heckler

Fun word of the day: Heckelphone.

Teaching this morning was tremendously rewarding; it's something to which I can see myself happily devoting a lot of time, tiring as it is. Being a performer is one thing; you can change a life or two by giving a truly splendid performance, but being a teacher means changing lives in a cumulative way, giving people not an external experience of your performance but an internal experience of their own development, of progress from which they can develop further. I was practically jumping for joy at the end of my first lesson because the student had played the final variation of his piece so persuasively, despite his troubles with some of the earlier variations. But perhaps by the third lesson I had tired out, or perhaps my lack of harpsichord training was haunting me again. I had plenty to say about Lerinckx, about Japanese easy listening piano music, and now thanks to my organ training much too much to say about Bach, but I hadn't a clue how to play a Couperin harpsichord piece on carillon, especially not to a very musical but technically rudimentary student. I must make time for harpsichord if I am ever to teach keyboard instruments.

Somehow I ended up doing the same rhythmic exercise for Kees van Eersel's carillon improvisation workshop as I did last year. So be it -- the experience was better, but still challenging. And afterwards I finally enjoyed my favorite soft ice cream (though it wasn't quite as good as I remembered it -- different flavor, perhaps) and made it back just in time for the student recital, which sounded surprisingly good from the ground. I played Paul Coleman's piece to a positive reception, but as Geert advised, the noise of the city called for shorter rests in the first sketch. Tiffany Sketches 1 and 2 sound so foreign to me on a heavy carillon; I must to develop a new conception of it before playing it in Mechelen. Thank goodness Jo will be in Russia.

Bernard Winsemius' concert on the Duyschot/Müller organ (1706) in the Lutherse Kerk was variously fabulous and uneventful. Sweelinck and Butler passed me by; but his renditions of Buxtehude's "Praeludium in g" (BuxWV 163) and in particular the "Klaglied" BuxWV 76 on the death of his father were gripping. Winsemius achieves expressivity without expression so much as delivering the notes precisely as they are [meant to be] and allowing them to speak for themselves. But two long capriccios in a row are just plain bad programming. I already have a limited tolerance for the genre. I met the church organist afterwards and saw the instrument (which I hope I can play later) and tried to talk to Winsemius, but he was again difficult. The person I meet never seems to match the hilarious character of his students' impressions. But he gets extra credit for having ridden his bicycle to the concert. Dutchmen...

Apparently the Graduate School of Music may become a reality in August/September after all. European higher education is so... delightfully unpredictable.