Just had my first hack-through of the La Campanella with my wonderful pianist (Sandra Bleiweiss). What a shock the first run-through often can be! Carefully thought-out interpretive decisions seem unbelievably stupid and inane. Tempos seem either naive or hideously self-conscious. Mainly, after the run-through of the Paganini, my thought was “why?!” As in, why did I choose to try to play this piece, why can’t I play it, and why do I seem to favor herculean musical labors at the end of a long season, peppered with healthy amounts of public humiliation?
Well, I have a few days to work out the kinks…