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Showing posts from January, 2014

Musical Interlude: New Improvisations, and a (very) little Beethoven

I'm pretty happy with a couple of recent piano improvisations I've recorded.  The most recent is an impressionistic improvisation reflecting on the life and death of Anne Frank.  I just finished rereading her memoirs (though it's the first time I'd read the "definitive edition," which is an expanded version of the one I'd read a decade or so ago) and a reflection at the piano felt appropriate.  What came out is pretty dramatic.  I can picture scenes from a movie to go with it--black and white, snippets from Anne Frank's life before going into hiding, a popular, charismatic schoolgirl; then going into hiding, a plaintive cry, but it doesn't overwhelm her; she keeps her vitality, but cannot ignore the threat outside; internal and external tensions build, then find sudden resolution in her romantic love for Peter, which extends to a joyful appreciation of nature; but it is ultimately unfulfilling and uncertainty ensues, leading to the chaos and panic