I just played the last of the Classics of Childhood series for a small audience that included people who had never heard me perform. On the program was a selection of Minuets and Marches by J.S. Bach and C.P.E. Bach, pieces I know well but had not actually performed. It revealed a whole new aspect of what it feels like to improvise through the repeat of music that I had somehow been led to believe is cut and dried. As it turns out, no such animal! The improvisation teases are actually written into the compositions--tricky augmentations, ornaments turned written-out figures and vice versa. I had a wonderful time--more than a bit risky but completely fired.
Another risk taken: I played two Clementi Exercises, essentially scale studies in E minor and E major. The point of playing them was to expose their inventive rapport with the keyboard and the lyrical feel of the tonalities. I find these exercises brilliant when approached as organic to the hand, the ear, and the instrument rather than as recipes for turning all three into automatons.
Two hours after I finished the audience was still animatedly talking about all kinds of performance-related experiences: poetry, dance, music.
Thanks to those wonderful listeners I am in performer's heaven.
