And I was really “playing it,” meaning I could really play the introduction, having never seen it before. Yes, I’m a good reader, but more important, these years of technical regimen combined with all of the orchestral reductions I’ve played are fusing into something surprising — an affinity for these bigger nineteenth-century pieces that ten years ago, I would have studied only - never performed them in public. 

A delightful choir member, S.R. (who found the vase), when there was a small chat going on during this reading, said:

“Quiet!”
“She’s playing the vase.”