Sweet Dreams

Last week I had a dream about Prokofiev. Pathetic. I know. But I have good reason. The next day I was recording for my Paris audition, and one of my pieces was the Prokofiev Sonata (originally for flute, even though every narcissistic violinist will tell you otherwise. He wrote it for us... thieving violins.)

Let me tell you about this dream. Have you ever seen the Muppet's Christmas Carrol? Think of the Ghost of Christmas Future as presented in this movie. Remove creepy hood and replace with Cossack hat. Remove non-existent-face, replace with head of Prokofiev. Actually ditch the whole cape from the Ghost of Christmas Future. All I need is the aura. I remember being a little kid and being thoroughly terrified by this dude. Some how the way he glowered over poor Scrooge seemed so.... ominous. Okay, place me in the position of Scrooge and you have it about right. Prokofiev was standing over me, mocking me. Gloating over the fact that he had written something I didn't have the last hope of playing perfectly the next day. He looked so fiendishly happy.

So I showed him what was what. I recorded his sonata the next day, and sounded pretty darn good, if I might say so myself. Then I brought that sonata home and banished it to the deepest darkest corner of my music stash never to be seen again. I promised myself that I was finished with Prokofiev for a very very long time.

Famous. Last. Words.

Yesterday I trekked up to Dr. Clayton's office because I heard she had posted the orchestral excerpts for our mock audition day in March. All the standards were there: Debussy, Brahms, Ravel, Medelssohn, Beethoven. These I could handle (no pun intended... tee hee hee). Then in big black letters I saw it (sitting right next to Firebird Suite by Stravinsky, which is also impossible to play):

Prokofiev, Classical Symphony

HE"S FOLLOWING ME!!! I'M CONVINCED. I'll never get away as long as I live. So if you don't see me at all for the next month, and wonder if I have died/dropped off the face of the earth, just know, I'm in a practice room, slaving over what Prokofiev wrote, while he mocks me in my dreams.