Greg vs. Piano:
A Performance Blog

November 28 - "Interior Landscapes" at Yale University

2007-12-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

Woah! It's been a while. Believe it or not, I've been doing quite a bit in the past few months, even if the lack of blog updates have lead you to believe otherwise. Liz and I have played at a number of small private events; we've filmed more music videos; we've produced, edited, and designed our upcoming CD; I've written a fair amount of my dissertation; and I've composed a couple movements for The 5 Browns next CD.

In addition to everything else, David Kaplan (a fellow pianist and colleague of mine at Yale University) and I performed the world premiere of Ezra Laderman's "Interior Landscapes II" for two pianos. We began the concert with "Interior Landscapes I" which we had already performed last year. (You can listen to the recent performance here on David Kaplan's newly minted website!) The work is massively difficult, but it was refreshing to perform the work again. The piece had evolved significantly over the past few months; our minds had somehow made sense of the thousands of notes and it was much more enjoyable to perform as a result.

After some solo performances (I performed transcriptions of Vivaldi, Lully, and Rameau), we tackled the newest "Interior Landscapes," and boy, did it go well. I had to deal with the usual first performance nerves, but along with those came the usual first performance adrenaline. The last movement in particular raced along at lightning speed to a fiery conclusion.

David drew a picture of the two of us playing together. It's nice.

September 6 - Steinway "Concert Wear for Men" Release Party at Steinway Hall

2007-09-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

Flanked by flickering shutters, members of the press, and mannequins wearing tuxedos valued at over $7,500, Elizabeth and I gave each other one of those looks ("...just how did we get ourselves into another one of these fabulously outrageous circumstances?") and plunged into our standard four-hand repertoire with our usual unassailable gusto. Steinway & Sons had invited Anderson & Roe to perform as the featured performers at their black tie event, celebrating none other than their new line of concert wear for men. The tuxes looked seriously awesome (next time, I hope they'll consider fitting me in one of those marvels of modern fashion), and Liz and I were happy to help celebrate the event at Steinway Hall.

We played at the end of the party, after the speeches took place, after the models showcased their new attire, and after the crowd had enjoyed plenty of Chopin vodka. Perhaps the timing was to our advantage because everyone was in a good mood; we certainly did our best to make the evening a little merrier. For the most part, the performance was as much fun as it looked. However, there was one moment, a split second really, that seemed to last forever. Here's a timeline of the event:

00:00:00 Piece begins
00:32:01 Piece progressing smoothly
00:32:06 Playing from memory, one of us briefly hesitates, stalling to find a pitch
00:32:08 The other pianist notices the first pianist has stalled
00:32:09 Both pianists have horrifying, deranged visions of the piece falling apart and turning to complete musical gibberish, visions of the audience hollering foul words and throwing rotten vegetables, and visions of Schumann rising from his grave to torment the Anderson & Roe Piano duo for eternity
00:32:10 Two wrong notes are played
00:32:12 Piece continues, back on track
03:09:37 Piece concludes
03:12:04 Elated audience applauds furiously

Alas! We quickly forgave ourselves, especially considering all the distractions we were facing (a camera and a cameraman, rattling ice in martini glasses, corks popping, and a noisy, abandoned microphone). Thankfully, the biggest distraction of all was the very beautiful Steinway D piano we were playing (it was Steinway Hall after all).

September 5 - "Grosse Fuge" at Juilliard's Convocation

2007-09-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

Beethoven's second-to-last opus, the "Grosse Fuge" for two pianists (Opus 134) ... is ... monstrously difficult. Here Liz and I trot around, thinking we've composed some pretty nasty works for piano duo. Little did we know that Beethoven had set the precedent with his thorny and intensely virtuosic fugue, culled from his late string quartet and deftly arranged to be performed by four hands on one keyboard. Beethoven gave us a run for our money; we did the best we could in the time we had, but it will take another couple years with this in our repertoire before we can really give it the justice it deserves.

Check out our duo blog, "Where Soloists Fear to Tread," to read Liz's take on the performance today.

August 22 & 23 - Repeat Recitals at the St. Paul Conservatory of Music

2007-08-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

I take my mission very seriously - it plays into every decision I make regarding the concert experience, from the layout of the program booklet to my last bow on stage. These recitals at the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music justify every bead of sweat that goes into making my mission a reality.

I devoted the first half of the program to representations of and reactions to war, as seen in piano music during the last 200 years. I personally was affected by the juxtaposition of music – it’s amazing to see how perceptions have changed over time - and I reacted viscerally to the onslaught of sound. More than ever, I felt chills while performing "Sheep May Safely Graze" (Bach) after having just made my way through hell, experienced a "suicide in an airplane" (Ornstein), and lamented the loss of friends who died in combat (Ravel). The biggest struggle of the evening was the first piece on the program, Viguerie's The Battle of Maringo, composed in 1804. The piece is shockingly difficult to pull off effectively. While the technical difficulties and overall mediocrity of the piece certainly didn't help my cause, I did my best; and thanks to my narrator (Peter Kirwin) and various canon detonators, I think the result was actually something to remember!

To contrast the gravitas of the first half, I devoted the second half to the topic of "Drift." As Bruce Mau stated in Life Style: "Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism." It's certainly a difficult concept to convey to an audience, particularly to those who aren't in the mood to "drift," but I was very happy with the result. With so many competitions out there (from international piano competitions to American Idol) audience members have been trained to listen critically, and it's surprisingly easy to lose touch with the simple joys of music. I designed this half to remind audience members of why we fell in love with music in the first place.

Between the two evenings, we found 11 different audience participants on stage producing canon fires, announcing saber blows, riding log flumes, eating gold, and detailing the indigestion of octopuses. Thank you to the two sold-out crowds of enthusiastic and diverse music listeners. The concerts wouldn't have been the same without you.

I had a ball.

August 19 - Services at Saint Andrew's Lutheran Church

2007-08-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

Those who know me know how hard it is to get me out of bed in the morning. No matter how hard I try to align my schedule with the path of the sun, it never works. Routinely, I'm awake during the darkest hours of the night consumed by the compositional process and recital programming, and I'm sound asleep for some of the brightest hours of the day.

So of all the things to get me out of bed while the birds are still chirping, I can't think of much that has done a better job than C major, Beethoven, and Sunday morning church services. Wow, does it feel good to play the Waldstein Sonata in a big reverberant church for throngs of happy-faced Minnesotans!

June 20 & 21 - Gina Bachauer International Piano Festival

2007-06-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

This piano festival, run by Paul Pollei, was awesome. The facilities, instruments, and administration were what every concert pianist dreams of. The concert series encouraged creative thinking and was willing to cater to the whims of whatever the pianists could envision. Liz and I enjoyed great lighting, working microphones, and a hearty and responsive audience. As a result, we were able to focus on our performances, which went pleasingly well.

Some musical highlights:
*The Cat's Fugue (a brand new piece that I composed for the event - I was surprised by how much I liked the composition ... we'll be playing that again ...)
*The 9th through the 16th minute of "The Rite of Spring." I was definitely on a musical high, unaware of anything else but the awesomeness of the music.
*The "Turtle Staying Alive," the "Cuckoo in Sussex," and "Jackasses." These movements from our New Depiction of the Zoological Fantasy were performed to my liking and received with great enthusiasm by our audience.

Since I'm supposed to be reviewing my performances, I will be honest and confess that I ran out of steam during our "Flair and Fury" concert on the 21st. While we managed to make it through the excitement of our Blue Danube walzes, I just couldn't barrel to the end with my usual gusto. Thankfully, after the non-stop virtuosity of that concert, our audience was forgiving. :-)

If you attended any of the concerts, what were your favorite moments? Least favorite moments?

June 15 - American Matthay Association Lecture/Recital

2007-06-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

Give me an exciting topic and two hours of your time, and you never know what you might get! Today's transcription was titled Reminiscence de transcription: a history and defense. Yes, I know it's a cheesy title, but my other options were Paraphrasing on the Piano: it's purpose - past and present and Transcriptions: derangements, reminiscences, phantasmagoria, and more.

We began with a "Musician's Roundtable" that involved many of the greatest musicians from the past 200 years, including Liszt, Busoni, Schnabel, and Wanda Landowska. I am so grateful for all the theatrical readings provided by my audience of unsung thespians. It made for great fun.

The rest of the lecture was filled with poetry readings, complex graphs, and performances of Vivaldi/Bach, Bellini/Liszt, Lully/Godowsky, and Chopin/Sorabji. There was also a brief diversion into the popular realm, with a look at Everybody Loves Somebody.

How did it go? Well, I could have gone on for another three hours. To squash everything in, I barreled through the last half-hour of text like an auctioneer on crack. I apologize to all those who felt a little breathless following the presentation.

The performances went well thanks to a beautiful instrument and performing space; my favorite was the composite performance of pieces by Lully and Lully/Godowsky. The performance of Reminiscence de Norma, however, taught me a valuable lesson regarding cell phones on "vibrate-mode." My energetic little cell phone, situated in my pocket and pressed tightly against my thigh, rang not once, not twice, not three times; no, not even four times; my cell phone rang FIVE times during the 15-minute performance! It was a test in focus I had never expected. I succeeded admirably, although come the fifth call, I did consider pausing to answer the phone.

I'm so disappointed in myself! How could I forget to turn off my cell phone?!

On a closing note, I had an awesome time at the American Matthay Association Festival. The lectures, performances, and people were wonderful!

June 12 - PS 131Q elemetary school performances

2007-06-16T19:19:00.000-07:00

Visit the Anderson & Roe blog, "Where Soloists Fear to Tread," to get the scoop.

June 3 - Anderson & Roe at Yamaha Artist Services

2007-06-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

I made sweeping changes to "the new depiction of the zoological fantasy" and was very pleased with the results. Elizabeth and I have decided to include several movements on our CD to be recorded later this summer.

As for the performance: there were no train-wrecks, but something was missing. It could have been the paltry size of the audience on this rainy Sunday evening (thankfully we had several loyal friends who braved the weather!). It could have been Liz's persistent sickness. Perhaps it was the strange acoustics that did us in, or maybe it was our positioning on an unnecessarily long (3 hours!) concert.

Actually, most likely it was the fact that Liz and I were sitting a full 20 feet apart. The pianos weren't dovetailed like usual; instead they were placed tail to tail to fit the strangely proportioned stage. It was like we were screaming to each other across an energy-zapping chasm, and any hopes for intimate, conversational two-piano playing disappeared in the black-hole between us.

Thanks to Keats, David, Melody, Casey, Charles, and TJ for all your hearty laughs!

May 20 - Anderson & Roe Duo Recital in Milwaukee, WI

2007-05-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth and I premiered my new piece, Carnival of the Animals: A New Depiction of the Zoological Fantasy, last Sunday at The Rep in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm going to review the composition in this blog. Head to the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo blog, "Where Soloists Fear to Tread," to learn more about the event.

We have a couple days before we perform the composition again, and I'll be using that time to revise the work. Here are the movements and my thoughts:

Introduction: Fine.
The Royal March of the Lion: I'm going to start over on this one. It just didn't work right.
Chickens: Replace the Nokia reference with another one; shorten the third section.
Turtle Staying Alive: I still question whether it works right, but I like the concept, so I'll keep it for now.
Jackrabbits: I'm going to elaborate on the second version.
Kangaroos in Love: Fine - short, sweet, and simple.
The Drunken Elephant: One of my favorites, although I plan to alter a couple confusing harmonies.
Homo pianisticus: Remove the fourth modulation and replace it with something very different. :-)
Jackasses: No changes necessary.
ADD: The Cat's Fugue...
ADD: The Cookoo in Sussex...
The Crow: Fine as is.
The Aquarium: I understand that the text may be elusive, but I like it as it is. No changes.
Fossil Jamboree: Great, although I plan to rewrite the intro.
The Swan: My favorite movement.
Finale: Hmmmm. It works fine, but it isn't necessarily representative of the suite as a whole. I'll have to think about this one some more.

If you happened to be in attendance, let me know your thoughts! What movements did you like?

April 13 - Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion

2007-04-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

David Kaplan, Julian Pellicano, Greg Anderson, Eric Beach

Wow, wow, wow, wow! I didn't think I'd be able to go on following the first movement of today's performance; my heart was pounding so hard I was nervous my hands would shake right off the piano. I can only think of a few instances in my life in which I experienced such an incredible flow of adrenaline. (It went really well.) I was, as they say, "swept away by the music," ... swept away by the really intense, loud, and tight performance.

Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion takes a great deal of work to put together and an unimaginable level of concentration to perform, but it's worth it.

On a side note, check out this photo I took from backstage while they were setting up:

Yes, that's the stage. You can't even see the second percussionist's setup for the Bartok or the marimba at the front of the stage. Percussion recitals, it seems, have a significantly more cluttered stage than piano recitals do.

April 10 - Degree Recital at Yale

2007-04-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

With the incredible load of obligations I currently face (working on two commissions for The 5 Browns, preparing for performances of Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion later this week, preparing for lectures and a piano duo recital in L.A. next week), it was a miracle I made it through this recital in one piece. I allowed myself 2.5 concentrated days of practice to relearn the program after having set it aside for a month.

Those moments when you forget you are on stage and enter another world are wonderful. Regardless of preparation, there were moments that when all fears dissipated and inspiration took over in tonight's concert - specifically in the Menuett and Toccata in the Ravel, Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze," and the theme from Schumann's Symphonic Etudes. Those moments are why I love to perform.

There are also those moments when you *realize* you are on stage and there's an audience watching your every move. In situations of little preparation, those moments can be truly terrifying ... such as midway through Schumann's Symphonic Etudes.

That's what sets live performance apart from recordings - the unknown - spontaneity. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

March 30 - New Music by Yale Faculty Members

2007-03-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

Greg Anderson, Ezra Laderman, David Kaplan

Tonight David Kaplan and I performed Ezra Laderman's fiendishly difficult "Interior Landscapes" for Two Pianos. I managed to put the piano completely out of tune a mere minute into the performance, which yielded some frustrations later in the piece. Regardless, it was a solid performance. Perhaps next time we play the work I'll feel comfortable to sit back and enjoy myself a little more! :-)

February 22 - New Music New Haven

2007-02-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

Performers are often given unrealistic expectations when it comes to the premieres of new works. I was asked to perform an incredibly difficult piece composed by a student here at Yale - Yoshi Onishi. Written for soprano, cello, and piano, we were given four days to learn and rehearse the 25-minute work. Four days! It took me half a year to learn the Ligeti Etude I play so often. It takes pianists months to learn Beethoven sonatas (and when do we ever really feel prepared to play them in public?).

Onishi's piece was virtually impossible to play and the composer screamed every time I played a wrong note. The rhythms were so confusing that we had to have a conductor; his job was to ensure that the three of us (or in one of the movements, all two of us) were in the same place.

Somehow last Thursday night, we were expected to walk on stage, look composed and professional, and perform the piece for the public. No wonder audiences frequently take issue with new music! Somehow we got by (and I didn't hear any composer screaming during the performance). We did the best we could, and even though none of us were particularly impressed by our own performances, we were very impressed by each others. The singer did a marvelous job navigating her atonal sequence of pitches!

This is why I like to be the one to play my own music instead placing it in the hands of unprepared performers.

an obvious sign one has practiced too much

2007-01-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

Greg vs. Piano
Greg: 4 (4 broken strings)
Piano: 10 (10 fingers in pain!!!)

January 12 - Lindsay Benefit Concert

2007-01-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

"First performances" can be terrifying. It usually isn't until the third or fourth performance that I begin to feel comfortable playing a piece in public. Or ... in the case of the Ligeti etude (the one featured on my video page), it wasn't until the 12th, 13th ... no, the 31st go that I finally could perform the piece without having a nervous breakdown before the concert. :)

Tonight I performed the Saint-Saens Fourth Piano Concerto for the first time. In attempt to quell my nerves, I made certain I was over-prepared. I could do my octaves blindfolded, I could play the difficult passage-work backwards, and my toes could have played the slow sections in my sleep. Still, on stage, my heart was racing like a trapped mouse. ... a. trapped. mouse.

That unbelievable heart rate, however, can provide a performer with a working environment unlike anything he or she is bound to find in the practice room: a slower perception of time! So while I'm up there wondering why the piece feels weirdly sedated, the audience is out there forced into the cushion of their backrest by the velocity of the thing. So while I'm up there watching my hands stroll around the keyboard and occasionally fretting over a missed note, the audience is out there wide-eyed, wondering how my hands managed to be in two places at once. Yes, tonight's performance had that energy that comes hand-in-hand with a first performance.

I also had the pleasure of performing a set of two-piano pieces with my former piano teacher. Kim Craig is an amazing woman: she can organize innumerable details at the last minute, catch a falling piano with remarkable grace, and simultaneously tug at your heartstrings and knock you in the funny bone while seated at the piano. Kudos to Kim!

December 30 - Walton Home Recital

2007-01-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

My "iPod Shuffle" selection of repertoire for this recital was fun, but I found it very difficult to jump from genre to genre so quickly. Three minutes of Mozart, a couple minutes of Ligeti, a Joplin rag, a Bach Choral Prelude, a virtuoso Christmas tune, Ravel, etc. I found that by the time a reached the end of a piece, I was in the mood for more ... not necessarily something different! In the future, it will be helpful to practice transitioning between styles in order to solidify my execution, because I really like the concept.

Regardless, this was a tremendously enjoyable event, made all the better by the enthusiastic crowd (at least half of whom were members of the Minnesota Choral). I enjoyed accompanying the remarkably boisterous sing-a-long after the recital, and in the end, my audience serenaded me with a glorious rendition of the "Halleluia" chorus from Handel's Messiah. I can't say I expected that!

December 14-17 - Yale University - Piano Duo Filming

2007-01-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

Although these performances were not necessarily "live in concert," they were filmed for eventual viewing on our websites and YouTube. With any luck, they will be edited and on the web by February!

Liz (my piano duo partner) joined me in New Haven, and we spent four jam-packed days filming in various locations around Yale University. 17 minutes of music netted over six cassette tapes of footage and two very exhausted pianists. Much like a recording session, filming sessions can be extremely demanding. In a live performance, you play the piece once; extreme focus and concentration are required, but I find that can I feed off the energy of the audience. With a recording, you've got to recreated the energy of a live performance without the audience there - it's sometimes very difficult to do! Plus, you've got to run through the piece over and over again to get a good take! With a video recording, you've got to recreate the energy of a live setting, perform it repeatedly for a good take, *and* do it over and over again from different angles!

That's not to say we didn't have a good time! Half of the time, our exhaustion wasn't the result of the demanding nature of filming, but the result of laughing too hard for too long. It's quite possible these videos will "cross the line," and filming anything anywhere near that "line" is simply comical for Liz and I. Accordingly, we've decided to create a couple "out-take reels" to show the joy inherent in over-the-top four-hand performance.

October 14 - Fairfield, Connecticut - Quick Center for the Arts

2006-10-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

What a surprise!! Last weekend my piano duo partner and I traveled to Fairfield, Connecticut to watch our friends, The 5 Browns (www.the5browns.com), give a concert. (I personally thought it would be useful to listen to five pianos perform together live - the medium for which I have spent the last five months composing.) However, a couple hours before the concert, the Browns asked Elizabeth and myself to perform *on* the concert as guest artists. The dilemma we faced:

*We had no music
*We were severely unprepared to perform anything
*We had no dress clothes

Our solution:

*We spent two hours attempting to relearn (from memory) music we last played 11 months ago.
*As we couldn't remember all the notes, I found new notes for us to play.
*Liz wore a dress Melody had along. Ryan Brown and myself executed a quick change and I wore his outfit from the concert!

The result was an evening of joy and spontaneity. The audience loved the surprise diversion, Liz and I had a ball, and the Browns got a moment to recoup mid-performance. I have no idea how we played - it was all a blur, but I know I had fun!

October 10 & 11 - Recitals with violinist Karen Gomyo

2006-10-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

The Faure Sonata No. 1 for Violin & Piano is no walk in the park ... although the goal is for much of it to sound like such. If the pianist were to play all the notes at a mere mezzo-forte dynamic (medium loudness), the piece would sound like a steamroller was parading across the stage. As that was not the desired effect, I practiced my part endlessly until I could tame the beast into the delicate Parisian it should be. Did I succeed? I sure hope so!

Performing with Karen Gomyo is always a wonderful experience. Her gift for long yet nuanced lines is truly inspiring.

October 8 - St. Paul Conservatory of Music Gala

2006-10-11T23:36:00.001-07:00

Eating a full gala dinner, and then walking over to the piano to perform a set of ball-busters isn't always a recipe for success. Considering such circumstances, tonight's concert went surprisingly well!

The soft pedal on the 9-foot Steinway was one of the most dramatic I have ever encountered.

I would have liked to play the Ravel again.

As I often do, I talked before I played. I had been thinking a lot lately about how lucky I am to dwell in beauty for a living. Fortune could have destined me to a life of journalism, or even scarier, a soldier in combat; I could have spent my life dwelling in darkness. Instead I spend my day immersed in humanity, reminding myself that no matter how much CNN would like me to believe, the good and beautiful grossly outweigh the ugly in this world. So I said all of that. And after I said that, I wasn't nervous anymore.

August 27 - St. Andrew's Lutheran Church

2006-08-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Often times when I visit my family in Minnesota, I perform during my hometown church services. I've performed there at least once a year for the past 14 years, and I've really come to appreciate the comfortable setting, the hometown crowd, the spectacular 9-foot piano, the beautiful services, and the creative freedom to play most anything I want! Thank you to St. Andrew's Lutheran Church for welcoming me back so enthusiastically every year.

Worshipers at Sunday's 8:45, 10:15, and 11:30 services enjoyed the early-morning pleasure of Ravel's energetic, frenetic, and virtuosic "Toccata" from his 'Le Tombeau de Couperin.' I'm not sure how much I enjoyed whipping that thing out at 8:45 in the morning... my fingers and forearms had become granite about 30 seconds into the performance. Yes, I could have warmed up before, but I didn't want to wake my poor little brother trying to sleep in for a change. Thankfully, I had definitely warmed up by the time the second and third performances came around.

Highlights from the morning:

*"Sheep may Safely Graze" during the 8:45 service - a prime example of how setting, piano, and acoustics can inspire a performance.
*Bach's Choral Prelude "Ich ruft zu dir" during the 10:15 service. I was feeling it man - especially the end.
*Liszt's transcription of Schumann's "Widmung" during the 11:30 service. I think I found a satisfying balance between lingering over every beautiful, little moment and allowing the momentum to carry me from beginning to end. I was swept away while still acknowledging how gorgeous my surroundings were. ....and gorgeous they are in "Widmung!"

Comments anyone??

August 5 - Washington D.C. - Jack Kent Cooke Foundation "Talent Show"

2006-08-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

Phew! What a work out!

You know a performance will go well when you walk on stage and the audience is cheering *before* you begin to play! I cheated on my regular piano duo partner and performed with Qing Jiang instead, an excellent pianist studying at Juilliard. Together we played:

- a movement from my Star Wars Fantasy on one grand piano and an upright. It was an unprepared mess. Thankfully I composed the work ... "I meant for it to sound that way!" ;) We had little time to rehearse and little sleep the night before. Regardless, we took a lickety-split tempo and had a fantastic time.

- a four-hand/one-piano work by Schumann. It was beautiful. Before we began, Qing stated, "For me, it's like two, beloved people just being together. They aren't saying anything... just being together." And that's what happened.

- a premiere of my four-hand transcription of Khatchaturian's "Sabre Dance." This was one of those performances in which the audience made all the difference. They laughed, cheered, applauded, and hollered with tremendous enthusiasm throughout the work, and Qing and I responded accordingly. Not only was it fun, but it was like riding a meteorite: exciting, dangerous, and memorable.

Thank you to my audience for making this performance so wonderful!

July 14th - Riverhead - "Phantoms of the Opera" Recital Series

2006-08-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Wow. My first performance blog. What do I say?

It was me versus a beautiful, 9-foot Steinway. The setting: a miniature opera hall out on Long Island. Outdoors, it was peaceful; indoors, I must say, I beat the poor instrument to a pulp, particularly in the virtuosic works by Ligeti and Liszt.

The first half of the program slowly descended into a world of chaos and terror. Inner turmoil became an outward struggle and finally an epic battle between evil and good. It climaxed with a harrowing vision of hell - "The Devil's Staircase" by the late Ligeti. Without pausing for applause, I made a difficult leap into a world of security, peace and forgiveness - heaven, if you will - and performed two transcriptions of music by Bach - "I call on Thee" and "Sheep May Safely Graze." I was afraid the jump would be difficult - both physically and mentally. I had practiced it many times, but the circumstances had never quite made for an effective transition. This time, however, I really think it worked. While playing the choral prelude ("I call on Thee"), I felt huge ... like I had transcended the small concert hall. It was one of the moments musicians thrive on.

There were a couple wrong notes in places, and I barely had enough steam to make it through the "Norma" fantasy. But overall, it was a very satisfying evening!

If you were in attendance, what did you think? Did you have a similar reaction?

Greg vs. Piano: A Performance Blog