Klarinet Archive - Posting 000968.txt from 1999/12

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Bad Gig Coming -- Suggestions Please
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 09:10:27 -0500

On Tue, 28 Dec 1999 17:37:50 -0800, kevinfay@-----.com said:

> OK, here's a wild one.
>
> I've been "volunteered" to play a short selection for a room full of
> lawyers in April. (Spare the jokes, please -- I've heard them all).
> It's my bosses' bosses' idea of corporate well-being and all sorts of
> other #@-----. Since I like having my job, I have to do
> this.
>
> Here's the problem -- what to play? I want something very light and
> hopefully short. The audience really isn't into chamber music (and
> I'm not really into playing for them). I was thinking the 3rd
> movement of the Poulenc Sonata, but it's too long and a bit atonal for
> this audience -- and the piano player, while a very fine paralegal, is
> not a great pianist.
>
> Any ideas?

A possibility would be the Howard Ferguson's charming 'Four Short
Pieces' -- I think only one movement is longer than a minute, and that
not by much. Easy piano part -- and I seem to remember noticing that
there's only *one* accidental in either part in the entire work, an F
natural in the key of G major, so nothing atonal *there*.

Baermann Adagio *and* one of the Joplin suggested by Lelia?

It's quite interesting, the idea of playing for such a specific
audience. I've done nuclear physicist, gynaecologists, and in fact,
once, ta-daa, the Law Society in London.

They were quite appreciative of the chamber music we played -- though I
had to do the Stravinsky 3 pieces, and thought to introduce it by
telling them how Stravinsky had written it for an amateur. "He must
have been a very good amateur though, because the pieces are quite
difficult even when you're being paid to play them!" I quipped.

But no-one laughed.

...hey, how about the Stravinsky, with a suitably modified introduction?
And see if you can get a laugh? And let us know?-)

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... "Bother", said Pooh, as he failed the dope test.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org