Leoš Janáček: Sonata , 2nd Mov. (“The Death“)

Recorded on December 15th, 2023. Learned and refined in 30 minutes? Idk, it’s pretty close to sight-reading, but that’s not the point. The point is, regardless of how little time I spend on things, I can capture the immense emotional nuance of the music and make you feel a lot of things. That’s the whole point of music. If you just learn pieces solely to play them fast and show off how technically proficient you are, idk what to say, you’re just wasting your life and its potential. I can sight-read stuff for hours and not be mentally exhausted because I can instantaneously pick up on the characterization of the music even upon sight-reading or never having heard the piece, and that allows me to enjoy everything that I play at all times. For example, I sight-read “Carnaval, Op.9“ by Schumann (the entire thing) today mostly at full speed (among many other pieces), and it was very easy to interpret relative to most pieces that I play. I really like the piece even though it has the form of theme and variations and even if it’s quite shallow, but at least it’s far far more enjoyable than playing anything by Liszt or Alkan. (And before you complain, I used to play a ton of pieces by Liszt when I was a pre-teen, having liked it and listened to it all the time at the time.) It should be obvious by now I’m very stringent about the pieces I choose to play and record, so I hope you can understand why I chose this piece (and this tempo). That being said, I’d like to say this interpretation was inspired by few things: - Opera, which I’ve come to love recently (not all, but some that meet very specific filters I have) which surprisingly follows very smoothly after working through and recording 5 of the fugues of Opus Clavicembalisticum. This entire sonata has many voice-like elements to it, and the way I’m shaping phrases and tone is reflective of certain traits only achievable by voice. - The fugues of Opus Clavicembalisticum and Baroque-era music. The differences due to this influence is extremely subtle (and I won’t describe what it is), but it’ll make this performance sound ever slightly different (in a good way) compared to other performances. - Some technicalities in the theory of audio processing [DISCLAIMER] If you’re unfamiliar with this style of music, it is suggested that you go through the description of this previous video for the necessary background: All movements from Opus Clavicembalisticum I’ve recorded: All works by Sorabji I’ve recorded: At time of recording, Eric is a full-time software engineer working in Big Tech, graduated from the University of Waterloo, Computer Science major. @musicforever60_official on IG: #piano #music #classicalmusic