Bartók Bells (Emptying the Desk Drawer #10)

A quick post featuring festive bells to end 2025 - a year in which I had the most blog posts of any year since 2014. This is a perfect example of the kind of not-so-serious but fun multimedia I find myself creating on social media. In this case, I think it also provides a nice little window into how my mind works in these situations...for better or for worse.

I can, can't I? (But, should I?)

While prepping for a school Christmas concert about a month ago, I went to some notation files folders to find my own accompaniment arrangement for Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You," a song I was slated to play with a big group of enthusiastic 8th graders. As I looked through multiple versions, I was surprised to find one with a left hand which borrows from a big hit of the 19th century - although it didn't carry the idea very far.

The Quick Carol (Emptying the Desk Drawer #9)

Time for a little Christmas cleaning. I was looking for something else among the tens of thousands of files on my computer and came across this micro-project I barely remembered from 2020. Someone had posted the following "formula for a Christmas carol" meme:

eGriegious Behavior

This perhaps belongs in my "Emptying the Desk Drawer" series, except that the material here has not been sitting around cluttering the desk for long at all - and a surprising coincidence last night made the content seem a little more purposeful. This journey began when a friend mentioned in a group chat that Grieg's oft-played Holberg Suite for strings began its life as a suite of piano pieces, although the string version is much better known. I commented that I had written program notes (p.4 here) about this music once, and there I had discussed 1) the work's origin as a nod to older musical styles, and 2) Grieg's added second-piano parts to Mozart piano sonatas which put a late 19th-century spin on late 18th century style. We'll start with #2 and get back to #1 a little later.

Birthdays Across Three Centuries

This is a pretty straightforward post, inspired in the usual way. It began three days ago when a young pianist I was coaching in a chamber group announced that it was his eleventh birthday. The group is working on the very well-known and high-spirited Rondo all'Ongarese ("in the Hungarian style") from Haydn's Piano Trio in G Major, a work which features a tongue-twister of a main tune with which the pianist and violinist must contend throughout. (This newly eleven-year-old pianist has no fear and never seems to trip - although we're not close to the tempo in that linked Argerich performance.)