Robert Bekkers, who gave the inaugural concert of this new concert series, walked into the church and shook hands with them. He and Jeremy Cohen, founder and leader of QSF, had corresponded by e-mail after my introduction. One member of my ukulele pluck ensemble had told me about QSF, and after watching their videos, I was hooked.
It began with a piano in London and ended with a string quartet in Boston.
It’s 8 am in London. My next door neighbor starts practising promptly. I have only met his wife who explained yesterday that he had a concert that evening. They moved into this neighborhood, what, 4 ? 5 years ago. Yet I never bothered to get to know them because one of them smokes, perhaps even both, albeit outside. The cigarette smoke drifts into my garden. And for that, I did not bother to get to meet, much less, know this virtuoso Russian concert pianist.
As the “Flight of the Bumble Bee” wears on, I find myself as the beneficiary of live background music. Ten years ago, I housed a young pianist who practised this exact piece every day while I made my move to the Netherlands. I could only imagine what my neighbors experienced through the brick walls.
Just last week, I unpacked my suitcase to the live background music of the classical guitar — Robert practising for his 3 gigs.
The third guitar concert culminated in Mauro Giuliani’s Theme & Variations. It was a piece I knew like the back of my hand. We went through it many times, the guitar struggling to be heard, the piano unresponsive and unsympathetic. After many years of tug and war, I finally relented.
The guitar cannot sound well if the guitarist has to force it to sound louder than the grand piano. Although it is absolutely possible, as Amsterdam-based composer Allan Segall proved in his first piece for piano and guitar, in most other cases the guitar has to struggle and the piano has to give in. The traditional way in which the duo is written assumes the piano is a fortepiano or some other subservient predecessor of today’s modern piano.
So Robert upgraded to a “concert guitar” — built to match the concert grand piano.
But I still had work to do. I had to constantly adjust to the volume and quality of the guitar sound.
There in Williams Hall at the New England Conservatory, on Tuesday 8th May, at approximately 9 pm, Robert performed Giuliani’s work with a string quartet. The four string players, by sheer nature of their instruments, brought out infinitely more color and texture than I could produce with 88 keys. Each of their four strings was a different instrument. They had the bows to help produce sound at different parts of the strings. They could pull, pluck, strum, hit, and more.
I sat back, resigned to my fate.
I had been replaced by a string quartet.
In the simplest case, my right hand was replaced by two violins and the left hand by the viola and cello. Thinking like this, every piano guitar duo piece can result in guitar and a string quartet or wind quartet or other combinations.
My eyes moistened as I thought of the years of preparation that led to this day. The guitarist can go on — playing solo with other instruments.
The pianist?
I’ve sold my Gerhard Adam grand piano in this Victorian cottage where I experimented with chamber music, house concerts, and eventually decided to pursue a degree in music. My Steinway Grand is sitting in a piano shop in Zeist, the Netherlands, waiting to be noticed, tried, and bought.
And I?
I have returned to where it all began. No piano. No audience. No house concert, but neighbor to a concert pianist who practises all day long.
Dutch guitarist Robert Bekkers gives his first concert since arriving in Boston in August 2011. The concert on 1st September 2011 features mainly solo guitar works and vocal works of Scarlatti, Cesti, and Bellini with counter tenor Yakov Zamir at the St John’s Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plains.
Dutch guitarist Robert Bekkers will give his first concert since arriving in Boston on 24th August 2011, to study full-time with maestro Eliot Fisk at the New England Conservatory.
On Thursday 1st September 2011 at 8 pm, the public is invited to a concert of largely solo guitar works and several songs with guitar accompaniment. It’s the first time that Robert Bekkers will collaborate with counter tenor Yakov Zamir, an authority on the vocal works of Franz Liszt. The combination of counter tenor and classical guitar is very unique. They will perform vocal works of Cesti, Scarlatti, and Bellini.
The solo guitar works had earlier received a welcome reception in the Hague, Netherlands, at the Grote Kerk on 7th August 2011.
The audience is invited to socialise with the artists after the concert. Visit the JP Concerts website for information about the performers.
Revisiting Mark Francis second guitar concerto, original version for guitar and orchestra vs orchestral reduction for piano and guitar premiered in Amsterdam on 17th July 2011 at a private birthday concert.
The positive reaction to our premiere of Mark Francis’ new work in Amsterdam led me to revisit the score.
Piano part from 1st movement of 2nd Guitar Concerto by Mark Francis
Subtitled “In Somnis Verita” which means “in dreams there is truth,” the 2nd guitar concerto contains three movements albeit the composer had originally conceived of five. He wrote in the programme notes for the orchestral premiere in Jackson, Mississippi, “It is my belief that many people refuse to acknowledge what is true when they are conscious, but can’t escape from what they know to be true in their subconscious when sleeping. These things manifest themselves in dreams. Our subconscious will cobble things together in all kinds of strange scenarios. The music tries to depict these cobblings.”
A few days after the concert, I listened to the live recording of the orchestral premiere. I saw the piece come to life —- what the piano could not fully muster.
Guitar Concerto No. 2 by Mark Francis
We had performed the first movement faster than the composer had intended (quarter note = 72). After the concert, we read Mark Francis’ programme notes, “The tempo of the first movement is slow, which sets the stage as our ‘dreamer’ drifts off to sleep and begins to dream. The opening triplet motif represents breathing. These are gentle dreams filled with longing and nostalgia. This movement is set in a kind of arch form.”
Guitar part to 1st movement of 2nd Guitar Concerto by Mark Francis
Who is the composer, Mark Francis? He is a guitarist. He knows how to write music that guitarists like to play. That is very important. He wrote the second concerto specifically for guitarist Jimmy Turner, music director Wayne Linehan and the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra in Jackson, Mississippi.
How did we discover Mark Francis? None other than my Call for Scores for multi-hand piano duets! He submitted two pieces which I will mention in a future blog post. Noticing that I had a piano guitar duo, he asked if we’d be interested to see his new concerto — reduced for piano and guitar. That’s how it started. Now I am even more curious about his first concerto and other works.
Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo, birthday concert in Amsterdam. Photo: FCAP
To get performers to want your music before they even get together to play it — that is the true calling of a composer.
Since my last blog post of 24th April — after a great day of giving the Easter Sunday lunch concert, I stopped writing. Why? I had a car accident that very evening.
I had wanted to write about the choral concert of 30th April and the silent auction, the 42 new multi-hand piano duets I had received from 30 composers, my visit to George Kahumoku’s farm in Maui, and more…. and my upcoming travels to meet musicians in San Francisco, Denver, New York, and beyond. I will have to catch up during my 2 weeks of traveling.
Meanwhile, something can’t wait.
Tonight I received an mp3 of part 2 of a new piano guitar duo piece by the Honolulu-based composer John Carollo, who has also submitted a multi-hand duet to the sightreading piano soiree in San Francisco 15th May 2011. It is absolutely addictive to listen to, and I’m sure, even more addictive to play it.
When I first received it a few weeks ago, I complained that it was too short. Carollo made it a bit longer. I complained again. Minimalist music deserves an extended play. I actually confessed, “I hate to say it —- but I dig this music.”
It will be another 2 weeks before I get together with Robert Bekkers to try the 5-movement piano guitar duo. I can only imagine how the guitar part sounds as I play the piano part.
Robert Bekkers, guitarist, prepares his three week solo concert tour of Boston to Phoenix in February.
Five hours before Dutch guitarist Robert Bekkers boards the airplane for his trans-Pacific and coast-to-coast red-eye (overnight) flight from Maui to Boston, he finishes a hearty meal at the cafeteria of Maui College famous for its award-winning Culinary Academy. Every Monday to Thursday between 11 am and 1 pm, Paina Meals at $5 a plate are served. Today he chose the more expensive $7.90 swordfish with purple potato as a send-off meal. He knows that there will be NO complimentary meals served on Hawaiian Airlines and Delta Airlines for the long journey.
Guitarist Robert Bekkers at Maui College in Hawaii
An e-mail from the concert host in Wells, Maine brings a reality check:
“As the day draws near, I’m praying for NO MORE SNOW! We’ve had so much with more expected, and I’m concerned about parking. There is just no more room to push the mountains of snow that have accumulated around the driveway.”
That concert of “Guitar meets Piano” will take place on Sunday 13th February, a day of travel for Robert Bekkers on the Boston T-line and the Amtrak. Before then, he will have given two house concerts in Boston. Valentine’s Day on Monday 14th February will be another day of travel, by Amtrak from Wells, Maine to Boston and then the Peter Pan coach to Manhattan.
What he brings to these concert hosts and their guests are three new CDs he produced in Maui: a solo guitar album and two live recordings of his Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo concerts in Maui and at Duke University. He hopes and expects the sale of these CDs to support this 3 week tour of Boston, Wells, Pelham, Houston, and Phoenix.
