Trio Sonatas

The Summer seems very long and I am missing both orchestra and lessons.  I am still practising and taking time to play through some old repertoire, which is fun.  But for the pieces that I am practising for my next lesson I am now feeling a bit stuck.  I've done what I can but I need some fresh imput and insight from my teacher.  Only 3 weeks to go!

I did have a great evening's playing on Monday though when I met up with some orchestra friends for a session of Chamber Music.  I love playing music with other people.  There is a sort of magic that occurs when you all play together and someone manage to create something that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Due to the make up of the group we tend to focus on Baroque Trio Sonatas - we have flute, oboe, cello and a keyboard player (with nice harpsichord sound!).  We worked on two Handel Trio Sonatas which were a little challenging in both timing and harmony.  There were times when you just had to  trust all the parts would come together in the end (which they did).  Apparently these were originally composed when Handel was 10 years old - which is quite astonishing.  We spent about an hour on these two.  After a break for refreshments, chat and browsing through music we tried a JS Bach one.  This was originally written for violin and flute so there were a few bits I had to "adapt" but overall it sounded pretty good.

I would love to do more chamber music playing.  It is challenging -when there is a small group and you are one to a part and you are sight reading, you learn quickly.   You need to keep going, you need to keep count, most of all you need to hold your nerve and trust yourself.  If you hesitate and doubt the whole thing falls apart.  On top of all that you need to play in tune with other people, you need to blend to their sound and hoepfully match dynamics/ ornaments/ phrasing.  A great fun way to improve all aspects of playing!  I must do more chamber music playing.