Park music

Eighteen-year-old Judy Park will perform a 45-minute piano concerto considered to be the most difficult piece in the piano repertoire

By Jennifer Clampet

The Times, May 3, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Jonathan House / The Times

MARATHON OF NOTES — Judy Park, a Tualatin High senior, practices her part in Sergei Rachmani-noff’s Third Piano Concerto during rehearsals last week with the Portland Youth Philharmonic at Glencoe Elementary School in Portland.

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As the Portland Youth Philharmonic performs, Judy Park is surrounded by a sea of violins, bows and arms all rising and falling in synch.

Park focuses on her sheet music, on conductor Mei-Ann Chen, on her own fingers hurriedly pounding out the notes on the piano and again on the sheet music.

From the dark and passionate notes Park plays with her left hand, her right hand is just as busily keeping pace with notes on the other end of the keyboard.

Last week, the entire gymnasium at Glencoe Elementary School in Portland was filled with thousands of notes played out for Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

The concerto – a 40- to 45-minute emotionally draining performance – is considered the most difficult concerto piece in the piano repertoire. Portland piano teacher Dorothy Fahlman, who has taught Park for the last nine years, refers to the piece as a marathon – a physically and mentally exhausting marathon of notes.

But as 18-year-old Park played, the thunder of the orchestra booming beside her, the 12-year veteran of the piano was focused, poised and confident.

And as the second movement came to an end, the musicians readied themselves for a collective and visible sigh as the entire orchestra jumped, and the last notes sounded.

Rachmaninoff, a Russian composer and pianist who lived from 1873 to 1943, was known for his intense feelings and emotions that transferred to his music. Rach 3 is described as a dark piece packed with notes.

“It’s not just a plain little melody. It’s like your stomach hurts, but you’re carrying on the day smiling. That’s what it’s like. There’s so many things going on (in the piece),” Fahlman said.

Rachmaninoff’s large hands, which were said to have each spanned 12 inches, enabled the composer to create a piece that requires most pianists to jump around the keys. Fahlman noted that very few concert pianists have Rach 3 in their repertoires.

“It’s intimidating to start out,” Park admitted of the piece that has taken over every waking minute the Tualatin High School senior has for practice since she chose the concerto for the PYP’s spring concert. The concert is set for May 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland. A free preview concert will be held at Pacific University in Forest Grove Wednesday May 9 at 7:30 p.m.

But Park isn’t nervous about her upcoming performances.

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