A few days ago I needed to put some rosin on my bow, but, the rosin had disappeared! How could it have vanished into thin air? My cello has been home for a few weeks...and the rosin was last seen in its normal resting place on my piano.
But aha! I put my thinking cap on...On New Year's Day I decided to put away the Christmas tree and decorations. I put our tree in my music room because it has doors that close, keeping curious kitties away from ornaments.
With that clue, I nagged my husband for a few days to take the boxes down from their storage spot in the garage (why couldn't I do that..don't know...think that it's a husband job to store things in our garage..) This morning he got the boxes, and after opening and pulling out decorations from carefully packed boxes, I found the rosin, hiding at the bottom of a box. Case solved!
I found the rosin just in time to play with my Saturday chamber group. We've been on a long break, and hopefully this will be the last week for piano trios. Our violist is finally healthy after multiple surgeries and is planning to start playing with us again next week. Our 1st violinist got to my house early, so we started by playing Romberg violin/cello duets. I was really happy that the intonation and shifting work I've been doing has really helped--my sound was cleaner than it's been. I was happy that we didn't play too long because my right thumb is pretty torn up and holding a bow is painful, even wrapped with a bandage. I've had to cut back practicing time because of the pain.
Once our other cellist arrived I switched to the piano and we started with Beethoven Piano Trio Op.1 No.l, and then read through Trio No2. No.2 sounded like it had a lot more influence from Haydn. The first trio was probably a student composition, but wow--genius from the beginning! We took a break from Beethoven and read Trio No.1 by Arensky, a romantic work with a really beautiful slow 3rd movement. The other movements were really rough for me...much faster and many more opportunities for me to screw up (with 10 fingers to make mistakes!). We finished our session with the Beethoven "Archduke" Piano Trio. Wow! That was more than enough for a day!
I've been practicing the piano part of the Brahms Piano Quintet in the hopes of playing it some day with a group...I've told both of my groups now that my goal is to play it with them...what I need is time and right configuration of musicians! Hopefully now that the new year has started we'll have more people show up. I don't have enough time to practice cello and piano...but the quintet is one of my favorite chamber music pieces and I've wanted to tackle the piano part for a long time (it is not very easy...)
2 comments:
I hate it when things disappear. I once lost my glasses in a storage tub in the attic, apparently while I was storing away winter blankets. I think they just fell off my face without my noticing. Later that day my husband was smart enough to look up there while I was in freak-out mode rantng about how I hate to lose things.
Glad you found your rosin.
Good luck with the Brahms.
Thanks Cellodonna! Yes, my husband once managed to lose the TV remote for 3 days. I finally found it buried in a pile of folded towels that were still sitting in the laundry basket waiting to be put away. but glasses! how annoying. Glad your husband found them!
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