Monday Musical Offering

The Monday Musical Offering makes its long-awaited return!


With all the sturm und drang of moving, etc, my piano practice pretty much stopped. I had Beethoven's Tempest Sonata ready to record back in May, but then my piano got packed up. It's now in storage, waiting until we move out of our rental. I didn't get to practice at all for about two months in there, and the Real Doctor realized I was going crazy--so she prescribed a temporary piano. The Rx here is a 1970's Kawai K-15, which is actually a rather good piano for its size and price.

My right hand has become somewhat fragile in the last few years, so rather jump right in with the Prokofieff and Medtner that I was working on before the hiatus, I've started up with a set of left-hand etudes by Saint-Saens and some nice-but-less-stressful stuff by...well, I'll keep you in suspense. There's a lot of left-hand-alone stuff that I think is better music than these etudes. However, these are among the best that I've played as technical studies, and the music is definitely not bad. It's interesting to see a guy as traditionally rooted as Saint-Saens edging towards atonality in some of the pieces.