Blog

My sincere apologies for not writing for quite a while! There has been quite a lot going on. We are currently in the midst of planning for the 2008 Opera Vista Festival. We already have as many entries as we had last year, and our deadline is only in February, so I am very excited. Also, this year bodes to be an international competition. (We already have international entries, though we have yet to sit down and look at the entries).

I was in Vienna after the Fitelberg competition. I went to the Zentralfriedhoff while there. (That is an incredible place, by the way - only comparable to Père-Lachaise). It's amazing to see who all is buried there: Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss (Johann Sr. AND Jr.), Brahms, and Schoenberg. It's pretty incredible. (I'll put pictures up soon - once I figure out how to download them off my camera).

I thought a lot about performing Beethoven when I was in Vienna. (It was partly prompted by the fact that the German judge, Andreas Weiss paid me the most incredible compliment I have received in a while - he asked for my video of Beethoven's Egmont to use in teaching his class because he thought I found the right spirit and story in my performance.)

I thought about it quite a lot while walking through Vienna. I had been thinking for a while about Beethoven since I had heard a terrible performance of Beethoven a while back. The problem was that it was well done from the technical perspective. The articulation, the intonation, the dynamics, etc. were great. The performance overall wasn't. I was debating it while I was in Vienna. (Where better to think about Beethoven?)

I think I figured out why I feel so attached to Beethoven - almost every one of his pieces triumphs over struggle. There was definitely his struggle with deafness, which created many other struggles such as his isolation from people. I think that this understanding of struggle and overcoming that struggle and seeing the presence of hope at all times that makes his music work. (This is all opinion and conjecture - in other words, it's my view of the man through the music as opposed the music through the man, which is one thing that I really try to piece out).

I think that you have to keep in mind that he never lost hope. He never gave up. (Jimmy V would be proud).