Hail to Jennie and Forgotten Fairytales

Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, the Simple Romantic's April Episode of Unpolished Performances,  has been published in the iTunes store.  

Click on download the show from the iTunes store or just search on the phrase 'unpolished performances' if you already have iTunes up.

Click on the illustration above to be fully immersed

In a journey to fairytale land

I'm working on learning to play the first of the four pieces that make up Edward MacDowell's "Forgotten Fairytales". My current practice sessions involve the  two page piece called "Sung Outside the Prince's Door".

At this point, I'm working on developing some comfort with the first four measures. Sung Outside the Prince's Door is a lovely tune. I have no idea when I'll be able to play through even the first page, but it's a nice relaxing thing to do after a day of thinking about Objective-C's classes and objects.

I learned to play MacDowell's To a Wild Rose a couple of years ago. In fact it's the lead in piece I play for my iTunes store podcast, Unpolished Performances. I know I play it more slowly than it's usually performed. Still, I feel elegant and very turn-of-the-twentieth-century parcticing MacDowell on Jennie Strong's (my grandmother-in-law's) 1903 Chickering parlor grand piano. That lady died in the 1930's and her piano was a little lonely until we inherited it a couple of years ago. 

We have a lovely larger-than-lifesized photo of Jennie up in the dining room, on the other side of the wall from her piano. I hope that she enjoys listening to me working on MacDowell.  Very likely she played To a Wild Rose, as it was one of the most popular pieces in the country at the turn of that century. From all the heavily annotated music that turned up in her piano bench, it's clear she was a very regular piano practicer.

Thanks for a turn at your piano Jennie.

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Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, the Simple Romantic's April Episode of Unpolished Performances has been published in the iTunes store.  Click on download the show from the iTunes store or just search on the phrase 'unpolished performances' if you already have iTunes up.