Rainy Saturday with apple pie

What do one do in a rainy Saturday ? Of course, with youtube, DVDs, satellite TVs etc. that's a stupid question. Anyway, we were planning yesterday to go out for lunch at the beach, but obviously it had to be cancelled. So, Raquel my wife stayed and baked an apple pie. Just like any other conservative family (and then I am against the Republicans !), we stayed at home. Meanwhile Alicia Pirena, my daughter, asked me to teach her how to write music, so with nothing else to do we both did a short one, a bit more than 1-minute long. It is for 4-hands, and since the recipe of "Apfelstrudel" was there in the kitchen, she decided to call it .. well, Apfelstrudel.

Oh, by the way, about the Haiku which was "commissioned" by Alicia. I did 12 of them and decided that that's it. So, there are 12 Haiku for Alicia, ranging from 3 to 12 bars each. From very easy to moderately difficult. Maybe I'd do the same with Apfelstrudel ; I'll write a series of works for 4-hands, with 2 hands easier than the other ones. No commissions this time, not even 1 euro ! Any technical suggestions welcome, fellow pianists and piano teachers.

Alicia's first commission

I was deeply immersed writing my opera today when my daughter Alicia came and said "Daddy, I want to commission you a piano piece for me to play. I want my own piano piece". The commission fee : 1 euro. Well, I certainly cannot reject a commission of this importance. By a very important commissioner. And hopefully without being cut by tax this time.

So, I wrote a very short piece in just 5 bars for her. But then I thought, this could be the beginning of a series of "haiku" for piano. It would be fun to write those sketches, one every day, after finishing my main work, the opera. In fact, those haiku can be used as a material for some bigger pieces, each concentrating on a certain colour. Let's see if this is realistic and I'll have some really tiny "mikrokosmos" for piano, for my dearest Alicia to play.