Those eleven minutes of terror happened in tonight’s First Mondays concert, “La camera y la chiesa,” in which violinist Darel Stark and I played the “Violin Sonata in G minor” by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. I’m not even sure I took a breath during that work!
The piece begins at about 33 minutes and 26 seconds into the video which follows. Of course you’re free to listen to the whole concert, so here it is. (Please forgive some of the background noise which was coming from folks at an AA meeting in the courtyard!)
Kudos and thanks also to Alex Hayashi (oboe) and Aris Doike (cello) for some amazing playing tonight.
I can’t even guess how many 16th notes I played tonight in this piece. My Spanish tutor, Cindy Scheinert, described it as a giant snowball rolling down the mountain, each second growing bigger and moving faster and faster! And in front of the snowball, I was running and running, trying to avoid the giant snowball (named Darel Stark!) Haha! (or in Spanish, jaja!)
Darel Stark, violinist, was of course amazing. I liked Bill Potter’s comment after this piece, “Hurray, Kathy, for all those notes!” I’m just tremendously relieved that the performance went well, although I hit a couple of wrong notes. Hey, it was going so fast, you probably didn’t notice!
You might also enjoy the two-organ version of Henry Purcell’s “Sonata No. 1 (1697)”, in which Scott Fikse and I teamed up. I can’t tell you how fun it is to play organ duets, and we’re so fortunate that there are two pipe organs in the church to do so.
Here are some other comments we received tonight:
Congratulations on a beautifully balanced and varied program. Fine performances all round. My personal favorite was the CPE Bach Violin Sonata – exciting music, brilliantly played with wonderful balance and interplay between the instruments. Thanks for making the light shine on a Monday evening!
(Ian Capps and Jeannette Johnson)
Yay, Scott and Kathy! (Cathy Baptista)
Thank you to these beautifully gifted artists for brightening our souls this evening. Outstanding, Darel and Kathy! (Linda Muller)
Well done. Thank you (Karl Bachman)
We have world-class artists performing timeless, beautiful music! Kudos to Scott for making it happen. (Jeannette Johnson)
Wonderful! (Randy Castello)
Absolutely beautiful! (Maria Au Hoy)
So beautiful (Janice Fikse)
Hi Kathy, saw the concert last night, and enjoyed every single one of those 16th notes, from all players. Thanks for the effort you are willing to expend to bring us this music.it’s always a treat and a gift.xo, Carol Langner
Thank you, Scott, for inviting us to play, even if I had to learn thousands of sixteenth notes! (And endure 11 minutes of terror!)
Tomorrow I’m off to Kauai to teach my monthly organ lesson. I surely will have trouble getting to sleep tonight with all those sixteenth notes floating around in my head!