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And so, on the day I received confirmation of my Diploma recital date (16th April, at Trinity College in Greenwich, where I took my ATCL), I gave a lunchtime recital at the NPL Musical Society (NPL MS), at Bushy House on the National Physical Laboratory campus in Teddington.

When I booked the concert, it was intended to be the “dress rehearsal” for the actual Diploma recital, for me and my page turner. I have played at the NPL MS before (with a violinist), and have attended a number of concerts there, all of which have been most enjoyable with high-quality programmes and performers. The audience, mostly NPL staff and former staff, is very supportive and friendly, and the society has a rather nice 100 year old medium-sized Steinway.

By the time I’d got dressed up, put my lipstick on, applied some “lucky perfume” (Jo Malone ‘Red Roses’), and warmed up on the piano, it stopped feeling like a dress rehearsal and began to feel like a real occasion, a ‘proper’ concert, the programme chosen entirely by me, without consultation with teacher or mentor, the notes written by me (a requirement for the Diploma): it was ‘my’ concert.

For all three levels of Diploma – ATCL, LTCL and FTCL (and the equivalent Diplomas with other exam boards such as DipABRSM and LRSM) – the candidate is required to give a recital lasting between 35 and 50 minutes, depending on the level of diploma. The material should be prepared to a very high standard (from LTCL on, the exam criteria state “to a professional standard”) and one should display musicality, technical assuredness, understanding of the composer’s intentions and an ability to convey these to the audience, communication skills, and stagecraft. Doing a “dry run” concert, either at home to friends, or in a more formal setting, is invaluable – not so much to flag up errors or inconsistencies (there were very few in my concert, I’m glad to say), but more to check the flow/energy of the programme and to hear how it all fits together. There is always a heightened sense of tension when one plays before an audience, whatever the venue, which can be extremely useful not just in learning how to cope with performance anxiety but also drawing on the release of adrenaline to help one raise one’s game and play better. I have to admit I was so excited about the concert (coming as it did the day after an extremely positive session with my teacher) that I couldn’t sleep the night before.

On the whole, I was extremely pleased with my performance. Rather than slog through the ‘Presto’ of the Bach Concerto (which is still in need of some housekeeping), I skipped the repeats, and no one was any the wiser. The Takemitsu was super on a bigger piano, and I deliberately allowed more “stasis” in the music, a sense of repose and waiting in the rests and silences. The turner missed the second turn, and even tried to take the music away (!) when he realised his mistake: he admitted to me afterwards that he had got rather caught up in the mood of the piece, which I suppose should be seen as a sign of my ability to “communicate”! A couple of things to fix in the Mozart, but nothing serious. And so to the Liszt, the big virtuosic piece of the programme……well, when someone came up to me afterwards and said “the Liszt was particularly haunting” I felt I’d really achieved something with that piece.

Other useful factors? The piano had some “squeaky” keys, but I simply ignored these. At one o’clock someone’s watch alarm went off, and was not immediately silenced (a capital offence at the Wigmore Hall!), but although I was aware of it, it didn’t throw me. Rustling programmes, someone coughing, the general ambient sounds of people and the park outside the window, all entered my peripheral consciousness but did not distract me from the task in hand. All good signs – I have worked very hard on my concentration (in particular using techniques in The Inner Game of Music and The Musician’s Way).

So, with exactly three weeks to go to the exam, I feel focused and excited. Of course, having been there and done it once before helps enormously because I know what to expect, but this Diploma is a big step up from the previous one (it’s the equivalent of 3-4 years in Conservatoire) and requires a greater level of commitment. I think I’m ready for the challenge.

An earlier article I wrote on the value of performing

Now in its 62nd season, the NPL Musical Society hosts regular concerts throughout the year with a wide variety of performers and programmes. Concerts take place in The Scientific Museum in Bushy House, an elegant 18th century house overlooking Bushy Park.For further information please contact Stephen Lea (stephen.lea@npl.co.uk)

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This morning I had a lesson with my teacher, the last one before my Diploma exam, and I played the entire programme to her (I felt ever so slightly daunted to arrive at her house in north London and find her Blüthner grand with its lid up). This was a very useful exercise and one I would recommend to anyone who is preparing for an important exam, diploma, festival, competition or recital. It’s not the same as simply playing the programme through to family or friends: knowing one’s teacher’s critical ears are listening carefully makes one especially alert, and forces one to raise one’s game. Fortunately, I didn’t feel I was coming into the lesson completely cold, as ten days ago I played the programme through to a colleague, who is both a busy concert pianist and a skilled teacher. The intervening days between that play through and today’s gave me time to attend to various suggestions.

My teacher commented before I started that my programme is “big” (it lasts just under 40 minutes), but the strange thing is that having played it through in its entirety several times now, it doesn’t feel big to me. I used to worry that I would feel tired by the time I got to the last two pieces (two of Rachmaninov’s Op 33 Études-Tableaux) but today I felt I had enough energy left to see the pieces successfully through to the very last note – and I wasn’t holding back today either.

I was pleased that I was able to hold everything together, without any serious lapses of concentration or focus. I clocked a number of errors or places where some adjustments were needed, but these didn’t throw me or interrupt the flow. Personally, I was very pleased with the Takemitsu (my favourite piece in the programme) and the Mozart (second favourite!). My teacher’s comments were largely details concerning quality of sound (some of my fortes were too strident) or rhythmic issues – the sort of things an examiner is likely to pick up. There were one or two stylistic issues (flow in the LH of the G minor Étude-Tableau, for example), but overall I received plenty of positive feedback, and my teacher finished the lesson by saying “I think you deserve to do really well”.

So, with three weeks to go until the exam (I think – I’m still waiting for a confirmed date), there’s still plenty to do finessing and housekeeping my pieces, attending to the little details which could make the difference between a pass and a good pass, or a good pass and a distinction. It would be very easy to rest on my laurels at this point, but I want to go into the exam with everything as secure as possible. This is also one of the best insurance policies against performance anxiety, and lends a positive frame of mind to every performance I will give before the actual diploma recital.

Tomorrow is the “dress rehearsal”, a concert for my local music society and a chance for me and my page turner to check that we are working together as a slick team. The audience tomorrow will be friendly and supportive (a number of my friends will be attending) so I hope the experience will be positive and enjoyable.

And now, I really should be practising……

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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?

We got a piano in our house when I was about 6 because it had belonged to my grandfather but he developed arthritis and so didn’t play any more. After that, it was quite hard to get me to stop playing it.

Who or what are the most important influences on your playing?

The music I play and my teachers Sulamita Aronovsky and Denis Matthews, also the pianists listed below I suppose.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

Following the conductor Chris Austin when recording Morgan Hayes’ Slippage for piano and ensemble – there are loads of time signature changes, and fortunately he was very clear and patient with me; memorising Albeniz’s Iberia, playing Sorabji’s 7-hour Sequentia cyclica, playing all of Scriabin’s sonatas in one concert (I did that a few times) …

What are the particular challenges/excitements of working with an orchestra/ensemble?

Making sure the conductor doesn’t go to fast and gives me plenty of space to shape phrases

Which recordings are you most proud of?

The first ever CD of music by Alexander Goldenweiser who taught my teacher … some pieces called Dainas by Latvian composer Jānis Mediņš, a disc of music by Felix Blumenfeld, and the live recordings from the Husum Festival (proof that I occasionally actually play OK concerts)

Do you have a favourite concert venue?

In the UK I like the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford quite a lot. Recently I turned up in Elizavetgrad in central Ukraine to play Szymanowski (he was born very near there) and got to play on a really nice new and big Bechstein (perfect for this music) in an excellent hall … a nice surprise.

Who are your favourite musicians?

Richter, Delarocha, Feinberg (Samuil), Bolet, Sofronitsky, Petri, Yudina, Enescu

What is your most memorable concert experience?

There are a few: first concerts in Moscow Conservatoire, Helsinki Opera House, NYC Kaufman, Montpellier Festival Radio France … and the small places like the Neuhaus Museum in Kirovograd, the Čiurlionis House in Druskininkai where the audience sits in the garden, Goldenweiser’s flat in Moscow on Tverskaya where there were a scary number of pianists in the audience … playing Elgar in the Philarmonia in Kyiv.

What is your favourite music to play? To listen to?

Often it’s Russian music of the early 20th century – I like listening to orchestral music, especially if I’ve been playing the piano all day long, but have quite broad taste that includes lots of jazz, soul and Brazilian music as well.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians/students?

Be curious, listen hard and stick to your guns.

What are you working on at the moment?

Radulescu 2nd Sonata, Aperghis A Tombeau ouvert, Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto, Alkan Concerto for solo piano

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

At home with my family

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Walking in the mountains with my wife and son

What do you enjoy doing most?

Cooking for my family, walking and sleeping

Jonathan Powell is a pianist and composer. After studies with Denis Matthews and Sulamita Aronovsky, he established an international career as a soloist, his programmes ranging from standard Classical and Romantic repertoire to contemporary and little-known 20th century works. He has performed widely in Europe, as well as in Russia and the US; he has also appeared on national radio of many countries and recorded about 20 CDs.

Over the last decade, concert work has taken him to New York, the Musica Nova Festival in Helsinki, the Festival Radio France et Montpellier, Festival de Chaillol (Hautes-Alpes France), the Raritäten der Klaviermusik am Schloss vor Husum, the Reggello Festival (Italy), Vredenburg Muziekcentrum in Utrecht, De Toonzaal in ‘S Hertogenbosch, Gigant in Apeldoorn, and concerts in the Conservatoire and Russian Academy of Music in Moscow, and the Sheremetevsky Palace (St Petersburg), in the Altes Rathaus, Vienna (at the invitation of the Joseph Marx Society) and in masterclass and concert tours of Denmark. In the UK, his concerts have taken him to venues ranging from the Royal Festival Hall to university departments and local town halls.

He has recently appeared in many concert halls in Eastern Europe: since October 2010 he has undertook tours in Slovakia, the Czech Republic (including a residency at the Janacek Academy in Brno), Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania, performing repertoire ranging from John Field and Chopin, to contemporary music.

Powell has worked with many of today’s most prominent composers such as Ambrosini, Finnissy and Staud. As well as giving UK premières of pieces by Sciarrino, Feldman and Salonen, he has commissioned many new works.

Powell is a self-taught composer – he has recorded several of his own works for BBC broadcasts and has received performances by the London Sinfonietta, the Arditti Quartet, Valdine Anderson, Sarah Leonard, Darragh Morgan and Nicolas Hodges among others. His articles on many aspects of Russian music appear in the New Grove Dictionary of Music; his articles have been published by International Piano and the Finnish musicological journal Musiikki-lehti. He recently contributed to a book on the pianist-composer Samuil Feinberg, and co-edited the publication Rimsky-Korsakov and his Heritage.

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When I was in the final throes of preparation for my ATCL Diploma in December 2011, my piano teacher gave me some very useful advice. “Try and remember what excited you about the pieces in the first place and what you like about them”. (Here’s what I wrote about the previous programme.) When one is preparing for a big exam, competition or recital/recital series, and one has been living with and working on the same repertoire for a long time (nearly 18 months in the case of some of my pieces), there is a terrible danger of growing bored with the music, or overworking it to such a degree that it starts to go stale. My students find it hard to grasp the concept of “over-practising”, which suggests to me that none of them do enough practising in the first place (!), though a couple have complained of this issue in recent weeks, with their exams coming up very soon. When one goes into the recital room on exam or concert day, it is important to have something extra to give, to add an edge to the pieces and to make them appear fresh, created anew for the audience or adjudicator.

When I was playing to a friend/colleague on Friday, I recalled over and over again, when we were discussing the pieces, why I like each and every one of them, and why, after such a long period getting to know them and immersing myself in their individual characters and intricacies, I still love them.

Bach – Concerto in D minor after Marcello BWV974

I’ve always loved Bach, from the time when I first encountered his music as a young piano student in the Two- and Three-Part Inventions, through the “48” to the Partitas for keyboard and Concerti for solo keyboard.  I was immediately struck by the beautiful serenity of the slow movement of this concerto, bookended by the upright and rhetorical opening movement and the joyous (despite its minor key) dancing Presto final movement. This has been a satisfying and absorbing piece to learn, and the one with which I always begin my practising, almost without fail. I love the way Bach retains some of the orchestral elements of the original concerto by Marcello, particularly in the first movement, and combines these with aspects – ornamentation, texture – which demonstrate the possibilities, both technically and emotionally, of the harpsichord (or piano).  I have written more extensively about this Concerto in a separate post).

Takemitsu – Rain Tree Sketch II

I wanted to include some 20th century music in my programme, for the sake of contrast, and I originally started learning one of Messiaen’s Preludes (the ‘Chant d’extase dans un paysage triste’/Song of Ecstasy in a Sad Landscape), but realised it would be a very long and challenging learning process. When I first heard the Rain Tree Sketches, I fell in love with the Debussyan and Messaienic references, the musical colours and meditative soundscape. I will learn the first Rain Tree Sketch in the near future. More about Takemitsu here.

Mozart – Rondo in A minor K 511

I first came across this late piano work in a concert given by Robert Levin with the OAE in 2007. I love its plaintive melancholy and the way it presents, in microcosm, almost every aspect of Mozart’s music from grand operatic statements and beautiful arias to string quartet articulation and Baroque references. I have been learning this work, on and off, for five years, and each time I come back to it, I find more things in it. It is one of the most difficult pieces I have ever learnt – not the notes which are relatively straightforward, but the shaping and the profound emotional content of this music.

Liszt – Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

I learnt the ‘Sonetto 123’ for my ATCL. It was my first serious foray into Liszt’s music, and I am so glad I took the plunge to start exploring his piano music. The three ‘Petrarch Sonnets’ come from the second year of the Années del pèlerinage (more here), and this is the most virtuosic and dramatic of the three. I felt it was important to have one big romantic work in the programme and I decided to steer clear of the obvious pieces, such as one of Chopin’s Ballades. I love the sweeping romanticism of this piece, its rapid changes of mood, and striking harmonic shifts.

Rachmaninov – Études-Tableaux in E flat and G minor, Op 33

I had never seriously learnt any Rachmaninov until I picked up these pieces. I had an idea that Rachmaninov’s Études were easier than Chopin’s (I was wrong!), and I felt it was better, once again, to steer clear of the more obvious choices such as two of Chopin’s Études, or the Opus 39 Études-Tableaux, which are more well known.. I like the Slavic flavour of these works, in particular the open fifths in the arpeggiated figure in the moody, elegaic G minor Étude-Tableau. (I have written more extensively on these pieces – here)