Musical Notes and Thoughts

This Friday, December 8 will be my first serious music performance in just over a decade, and my first attempt at a full formal recital in probably about 12 years.

I did a run through tonight, and as expected, it won’t be perfect, but by God’s grace should still be very good. The encouraging thing is that I thought I had about 105 minutes maximum recital length, and I’m probably closer to 130 minutes when everything that takes place in a rectal is considered. I’ll be aiming for a total program length of about 90 minutes or so, including an intermission.

This doesn’t include a Celtic Sonata I wrote some time back but haven’t started to learn yet, as well as the Schumann “Folk Song Suite” (first four movements), although that cannot be done with an accompaniment track as it is too intricate and difficult for that. I’d like to give the fifth movement of it another go, now that I have a much better double-bass. We’ll see. There are other pieces to potentially add as well; again we’ll see, though the last movement of Bach’s Third Unaccompanied Cello Suite is almost a must-add, and very long-term maybe the whole suite? After all, if I’m seeking to glorify God through my playing, it makes sense to play some music by someone who sought to glorify God through his writing.

Anyway, I’m curious to see what God will do. Obviously, I do want to play well, but it is more important that people recognize something of Jesus Christ through my playing, that the Spirit behind what I’m seeking to do is different from that which the world embraces. Again, we’ll see what happens, and after some reflection, I will post some follow-up comments.