I've spent the past several months working up (and doing seven performances of) "The Spanish Programme". Now it's time to move on to other pieces. Rather than tackling all-new material, I'm revisiting music I once had memorized but had set aside for one reason or another. Most often, because I was (a) tired of playing it and (b) more tired of playing it not-very-cleanly. LH accuracy has been a bugaboo for me for as long as I recall. Micro-rattles and buzzes, LH fingers not landing at precisely the same point every go-around. I truly do not understand how Pro Competition winners can manage this, repeatedly. The live on a different plane of existence. On the list now: HVL: Preludes & Choro Barrios: Estudio inconcluso, Minuet in C, Medallon antiguo, Gavota al estilo antigua Milan: Pavanas 2 & 3 Segovia/Tarrega: various transcriptions of Gluck, Schumann, Grieg, Franck, Handel, Bach, and yes -- Leyenda. Which I promise not to inflict on anyone here! And which I also refuse to call Asturias, which is a publisher's title never used by Albeniz.

I recorded this piece a few minutes ago. I wrote it for a friend. I’ve attached the score in case anyone is interested.

Hey everyone! Hope you had a good weekend. What are you all practicing this week? I am actually not practicing anything as I am enjoying a little break from concerts until November! In a few weeks I will be recording new videos of pieces I commissioned and releasing one each week over about the course of 2-3 months. So I am enjoying a little break and then will come back fresh with renewed enthusiasm and inspiration for the recordings 😊 Do any of you ever take scheduled breaks ?

I don't like Asturias / Leyenda. There, I said it. It's boring. (I hope I don't get booted from the list 🙂). I came back to the piece this week after 4 decades away, and it still doesn't grab me. Any other true confessions out there?

Here is the FIRST recording made of HVL's Etude #1. Note that he does not choose to play it like a runaway freight train. Carlevaro knew HVL directly, so it is safe to say this interpretation likely had some level of approval from the composer. https://youtu.be/Lro9v1dxZzE?si=sSYVOzL9ziU4NMY7&t=134 I've long thought that Segovia's 1949 London recording of the same piece did us all a huge disservice, because Segovia had a fantastic right hand agility. Consider his 1962 recording of the Aguado 'Lesson in A minor', which he knocks out in 29 seconds. Segovia's recording of HVL-1 set the mark for a speed test, rather than a musical experience. IMO this Etude sound just fine at a less aggressive pace. On this same YT: Barrios' "Las Abejas", and Castelnuovo-Tedesco's "Tarentella". None of these pieces are taken at anything near the tempi we associate with them nowadays.