My last few free days before starting work again. Boring, nine-to-five, clerical job again. Ok, not nine-to-five, maybe i should say eight-thirty-to-five-thirty. But who am I to complain? Spent so much during the long break that I used up all the salary I earned and even more. It wouldn't have been so bad, if only I could stop myself from giving in to the temptation of CDs. Haha it may be the disadvantage of working or something, but when I have more spending power I tend to buy more too. Isn't that a good excuse not to go back to work. Lol. But I guess I'm going to have to start saving up. Good that it's a nine-to-five job actually, so that I won't go out too often. When everyone starts school they'll all be too busy to go out anyway.

I played Szymanowski today after giving it the cold shoulder for many weeks. The motivation behind it? A nightmare about the concert! Hahaha last night I dreamt that suddenly everyone couldn't make it on any other day except 'tomorrow', so we had to push forward the concert to 'tomorrow'. And it was so freaky! I hadn't touched the piece for so long, I wasn't sure I could actually even play it from memory anymore, much less play it well! Lol but fortunately that isn't the case in reality. Of course it's the opposite, since Ben is still in Vienna, and I think Bernice is going on holiday soon. And we already decided to push back the concert by another week so that we can get more people to play in it.

I found that I could play it perfectly fine from memory, though I know that's not an assurance that I wouldn't get a memory lapse on the concert day. It always happens! I don't know why. I wish there was a way to work on that, or some guarantee that any breakdowns I get won't be from memory lapses. The funny thing that baffles me is that, somehow after not practising it for such a long time I actually play it better than previously, when I was struggling to practise the irritating left hand runs. Very surprisingly, the left hand runs came out smoothly today although I remember the last time I practised Szymanowski it was still in a big mess. Which is why I stopped playing it anyway, because I was too fed up to concentrate.

I also finally stopped procrastinating about the write-up about Szymanowski, for Michele. Crapped up something, but I think it seems quite short:

Szymanowski was born in Ukraine, to a family which had a deep interest in the arts. Due to a leg injury, his early education was at home, but he nevertheless had music lessons from a relative, Gustav Neuhaus. In 1901 he went to Warsaw to continue his musical studies, taking lessons in counterpoint and composition from the composer Zygmunt Noskowski, and harmony lessons from Marek Zawirski. The four Etudes, Op.4, come from relatively early in Szymanowski’s career. They show an overt debt to Chopin and Skryabin. The third etude is possibly the best known of all, owing much of its popularity to the advocacy of the pianist Paderewski.

Not too sure about spoken introductions, since most concerts just have printed programmes. But short and sweet is better than something long and hard for the audience to concentrate on right. Still have to rack my brains to think of something to say for the 'personal reflections on the piece' part. Think the idea is quite good, though actually I can't think of what to say about Szymanowski. Something about colourful harmony maybe... that's about the only thing I can come up with.

Oh ya, anyone please enlighten me on the difference between Skryabin and Scriabin? I think they are two different composers... but I'm so ignorant, I always thought 'Skryabin' was another spelling of 'Scriabin', until I saw both names in the same CD booklet.