The Beethoven Project: String Quartet No. 3 - Op 18, D Maj

 I'm still in Op 18, moving along to the third string quartet, which is actually the first one that Beethoven wrote.  He just liked mixing up the numbers, I guess.  Anyway, I'm actually fairly familiar with this one for some reason.  A few years ago I bought a recording of a complete set of Beethoven's string quartets, and this one stuck with me.  It sounds very Classical, and now that I know it was the first he wrote, knowing how he was trying to study Mozart and Haydn in learning how to write string quartets, I can definitely hear that it's early.  It doesn't have the same kind of emotion that his later works do, though that's not to say it's completely formulaic.  Just lacks some of the intensity of later Beethoven.

I think my favorite movement is actually the finale, which just sounds so joyous, and has so much going on that you need to listen very carefully, multiple times, to make sure you hear it all.  (On a personal note, it also makes my baby girl kick more than any of the other movements, which I quite like.)

Apparently this one - Number 3 (really the first, though) and Numbers 1 and 2 were part of a set that Beethoven composed and Prince Lobkowitz paid him 200 florins for the set in October 1799  He revised them before publication, writing an entirely new slow movement for Number 2.  In 2001 a professor at the University of Manchester reconstructed the slow movement using surviving detailed sketches, and performed it in a concert. 

I was curious as to how much 200 florins actually would buy you, and found this site about music in Vienna which gives a rough conversion: http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/v/vienna.aspx.  In 1783 a young Beethoven was paid 63 florins on a trip to Rotterdam, which they said had similar buying power to about US$2000 in 2007.  So 200 florins was a little more than 3 times that, plus it was almost 20 years later, so maybe it was worth about $7000 in today's money?  Not a lot for a masterpiece.

I like this review on earsense.org: http://www.earsense.org/blog/?p=233

Also the Elias String Quartet have lots of reviews and background notes in their Beethoven Project pages: http://thebeethovenproject.com/exploring-beethovens-quartets-barry-cooper-writes-about-op-183-op-95-and-op-130/

An acupuncture interlude

I'm really trying to get into the habit of blogging every day again.  On my old blog, I would go through pretty prolific streaks, but since I've been pregnant and uncomfortable and lazy, I've gotten out of the habit.  Plus, I feel like I need to have something really profound to say, and most days I just don't.

I live in the mountains in SoCal, and this morning we woke up to late-autumn in May.  I love these days when I can burn gingerbread candles and listen to Christmas music because the weather demands it, rather than the calendar.  Waking up to three cats and a husband cuddling with me in bed is a great way to start the day.

This afternoon I went to acupuncture.  I started acupuncture just over a year ago when I started having really awful anxiety attacks, probably related to PTSD after having a stillborn son.  I heard acupuncture might help, and so, ready to try anything to get rid of what Churchill called the "black dog," I made an appointment.

So here's what you need to know about me and needles: We don't get along.  I have a pretty high pain tolerance for long-term chronic pain, even like childbirth.  But short stabs of pain?  Not my friend.  I passed out getting my eyebrows waxed when I was 19 and woke up in an ambulance.  True story.  I got my ears pierced at the doctors office in case the same thing happened.  Two summers ago I worked up the courage to get a nose piercing, which I love, but I needed to have three people around me holding my hands, like I was in labor.

The first time I went I kept my eyes closed the entire time.  The acupuncturist used the tiniest needles on me, the ones she uses on small kids.  But even still, I couldn't look.  The idea that I was voluntarily getting needles stuck in me, and that this would somehow alter my chi and my well being; well, it seemed...odd.  But I got braver each time, so that now I even get them in my wrist, which is just too freaky for words.  I'm still not a huge fan, but I can tell it makes a difference in me.  When I need to miss an appointment because of travel or something, I wind up noticing it much more than when I miss a therapy appointment.

Now I'm so comfortable that I wind up falling asleep during the appointment, so I get a nice nap.  The music she plays in the afternoon is new-age arrangements of popular 80's songs, so there's a Chicago, "If You Leave Me Now," played on a didgeridoo.  I love that juxtaposition.

I'm going to watch and read the rest of King Lear tonight.  I couldn't take it all in one sitting yesterday.  No wonder the Fool plays such an important role; you need a comedic break for that...

The Shakespeare Project: King Lear is making me broody (Part 1)

I've been reading and watching King Lear tonight, and I've decided two things.

1) Watching someone go mad really isn't a lot of fun, and
2) The world would be a much easier place if people would just communicate with each other.  And I include myself in that admonishment!

Also, a few years ago I listened to the audiobook of a Christopher Moore story, Fool, which is his comedic take on Lear, told from the perspective of his fool, Pocket.  That is by far one of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to.  The story was hilarious, the narrator was perfect, and the whole thing made me laugh until my belly hurt.  I much prefer it to the actual Lear.  But I'm reading and watching it, nonetheless.

If watching someone's descent into madness is this difficult, I wonder what it was like to write it.  Shakespeare wrote it nearly a decade after his son Hamnet died, and some of it seems to speak so clearly to grief, to questioning the purpose of it all, questioning faith, etc.  I wonder how much he got caught up in the stories he told, or whether he could look down on it all, like an omniscient narrator, and just tell the story without being caught up in the emotions.

Anyway, I've decided that Lear is a two-day project, at least.  It's disconcerting and depressing being around that for more than an hour or two at a time - how did the crowd at the Globe manage without all leaving in a mass depression.  Maybe the pubs around Southwark made extra money after Lear showings because everyone needed to get seriously drunk.  Fortunately I have a three day rental on Amazon Instant Video.  I need something upbeat next.  The Taming of the Shrew, maybe.  Lear has made me broody.

Books, Music, and being a Beached Whale

It's twilight, and I'm sitting on my deck outside, in the forest.  Not one, but two feral cats are sitting on the chaise with me.  There is still a little bit of pink in the sky visible through the trees.  The air is cool and crisp.  I hear crickets.  And about eight different types of birds.  Ones that sound like a lighter version of a car alarm.  Ones that are ca-cawing.  And chirps, too.  Lots of chirps.  Every once in a while I hear my neighbor's dog.

And I feel like a beached whale.  27 weeks today, which is awesome.  I love that I'm in the third trimester.  I never thought I'd see this, after all the losses and fertility treatments.  I can feel her kicking all the time now, which is the prize I get for being unable to sleep, and in pain whenever I move.

The Books of the past two weeks have been:

The Birth of Venus: which has been sitting on my bookshelf since 2004, and finally got read.  And I LOVED it.  I don't know why I never read it before.  The Renaissance, art, girls following their dreams...what's not to love?  It was a powerful story that drew me in, and made me want to keep reading, practically speed reading the last 50 pages to see how it ended.

This week I'm reading...

Dance Dance Dance: which is another physical book that I want off my shelf.  I adore Haruki Murikami, so I'm not sure why I've been putting off reading this.  This particular copy was purchased at The Strand in NY, which was one of my favorite places in the world when I lived there.  They have these cool canvas bags that have the artwork of book jackets, and I bought one for this book, but then figured that I should read the book if I was going to carry the tote around, and so I bought the book too.  Incidentally, I've since shrunk the bag by trying to wash it.  It doesn't wash well, I've found.  The book itself is classic Murikami.  He has the most bizarre imagination.  I have no idea how he comes up with the stuff he comes up with.  And yet I love it.  He takes me to the weirdest worlds, and when I'm done, I'm glad to go home, but while I'm there, it's amazing.




Today I listened to Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto on the way to work, which made me grateful for my long drives because I got to hear the complete piece.  I was familiar with the third movement, but not the first two.  It's early - 1800ish - so still sounds very classical, but I heard a lot of hints of the emotion that would come later.  I need to listen to it more now, to get to know it.  But it's worth getting to know.  There are so many pieces that are worth getting to know.  It makes me sad that life isn't long enough to get to know them all, but I can still get to know lots, if I make it a priority, so that's the half-full side of things.

The Week in Books and Music

It's amazing how pregnancy can just sideline me.  Like my body's all, "yeah, you thought you had plans today.  You had all this stuff you wanted to do.  Hahahaha.  You're going to wind up in bed all day.  Lol."  I'm not knocking it.  My belly is happily sticking out blocking any views of my feet, and after two previous losses (21 weeks and 8 weeks), I'm thrilled to be 24 weeks pregnant.  It's just hard to make any plans or keep any goals, and my to-do list is a joke.

So, one of my goals has been to go through my Amazon wishlist as much as I can before the baby arrives.  This is tough because much of my wishlist is over five years old, and there's constantly new stuff I want to read, too.  I really think I should take a class in speed reading, because life is just so short, and there are just so many good books.

This week I finished Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra, a Life, which had been on my list for a long time.  And man, I really wanted to love it, but I just couldn't get into it at all.  I guess because there is so little actual information on Cleopatra, so much of it is conjecture, and so instead of guessing too much, Schiff puts together a narrative of the Roman world at that time, which was in the midst of civil wars, and then speculates on what Cleopatra would have been doing at each stage given what we do know about her.  The problem is that I don't know an awful lot about Roman history, so a lot of it was just lost on me.  She mentions generals and battles, and really, the whole thing just went over my head.  It took me ages to slog through it, and I needed to reference wikipedia more than once.

Things were better this week on the music front.  I discovered three new albums that are going to be part of the regular rotation.

First, Purcell: Music for Queen Mary from the King's College Choir.  When I lived in the UK, one of my favorite things to do was hop on a train to Cambridge on a Sunday, and go to the Evensong service at King's College.  It was just so magical, hearing the service sung in their ancient chapel with its flying buttresses and imposing organ.  This CD is of music written for Queen Mary from 1692-1695.  Purcell has an entire society dedicated to him in the UK, but the thing I like about him best is that he seems to sit right in between Early Music and Baroque.  It's exciting - I still hear some of the harmonies that would be familiar to people listening to music 80 years earlier; and it's not quite Bach yet, but there are definite hints of the ornateness to come in the next generation of composers.

The second is Bach, Telemann and Weiss, a recently released album of baroque guitar music played by Benjamin Valette (who is very easy on the eyes, I must say).  Anything with Telemann in the title gets me, because he's one of my absolute favorites.  I also love the lute music from this period, so a mix of Telemann and the lute is sure to be a winner.  Sylvius Leopold Weiss was unfamiliar to me (I don't think he has his own society in London); but apparently he was German, one of the most prolific lute composers of his day, and got in an improv competition with the Big Daddy, JS Bach.  I've found that this album is great to listen to while I'm working.

Finally, non-classical, I've discovered Jo Hamilton, and her album Gown.  It was recommended to me on Spotify because I listened to an Icelandic singer, and Jo Hamilton comes from Scotland - I've been to both Iceland and Scotland, and while I can say that both countries are green and mountainous, and share some Viking history, I'm not sure what algorithm paired Jo Hamilton with Hafdis Huld.  Either way, I'm a fan.  The last song, the radio edit of Think of Me is emotional yet poppy at the same time.  In the description of her on Spotify they say she's a mixture of Bjork singing Sarah McLachlan, and she's one of the chamber folk scene's most eclectic performers.  I had to hear that, and I'm not disappointed.  This is more of a "listen to while driving" album, and it will definitely get rotation in the car.

So that was my Week in Books and Music.  I'm going to read another Shakespeare play this weekend, though I'm still not sure which.