Fearful Productivity

I have managed to slay many paperwork demons in the last two days. Hooray!

Yesterday's horn class with Roger Montgomery went well. It was a very standard sort of class, going through various extracts from the ballet and opera repertoire; the sort of thing that isn't in Probespiel.

Next week there will be a single F piston-valve horn and a Vienna horn, and we're going to go through various repertoire appropriate to those. I've said I'll work on the Dukas Villanelle and play it on the piston horn. This may have been foolish. I played through what I could remember of it this morning; the F fingerings did trip me up, but the fact that I haven't played the work for several years and don't always remember what key I'm in tripped me up more.

Brahms rehearsal on Tuesday went well, we got through the third movement and started on the final movement, and rehearsed the first two. It's several weeks since we had a chance to play together, so things were a little rusty in places, but overall I'm quite happy with how we're playing. We did a bit of jazz improv afterward, just for laughs. I'd like to do more of that, but it's another area where playing with people regularly is important, and it's hard enough trying to find rehearsal time already.

I'm still trying to find a pianist for the Reinecke trio. I'll be annoyed if we don't get to play it for lack of a willing pianist, but reality is like that. Perhaps I will have the chance to play it this summer at Charterhouse.