For me, this recital is a unique experience that I’m proud of. I’m proud of the first quarter of the recital, as I think that I performed steadily with emotion, keeping my musical intentions in my mind. I’m also proud of the fact that I continued to play even when I performed not up to my expectations (E.g. The Rumanian Dances).
I tried hard to bring myself into the work, to bring out the musicality in each piece. Whenever I felt a hint of nervousness, I told myself: ‘It’s OK, you got this’ – this allowed me to go back on track after small mishaps. It gave me a renewed sense of control, ‘guiding’ the piece back to its ‘train track’ of musical ideas.
Also, I believe that I should balance practice more evenly between the harder and easier pieces.For some pieces, I felt that I didn’t practice it enough, so I couldn’t bring out its ideas. Ironically, it was the ‘easier’ ones, for example, the Bach Gigue.
Sometimes, in pieces with lots of 16th notes (such as the Bach A Minor 1st movement), it’s hard to grasp the overall direction. A good way that I attempted was to think about the important notes constituting the melody, usually at the start of each 16th note. This helped me to grasp the flow of the piece, to have a sense of creating something.
Overall, I’m quite satisfied with this recital. For me, the most fulfilling aspect of it was not that, for example, I played xxx pieces brilliantly (though that is also something that gratifies me). It was that I continued to play on, through the difficulties, with a strong will, ending the recital with a gorgeous finish.
