Leaves
After a dainty little daisy of a month, due to low credit card spending, this one is a sunflower, a whale; a really heavy thing. This is totally and utterly to do with the expense added a few hours ago of a trip back to the UK, to visit family, friends and anyone else who might manage to insert themselves into my clustered itinerary. This time g is coming too, for fun, frolics and, errr, visiting (f and v basically have the same phonemic sound, so despite appearances that’s squinty alliteration). Scarily, it’s about 5 weeks distant from t equals right now, right this second.
It’s been ages since I was in London last, really. I can’t remember all the essentials of what to do. We’re also shoving off to Holland for a few days, but that’s a little less overwhelming. maybe. Until I realistically start thinking about it.
ANYWAY… something musical, something musical… what’s been happening in my all-encompassing little world of classical music today? Well, more Mahler, really. I keep forgetting to move the Gielen version of the 6th symphony onto my MP3 player, so I’m stuck with the more uptempo but less intense Bernstein version. Not that it’s bad or anything, but the slower pacing of the former fits my taste better.
Well horror of horrors, there I am innocently strolling into lab an hour after the appropriate time… and I almost find myself enjoying that romantic theme in the first movement. Almost. Of all my previous classical experiences, the getting into Mahler’s 6th business is most reminiscent of the same process for Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3. Both sounded far too Romanticy on initial listens, and both subtly slid themselves under my skin when I wasn’t really looking.
But, BEDTIME! I have another 9:00 meeting with my supervisor tomorrow morning, even though we spoke for two hours in the corridor this morning. She’s vocally insatiable.
Upcoming things to listen to music at
Today I am going for an unwieldy title award. What was really meant by all those unnecessary words is that we very excitingly got ourselves together and made seating reservations at the sparsely occurring concerts out here in the wilds. This season the line up features the Alban Berg quartet, playing Haydn, Berg and Beethoven. According to wikipedia they are disbanding this summer, so we’re lucky to be able to see them play. I have Beethoven’s Op. 132 playing right now, as a T-minus two-weekly warm-up. It’s probably the late quartet I know the least well.
The other concert I’m excited about is Camerata Nordica, who will be playing pieces by Webern, Wolf, Kreisler, and Beethoven; two of whom I’ve never heard of (and I bet you can’t guess which). They will supposedly be playing Beethoven’s op. 130 but with the Grosse Fugue ending, which is one of my absolute favorites.
I’m prepared for disappointment though. Last year I was pumped for a Shostakovich symphony, and then they changed it to — euugh — Rachmaninoff. Sacrilege!
Absenting
It’s been ages since I updated this. I think. Sort of. Sometimes, there are periods in which I just do not feel like listening to music, like my head is doing some kind of resetting operation: a bit of a vacation. This last week has been one of those periods, and it’s now coming to an end. What I have been doing instead is definitely not watching the superbowl. I haven’t been watching it all week, in fact. And especially not today. Instead me and g when skiing, on mostly empty (but somewhat icy) slopes. My dad was also in town so we got some visiting done, too.
On the musical side, Mahler is sneaking back in, and Shosty is poking me with his 4th symphony again. The other day at the gym I got very frustrated because it was right in the middle of the first movement, just when there is this crazy rising fugue, and I accidentally restarted the track. Aaaah! I spent the entire walk home trying to find that bloody bit, only to uncover it when I was about five snow-soaked steps from the front door. The speed at which my MP3 player fast-forwards leaves something to be desired. Especially when the track is about 30 minutes long.
Anyway, the music is seeping back into the many spaces in my mental environment, so there should be more frequent updates again. However right now I have to toddle off to bed in preparation for the horrific 08:40 o’ clock class tomorrow morning. Night!