Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Bloomin' oboe

I heard a recording of Robert Bloom playing the Reinecke Trio for horn, oboe and piano yesterday. I tried out my "record from radio" feature on my MP3 player for the first time--success!

That is one of my favourite chamber pieces. It's very fulfilling to play, though with a mildly disappointing final movement. The first three are great. I played it with my friend Jenny Wolfe (where are you out in the world?) for one of my master's recitals. I'd love to play the work again, now that I feel free of my hang-ups from way back then. I'm sure I'm not alone in this feeling.

I look back on recordings from recitals (seven college recitals in total!), and I'm not happy with any of them. Dave thinks I'm too hard on myself. If I made one mistake or blip, I don't want anybody to hear that recording. That pretty much rules out 100% of the pieces, as none of them were 100% perfect. Does that make me a perfectionist? Maybe. Insecure? Probably. Realistic?...well, I have two thoughts on this. Why would you submit a flawed recording for a job application? Probably not. You'd rerecord yourself and present yourself in a good light. The reality is that live performances are rarely perfect. I found it very easy to sit back and criticize the performers at the IDRS convention, but I was not up on stage with 200 oboists looking up at me. Pressure! We are human. We make mistakes. It is one of those things I need to get past. Still, it's hard for me to listen to myself play.

All that being said, Robert Bloom miscounted during one held note in the Reinecke (it was a live recording of a festival in...I want to say 1967, but I might be making that up). I would still buy that recording. He still sounded amazing. What does that tell you?

1 comment:

Patty said...

You wrote: Does that make me a perfectionist? Maybe. Insecure? Probably. Realistic?...

Hah! I think it makes you an oboe player! ;-)