As I warmed up for my lesson yesterday, I managed to get through my Wohlfahrt etude that’s all sixteenth notes in 4/4 time at 120 bpm – allegro! I must say doing so felt like an accomplishment.

But allegro with an etude and allegro with real music are different things – even getting there in the Perpetual Motion I’ve been working on, itself a nonstop parade of sixteenth notes for two pages, will not be the accomplishment for me that playing my Vivaldi concerto movements at full tempo would be.  On my better days I can work the Perpetual Motion at 100 bpm.  I hate to say that on the sixteenth notes passages in the Vivaldi concerto movements I’m nowhere close yet.  And I’ve been playing them for a very long time!

Perpetual Motion is, however, marked presto not allegro – 140.  Yikes.

And while the first Vivaldi movement is marked allegro the second is Presto.

Oy.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan