I’m sitting on the couch, knitting a sock and listening to S practice one of the Bach Cello Suites, transcribed for viola. I’ve heard all six at one time or another, and I love them all. I’m enjoying listening to how much this one has improved over the years, and realizing how much I’m going to miss hearing it when S is gone. On the other hand, I won’t miss hearing the tricky passages of the Bartok viola concerto over and over and over again.
Which pieces do you–or parents of seniors who have won their college acceptances–will you–miss hearing your kids practice? Which ones will you NOT miss?
@dec51oo5, my S’s teacher just asked him to get the Bartok solo violin sonata today. Guess I should be glad that he still has 6 weeks of practicing at school before coming home???
I don’t think there is anything specific that I miss. I would be happy to hear anything at this point. Going to be nice to have him home for a bit. However, I don’t think the dog misses the double stops!!
Happy knitting.
My son plays green sleeves every single time he gets frustrated. I am so tired of hearing it.lol. I feel for his future studio. They will be the next ones suffering through it.
What a wonderful question! She’s finishing grad school, so maybe I don’t qualify to comment here, but I can’t resist since you’ve jarred my memory banks…
I miss hearing my daughter singing because it’s official that she won’t be home much any more so when I do hear her, not only is her repertoire all new, but her voice is too! As she “grows” up and her training intensifies, she becomes more skilled and develops new skills and perfects others.
Her deaf Sheltie dog misses having her at the piano- the ideal dog for a singer, he can’t hear a thing, but loves the vibration of the piano(!)- but I miss the big , bel canto coloratura arias that she’s learned now: “Una voce poco fa”, Non piu mesta".
ok. I will miss listening to all of the Bach suites. My favorite is the 5th Suite, I can’t remember which one though.
I like that one a lot, too! S was playing #1 last night. Has your S played the Elgar concerto yet? That’s one of my favs from the cello rep!
Yes, but its been awhile. My favorite cello concerto is whatever William Cestari is playing on youtube.
Hmm, well, with hearing our S practice when he was at home, it is hard to say because we rarely heard anything approaching a piece lol…it was always practice a couple of measures, stop, play it again, go on, stop, it was pretty frustrating, the only time we ever heard whole pieces generally was in recital…and this year was the first time we ever heard him do a full concerto, in recital:). Part of that was his teacher, who was obsessed with technique, his current teacher emphasizes practicing as a performance, but of course he is away at school so we don’t hear it…
I think the hardest piece was one of the Ysae Sonatas, really tough…but we loved the Bach solo suites, it is one of the S’s strong points.
As a side note, I love the bach cello suite on viola, it is even better than on the cello to my ears, heard a recording of it done by Toby Appel (teaches at Juilliard) that was amazing. I also love the bach solo suites done on guitar by Segovia, if you have never heard it, look it up on spotity and listen, it is amazingly gorgeous.
We have a singer who is performing at LA Opera staying with us and both H and I are getting some wonderful performances from the next room. .
D has been pretty good about sending recordings from Europe but it’s not the same. Basically both the dog and I miss it all.
(but like Mezzosmama I especially miss the bel canto stuff)
I don’t know how prevalent this is with the classical musicians, but I find that almost every week, some group or another that my son has performed with posts a clip of the performance on youtube, so if I do periodic searches, I can find performances I haven’t seen before. Found a clip last night of my son playing with an absolutely amazing saxophonist and bass player. Only a six minute clip, but I probably played it five or six times over. They were really rocking. Great way to have music in the house even when they’re away!