Kaczynski and Nino Rota Duet for 2 oboes (3/3)… but 2nd recording made…

Nino Rota : Vecchio Carillon: old music box

I wanted this recording out for Christmas, but at 30 minutes a day, it was just not possible. In fact, I did the 3rd duet before the 2nd because the rhythm in both cases is just plain murder, and the 2nd is the hardest! The oboe 1 and oboe 2 parts are easy enough, each by itself…. but putting them both together might just be the most difficult things I have ever played! I guess this is where it becomes really obvious that, if I was ever professional grade, I certainly am not anymore!

Multitrack Recording to correct rhythm trouble

For the past month, my 30 minutes a day consisted of long-tones to beef-up breathing and embouchure, then going straight to the recording device! Practicing these tunes with a metronome is just plain useless because it’s really hard to tell if I’m with the beat or not until I put the 2nd part on top of the 1st. With multitrack recording, I record the 1st part and play it (hear it) in my ear-buds while recording the 2nd part. My recording device has a metronome that I can hear in the ear buds while recording (the tac-tac-tac does not get recorded), but it still takes the 2 parts together to tell what part is going wrong and how. In fact, it took many, many, many sessions of listening to both parts through the speakers to really settle things down.

No friend, no cues…

I don’t know, but it is possible that recording myself playing with myself made things harder. I remember from my days of chamber music that my fellow players and I would look at each other a lot. We would feel each other’s breathing while giving and taking cues either explicitly or through body language. This allowed us to deviate from the beat quite a lot, but still manage to play in proper synchronization together. I don’t know if playing the Nino Rota duets with another living  person of similar calibre would really make it easier or not… I hope I get to try sometime soon.

Czeslaw Kaczynski and Nino Rota : undervalued treasures!

As is likely the case for most Canadians and Americans – maybe even Europeans – my knowledge of Nino Rota was mostly limited to the movie music of the Godfather, Romeo and Juliet and so on. It was my piano teacher from the Conservatoire de Montréal, Czeslaw Kaczynski, who set me straight. Just before he left for a retirement in Rome, he blessed me with a private performance in his own home of Rota music for piano. That’s where I discovered that Nino Rota makes true “pure” music that needs no movies at all to touch the depths of artistry: there is now a You-Tube channel dedicated to the non-movie music of Rota.

Maestro Kaczynski is a Polish pianist who became director of the Conservatoire de Trois-Rivières and then took a semi-retirement, teaching piano 2nd instrument at Conservatoire de Montréal: I had the tremendous privilege to be his student. Strangely, he was not very well appreciated as a musician or as a teacher… this, I really cannot understand because I heard him play recitals of Chopin and Szymanowski with such soulful musicality and passion that NO OTHER RECORDING from any of the world masters has ever approached… many attendants of those recitals, regular patrons of the arts, agreed on that! One of these was among the first recitals played on the famous Bosendorfer piano of the Chapelle historique du bon Pasteur (Montréal).

I was blessed with many excellent music teachers, but Maestro Kaczynski was certainly the one who most strongly awakened the aesthetic artistry when playing music. I can go on for many blog posts telling of his genius as a teacher as well as a musician. I only hope his retirement in Rome paid proper tribute.

Nino Rota Duet for 2 oboes (1/3)

 20 000 visits to the blog!

Last week marked well over twenty thousand visits to this blog, from 78 countries – in less than a year!
I am really thrilled at this, and I still find it extraordinary to see Google searches that point specifically to my posts!
Thank you so much to all visitors!

 

Nino Rota: much more than movie music!

Tre pezzi per due oboi (1/3) : Vecchia Romanza

A few months ago, Michele sent me sheets for a rare duet for 2 oboes by Nino Rota. I say “rare” because I had never heard of Rota writing chamber music, but perhaps Italians play this all the time? At any rate, I take it as an honour to perform these and play both oboe parts using the multi-track recording system on my recording device.

This is a set of 3 duets written specifically for 2 oboes, and I actually wanted to wait to record all three at the same time, but I have to celebrate 20000 visits! The duets are not difficult BUT the first oboe requires good control of the altissimo register (3rd octave key) and the 2nd and 3rd movements are really tricky in term of rhythmic ensemble. I need more time to get it right. This is not the first time I am pleasantly surprised with Rota, but I’ll mention that with the next recording. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy!

Facebook International Oboe Groups – Michele Mancaniello

The groups on Facebook that join oboists and bassoonists from all over the world are simply fantastic. Apart from sharing videos, news, performance information, and many, many questions, the international exposure really expands our horizons.

A few participants have distinguished themselves as particularly generous with their expertise,  and resources. One such notable participant is Michele Mancaniello, a professor of music in Montemilone, Italy. Whenever anyone in the world is looking for music sheets of known or obscure pieces, Michele is quick to reply in the wonderful group Oboe in the World. Michele studied music and composition with Nino Rota before completing his formal training as a composer and oboist in Italy. Michele has amassed a considerable library of solo pieces and study repertoire for oboe and is fully eager to share (as permitted by law) with anyone who asks, anywhere in the world. He very humble and friendly: he is Italian, but I would like to see more people like him in Canada too!

 Romantic dog…

This one is called “Vecchia Romanza”, an “old romance”. As I practice it, the music seems to tell me what it wants…. and I don’t hear much romance there… UNLESS I don’t interpret it as “old tune of romance” but rather “old people feeling romantic”. As I get older too, everything in the tune makes sense: it’s not just about hormones, but they are there – it’s not just about passionate feelings, but they are there – and it’s just as much about the memory of romance as it is about feelings today.

This recording was not intended to be the one for You-Tube: it was a warm-up rehearsal and has notes out of tune and errors in rhythm. But if you listen closely, on the last note you will hear a faint howl: that’s my Chihuahua/Maltese dog Popcorn (on the left in picture below), lying on his side and singing with me! When that happened and I heard it on the recording, I HAD to keep it!

Winter reeds…

In a previous post (click here ), I had given 2 pictures of many reeds and said I would comment on them. The picture above is the one I used for this recording.

Winter is only beginning to show up here: the worst will come in 2 months. But the effects on reeds is already starting to show: it was worse last week, but they are closing and the crow is much too smooth for my own liking. The reed I use here is shaped on an RDG –1 shaper (using my own gouge at ±0.60mm) and bound on a Stevens #3 thin-wall staple (46.5mm). The staple is very similar to Chiarugi 2+ and I find it really opens-up the expressiveness of the shape. I find (my experience – may be different for others) the RDG shapes can play with a really mellow tone, but the upper register gets much clearer: that is, the sound in the registers change a lot regardless of how the reed is scraped.

The ragged tip you see in the picture actually comes from using an old grenadilla plaque (bellied) which is worn-out: when scraping, the cane is not evenly supported and nicks happen that way. It plays really well nonetheless, only slightly resistant, but I don’t want to make it easier and loose the sound colour.

Haendel – difficult joy! (IMS #3, good)

32 countries have visited my blog! Wow, the Internet age is really impressive: and the love for the oboe is evidently universal!

To celebrate, I did a little You-Tube of an oboist who is really worth getting to know: Louise Pellerin studied in Montréal with my teacher (Bernard Jean) and also in Europe with Heinz Holliger! They have even recorded double concertos and double sonatas together.

Before Albrecht Mayer, I had always found her sound to be the best. The discovery of so many extraordinary oboists in the world thanks to You-Tube (see Learning from the Masters Electronically) might make her interpretation seem a little old-fashioned, but there is a lot to be learned from her. You can find Heinz Holliger’s influence… and also Bernard Jean’s style, if you know what to look for!

32 countries love the oboe!

This excerpt comes from a recording she made at the monastery Abbaye St-Benoit-du-lac (close to my home town) with a really important organist (and monk in the monastery) Dom Andre Laberge. For the video, and to thank all of you, I put the flags of all the countries that visit here! To avoid any political or moral insensitivity, I put the countries in alphabetical order as the names are spelled in English (the language of this blog!). Notice that this way, my own country is 5th in the progression! Also, I may have missed your country, because Blogger Statistics don’t show them all, only the most frequent 10 in a specified time frame. If I missed yours please let me know and I’ll fix it!

So far, thank you to:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Chile, Columbia, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, India, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Netherlands (Holland), Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, ,Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, U.K., Ukraine, U.S.A.

Handel: beautiful but …..

I absolutely LOVE the music of Haendel and Telemann. I also think they are the most difficult to play of all composers of all time! Looking at the sheets and the notes and rhythms makes them appear simple, perhaps enough for and advanced 1st year student to master. But the soul in there is so strong that the technical simplicity makes it hard to reach!

Heinz Holliger has to be the master at ornamenting Haendel, but it is too easy to overdo ornaments and drown the musical soul in technical dazzle.

3rd IMS treatment – worthwhile!

When I get to the treatments, the fear of the pain is getting hard to bear. Some needles do not hurt at all and some are really painful. But when the needle is out, that’s it. So the mental apprehension is worse than the treatment.

This week was bad because the weather changed a lot (from –15 to +15 Celcius, from rain to snow to gusting winds) and that usually causes pain to flare-up the entire body. But my neck is usually a lot worse, and my right hand has begun to really relax and stay relaxed. I can compare with my left (not yet treated): it is “normal”, so always tensed, always clutching and always a little sore. My right used to be like that, now it is becoming truly normal: relaxed, open and no pain.

Yep, definitely worthwhile!

Learning from the Masters… electronically!

I had the real pleasure of being “virtually” introduced to a bunch of amazing oboists that I would not have known otherwise. In this blog, I have made much ado of Albrecht Mayer… in fact, I would never have known about him if it weren’t for internet streaming radio and the CBC radio 2’s good habit of giving performance details of their playlists on their web-site.

 

We are living in a wonderful time where it has become so easy to hear so many performances, but finding these performances assumes you know what to look for… and where! Thanks to You-Tube, Facebook, personal blogs and Bill-Boards (discussion groups), I have met many fine people, young, experienced, students, amateurs and professional who have been able to share recordings they have found on the internet. Sometimes, just sharing a name was enough to launch a process of research and discovery.

Redefining Concepts

I can truly say that my concept of playing the oboe, musicianship in general, my concepts of sound and style have changed quite a lot in the past few months. For example, virtuosic (“athletic”) repertoire like Rossini or Pasculli normally leave me indifferent at best. However, the playing of Christoph Hartmann and Giovanni di Mauro are very impressive. Clear, crystalline oboe sounds usually rebuff me, but the playing of Malcom Messiter and Heinz Holliger are definitely worth careful study. Normally, there is a crisp separation between the baroque and modern oboes… in fact, in the 1990s and early 2000s it seemed politically incorrect to play baroque repertoire on modern instruments and romantic or impressionist repertoire on baroque or classical replicas were simply unheard of. Thankfully, some superstars are changing that (A.M. for the oboe, but also Nigel Kennedy on the Violin and many others on other instruments). Next time, I’ll put up a list of very odd ways different oboes are being played!

 

To open some eyes to what can be done with our instrument, take a look at the following:

--- oboe d'amore tango : excellent sound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Jcv7YuTw0&NR=1

--- baroque oboe BAND
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFoysod39dk&feature=related

--- really good modern jazz oboe : Jean-Luc Fillon quintet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TIP8swMSi8&NR=1

--- Great 1960's jazz : “buzzaphone“ in the right place!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoAtTi_u2u8&feature=related

--- jazz sounds like a Romanian taragot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb6Goh2lFgo&feature=related

--- bass oboe: saw 3 ships
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0YJxutxAv4&feature=related

--- ragtime oboe trio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmxt8qqo8v8&feature=related

--- not oboe, but REALLY funny (duet or duel?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbQwQetKm2g&feature=related

When I was a student, recordings were common place, but still expensive and there were simply fewer of them. It was also more difficult to make “discoveries” unless the record store imported on a regular basis. Nowadays, CD's have become much less expensive and public libraries have had time to amass a good collection. I have been going to the Ottawa Public library every week and discovering a wealth of performances, repertoire, ensembles and inspiration all around.

 

You-Tube doesn’t give the best sound quality, but it sure offers us the ability to hear and compare young and not so young musicians. I have had the pleasure of both sharing my experience to the benefit of others, some less advanced and others more advanced than myself while learning and gaining much from their own questions, answers and recommendations.

Helping me play:

All this wealth of exposure has definitely changed the way I perceive music and will hopefully improve performance. Right now, I’m just putting the final touches on the MIDI file that will accompany my 1st recording ever… and mark my return to public performance! Doing an arrangement on MIDI file is more work than I would have expected, but it will be well worth the effort considering the versatility in performance styles and orchestration abilities offered by computers.

 

I have an excellent digital piano that has fantastic orchestral sounds…. but my bleeping PC laptop doesn’t seem to want to communicate with it anymore! I can get the computer speakers to accompany me, but that is a bit of a shame considering. Oh well, I suppose that will just leave doors open for later!