Lesson 93 - New repertoire, Supplication by Ernest Bloch

Last week was spent on Deryn's carefully thought out lesson plans of the 2 octave arpeggios based on the circle of fifths. Recently, there has been this lingering dread that a plateau has been reached in learning the instrument. Fortunately, this absolute focus on one specific technique seems to be working for me and it feels like there is progress again.

Taking cue from this new knowledge, Deryn thought we start afresh; pick a new repertoire and focus intimately on studying the piece, how to approach it, learn the history of the piece, research different interpretations and how best to play it from the ground up - phrase by phrase, note by fingerings, bowings, accents and everything in between.

She looked to the official grade 6-7 exam syllabus and began picking a few pieces from the 3 lists; a couple of baroque melodies, a classical piece, a romantic sonata and one modern tune, playing through them very quickly - each of them wonderful in their own way. I picked 4 in order of preference and we finally settled on, "Supplication" by Ernest Bloch.

Soon we were playing chunks of bars, figuring out fingering and bowing for short phrases. Before the lesson ended, Deryn handed me her spare copy of the piece as an early Christmas present. "A rather manky spare" - in her own words :}



Supplication starts at 4:30