In Progress

I think I've settled on the music I want to study this year!  The list is heavily romantic, which I love, but mostly filled with new-to-me pieces.  I started work on the Bach Toccata in C Minor in college, but never finished, and have decided to pick it up again.  Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu No. 4 in c# minor, op. 66 has always been a favorite of mine to listen to, as I grew up listening to my dad play it (and the slow section is featured in Parent Trap II, a movie I watched many times as a kid!).  Brahms is one of my favorite composers, and I can't make up my mind on just one piece, so have chosen his two Rhapsodies (Op. 79) and the Scherzo, Op. 4.  I absolutely adore the third movement of Charles Ives' "Concord Sonata."  Entitled "The Alcotts," and filled with quotes from Beethoven, it's a lovely fusion of classical-romantic-contemporary elements.  I also love its association with Louisa May Alcott's family.  A few years ago I stumbled across Leonard Bernstein's Four Anniversaries, and I'm eager to dive into actual study of them.  And lastly, I recently found Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Twenty-Four Negro Melodies and was drawn to "Deep River" and "Wade in the Water," the most familiar of the set to me.

So!  I've photocopied my scores and put them in a notebook for easy access (and so that I can mark up my music without ruining the originals), downloaded recordings off of iTunes, and begun reading through the music at the piano and marking fingerings.  It will be a long process, as my practicing must needs run in fits and starts with two young children at home, but I've given myself the year to really dig when I can, and hopefully bring a few to performance-ready status for sometime next year!

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