Post your own picture here!

My guess -- Pete :wink:

 

aa aa

 

Nice pictures of you and your family. Somehow, it is always interesting to see what you all look like. Seems like I know you very well by now. Like having a second family .

And you got to play on Joplin's piano with his ghost supervising you. Was it honkey-tonkey tuned?

 

Been awhile since someone posted here. I thought I'd post some 'action' photos from last saturday's choir jubilee concerto.

 

Goodness have you been exercising? I imagined that you would be carrying more "beef". You look like you have not eaten in a few weeks. The differences between your biography picture and these reinforce my opinion / observation :wink:

 

Yes I have been through a lot of exercise since then and lost over 10 kgs. It feels so much better but I don't think it has improved my looks :?

 

Chris, your attention in the Kapustin pic seems spasmodic! :lol:
Kidding of course... and kudos to you for that feat. Also because you can play that stuff while reading! For me it's a major obstacle having to read the score while playing difficult or fast music. You know your "keyboard geography", as I heard once Hamelin say.

 

The other thing he said in an interview was "I do have a certain facility" :lol: Of course he's memorized all of these, as well as every work that is hard, long, and complicated.

I'm not sure what seems spasmodic here but yeah, I can get a long way without looking at the keyboard. Need to do so only when things get real difficult. I guess it's a substitute of sorts for a poor memory...

 

Nothing spasmodic, I was pulling your leg. And I'd better not speak of MY memory... ;-)
I'm happy to see Kapustin's music played, Chris. After listening to a fair portion of his output and skimming through the scores I pointed my attention to the Sonatina (one of the easier pieces), which I will study along with a Haydn Sonata, and the much less easy Toccatina, which I will hopefully be able to tackle sooner or later...

 

I guess you mean the Op.36 Toccatina. I've never heard it but it seems one of his popular works.
Unless you mean the Toccatina from the Op.40 Etudes, that one I am working on.
This is wonderful music to study and play - bloody hard work but so exhilarating. Bit like going on a good long run when the weather is nice, and enjoying the scenery on the way. I need to be careful not to neglect my other projects, I could easily practise this stuff all day (if I had all day) and never get bored with it.

But... how do you skim through the scores ? AFAIK only the Concert Etudes circulate on the web. The Sonata, Preludes, and Impromptus I have duly bought. Damn expensive, but especially a living composer has a right to his royalties. And it's worth every cent of it.

 

Yes, Opus 36, not the Toccatina Op.40 No.3.

I've got several of his scores in pdf, if you are interested in having a look at them PM me.

I totally agree on it, even if in the Internet era it seems quite silly to have to remunerate intermediaries and distributors. In fact I always buy the music I decide to study. But I get easily angry when I pay 11 EUR a six-page score with three big and very factual errors (the Boosey & Hawkes edition of Shostakovich's Fantastic Dances).

Luckily the Sonatina op.100 and the Toccatina Op.36 scores are relatively cheap (http://www.musicroom.com/Search/gsearch.aspx?searchtext=kapustin, but you are right, some editions can be outrageously expensive. I'm thinking of Godowsky's music or some Italian or French Scarlatti Editions.

So my position is: Copyright is right, greedy copyright against fair use and human progress and knowledge is very bad.

 

Is it me or have we gone a bit off-=topic here ? :lol:

Single pieces and small sets are almost always inordinately expensive. I'd always shell out some more money to buy a collection or complete edition. We may balk at paying EUR 50 for a music book, but is it really that much ? Nobody thinks twice of paying that money for a restaurant meal or theater ticket, yet for a book of music that took somebody months or years to write, and will give you a lifetime of pleasure, I don't find it all that expensive.

Carl Fischer have the complete (I think) works of Godowsky in 4 or 5 inch-thick volumes of great quality. They are EUR 55 each here, and I don't think that is expensive at all. But French editions can be horrifically expensive especially Salabert and Durand. That is a rip-off if there ever was one.

 

Quite! To be IT, I should post a picture of me together with Mr Kapustin, shouldn't I?
I mean, I'd like to! :lol:

Of course, fatter books are more convenient, and you preach to the converted when compare going out for dinner to buying some music. :wink:

Hum, I saw much higher prices, I'll check again.

 

Photoshop can do that for you :lol:
Actually I am insanely jealous of my teacher who has met him a couple of times, and was given some copies of works to perform. Seems he was quite impressed by her playing of his music.

 

I'm back! I spent the week ice fishing in Red Lake Minnesota. It's about 12 hours drive from where I live. Living on the ice for four days was quite nice. The tempurature was holding between -6 degrees and 15 degrees (Farenheit that is!). There was no wind and it was so quiet that my ears were ringing at first. I guess they were trying to pick out a noise, which they are so accustomed to hearing, but there was nothing.

The ice shacks were about 7 feet by 7 feet. 4 holes in the raised floor where our ice fishing rods would connect the dark underworld to the heated world--that is our shanties--by means of fishing line.

Although I only caught two fish in four days (10 hours a day fishing), I can say that it was very relaxing and quite nice. Except two things: 1) sleeping in a small house with five other guys, all of whom snored like tractors are loud, and all of whom were 50+, AND being the last to fall asleep mostly because I was the only sober person there. 2) Not shaving or showering for the duration of my trip. Oh well, some cheeses are prized for their stench :wink:

Pictures: ( I would've taken more but my camera died because the cold sapped the batteries dry)











p.s. I know you Europeans will say, "Wow you lazy Americans need to drive out on a frozen lake to simply sit in a heated shed."

My response, "Come over and walk 6 miles out on ice and snow carrying about 10kgs of assorted gear. Oh and in Minus 17 degree weather. We'll see who cries first" :wink: