Pretentious People

Pretentious People

Yesterday I had some delicious "Grühnkohl mit Mettwurst" (kale with smoked sausage) at the Weihnachtsmarkt next to Deutsche Staatsoper here in my hometown Berlin together with wonderful and beautiful soprano Annette Dasch who had just made her debut at La Scala.

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How long do you practice?

How long do you practice?

In average it's not so much, because with all the work besides playing the cello (making phonecalls, doing some correspondences, developing homepages, checking the sportresults, traveling) on certain days there is no time whatsoever, and sometimes I manage to sit down and practice six or seven hours. I guess my average is about three hours per day. As a student I had more time and just had to practice more...

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What is your favourite piece?
Music Music

What is your favourite piece?

When I was asked this question at some point during an interview I strangely enough named the d’Albert concerto. Objectively seen this is by far not the best nor the most beautiful piece of cello literature, but I was working on it at that time and it was the first piece shooting through my mind. The in my eyes most important cellist Mstislav Rostropovich answered the same question, as I found out later, with the explanation to my strange answer: he always likes the piece best he is playing in the moment - almost like an actor who ideally identifies with each role he is playing in such a way that he becomes the role; in order to give justice to any piece of music, we should at least in the moment of the performance feel it as our favorite piece. I see it as a defeat whenever I am being told after a concert that I played well but that the piece wasn’t good. In this case I have failed as a performer.

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Willkommen zu Alban's Blog

Willkommen zu Alban's Blog

Since a while I started thinking of starting my own blog in order to get some more feedback from fellow musicians or general audiences about the way I see, feel and understand music making, the music "scene" or business as well as general things in culture. I have no idea if there is a real interest for this, but I thought I'd check it out and see what happens...

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