Well, I'm another week pregnant since last week. Up to 31 weeks and 4 days, and I'm exhausted all the time. I am so looking forward to August coming, and getting back to myself again, albeit me as a mom.
This week I listened to Beethoven's Fifth String Quartet, still part of the Opus 18 that was published in 1801. All of the liner notes said that Beethoven was inspired by Mozart's A major quartet, K 464. So I listened to that one too, and definitely heard the similarities.
The biggest thing I recommend while listening to this piece is to really listen and not get distracted during the third movement, which is a variation on a theme that is so simple and sublime, it gives you goosebumps. The melody is simply part of a rising and falling scale, and the fourth variation in particular has the juiciest harmonies I've heard in one of his quartets yet.
http://thebeethovenproject.com/exploring-beethovens-quartets-richard-wigmore-writes-about-op-185-op-593-and-op-131/
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Beethoven Project: String Quartet Op 18 No 4
Of all the Beethoven String Quartets, this is the one I know the best, having seen it performed on two separate occasions. I'm not sure why people choose this one to perform more than the others, but for whatever reason, I'm pretty familiar with Number 4. Which is a pretty good one to be familiar with - I love the drama in the opening movement. When I compare this to his first one, it sounds so much more Beethoven to me; so much more passionate and emotional.
Take a listen:
"In the crisply effected first movement we feel strong purpose rather than the tragedy or pathos often associated with a minor key..." Dr. Robert Simpson at http://robertsimpson.info/writings/simpsons-writings/beethoven-string-quartets.html#op18no4
I also found this awesome color-coded video going through each section and explaining it. Super cool.
I like that there's no slow movement in this quartet. The third movement Minuet is meant to be the most serious of all the movements, but it doesn't sound like a death march. The final rondo is apparently taken from Haydn's Hungarian style, and I appreciate the final dancing notes. And I appreciate the minor key, yet the music still sounds upbeat.
Further reading:
http://rolf-musicblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/beethoven-string-quartet-op184.html
"In the crisply effected first movement we feel strong purpose rather than the tragedy or pathos often associated with a minor key..." Dr. Robert Simpson at http://robertsimpson.info/writings/simpsons-writings/beethoven-string-quartets.html#op18no4
I also found this awesome color-coded video going through each section and explaining it. Super cool.
I like that there's no slow movement in this quartet. The third movement Minuet is meant to be the most serious of all the movements, but it doesn't sound like a death march. The final rondo is apparently taken from Haydn's Hungarian style, and I appreciate the final dancing notes. And I appreciate the minor key, yet the music still sounds upbeat.
Further reading:
http://rolf-musicblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/beethoven-string-quartet-op184.html
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Cricket: The Sport for Nerds
For the past two months we have been streaming lots of cricket matches in our house. The Indian Premiere League cricket tournament has been on since early April, and while we can't get it on our TV through our dish (thanks DirecTV), we pay to have access to the archives on youtube. So every day we've had my Chromebook set aside dedicated to simply streaming cricket.
Cricket is a sport that is uniquely set up for nerds. There are definite feats of athleticism (one particularly stunning catch early on even made the top 10 list on SportsCenter on ESPN). And certainly the players are athletes. But the real beauty of cricket is the rules, which take hours to explain and make little sense. Bring into it the fact that there are now three types of cricket going on simultaneously (test cricket, which lasts for days and can have no winner at the end of it), One Day Internationals (the original attempt at shortening cricket to a manageable level for the masses; it's 50 overs each side and lasts a full day) and Twenty-twenty cricket, which is what the IPL is (20 overs each side, it lasts about 3 and a half hours.
On the surface the rules are easy enough. Unlike baseball, you're not really batting for runs. I mean, you are, but the runs aren't the huge deal. The huge deal is the outs. Whether you're playing test cricket or T20, your team still gets 10 outs and that's it. You might score 150 or 300 runs, but unless you hit it out of the park (for 6 runs), you're really just batting and trying to avoid getting out. Where in baseball runs are rare, in cricket it's outs that are special.
So there are two teams. A bowling team and a batting team. The batting team has two players on the field. The bowling team is fielding, so they have all their players out - 10, I think. The batters stand on opposite ends of a dirt patch that has little stump things on either end. There is a bowler, like a pitcher, who bowls the ball to one of the batters. One batter will always be on "strike". When he hits the ball, both players run back and forth along the dirt patch between the stumps, and for each pass, they get a run. So it could be that batter A hits, and runs to the side where batter B is, and they got one run, and now batter B is on strike because he's on the end where batter A was.
If the fielders catch the ball and get it back to the stumps before the batter gets to the stumps, the batter is out. Then a new batter comes in, and the process is repeated until there are 10 outs. Every six balls is an "over" and a new bowler will come in. So you hear sentences like, "after 10 overs, the Chennai Superkings are 80 for 3." which translates to "after 60 balls bowled to them, the Chennai Superkings have 80 runs and 3 outs."
The whole point of batting is actually to protect the stumps. You want to hit the ball away from the stumps, and you need to do it with your bat. If you accidentally kick the ball away, that's an out. And you can't hit too hard, because if the other team catches the ball in the air, that's an out.
And here's where the strategy of different types of matches comes into play. With Test cricket, you play for five days, and you still only get 10 outs. So you play very carefully. You don't hit at every ball that comes your way (unless it's obviously going to hit the stumps and you need to hit it away). You don't try to have huge hits out of the park, which count for 6 runs. You don't try to have the ball hit the edge of the playing field, which is known as a boundary and counts for 4 runs. You're very protective of your outs, because they need to last you for so long. But with T20, you only get 120 balls bowled to you - 20 overs (and an over is 6 balls, remember), so the chances that you'll try to hit a six, or be a little more reckless with what you hit at is a little higher because your team still has 10 outs. So getting out doesn't screw up the potential for three more days - it only potentially screws it up for a few overs.
There is a lot of strategy in cricket, and one of the biggest things to watch for is the partnership between the two batters. At any given time, it's possible that only one of the two can see where the ball is headed, and so the communication needs to be really on. Remember, if the fielders get the ball to the stumps before the runner is there, the runner is out. So if there's a miscommunication and one runner runs, or hesitates because he can't tell what's going on, he could be out for that. So the players need to really trust each other, and there's always a big deal made of the total for the partnership - when the partnership hits 100 runs, for example.
It all takes a huge amount of thinking, both to play and to watch. Most people don't take the time to really get into understanding it, but the rewards if you do are high. Even though I lived in the UK for years, it took going back there during the Ashes with my hubby to really start to learn it. He's a huge sports nut, and wound up getting really sick on one of our trips, and camped out on my friend's sofa watching the Ashes tournament (between England and Australia). With the help of google, and my friend explaining things to him, he figured it out, and is now a huge fan.
Every April we look forward to the IPL, which is a tournament in India where they take the best players from all over the world and play exciting T20 matches for 8 weeks, and it always makes me a little sad when it's over. Because with the exception of Formula 1 (which is a Physics and Math Nerd's dream sport) there are very few sports as well designed for nerds as cricket.
Cricket is a sport that is uniquely set up for nerds. There are definite feats of athleticism (one particularly stunning catch early on even made the top 10 list on SportsCenter on ESPN). And certainly the players are athletes. But the real beauty of cricket is the rules, which take hours to explain and make little sense. Bring into it the fact that there are now three types of cricket going on simultaneously (test cricket, which lasts for days and can have no winner at the end of it), One Day Internationals (the original attempt at shortening cricket to a manageable level for the masses; it's 50 overs each side and lasts a full day) and Twenty-twenty cricket, which is what the IPL is (20 overs each side, it lasts about 3 and a half hours.
On the surface the rules are easy enough. Unlike baseball, you're not really batting for runs. I mean, you are, but the runs aren't the huge deal. The huge deal is the outs. Whether you're playing test cricket or T20, your team still gets 10 outs and that's it. You might score 150 or 300 runs, but unless you hit it out of the park (for 6 runs), you're really just batting and trying to avoid getting out. Where in baseball runs are rare, in cricket it's outs that are special.
So there are two teams. A bowling team and a batting team. The batting team has two players on the field. The bowling team is fielding, so they have all their players out - 10, I think. The batters stand on opposite ends of a dirt patch that has little stump things on either end. There is a bowler, like a pitcher, who bowls the ball to one of the batters. One batter will always be on "strike". When he hits the ball, both players run back and forth along the dirt patch between the stumps, and for each pass, they get a run. So it could be that batter A hits, and runs to the side where batter B is, and they got one run, and now batter B is on strike because he's on the end where batter A was.
If the fielders catch the ball and get it back to the stumps before the batter gets to the stumps, the batter is out. Then a new batter comes in, and the process is repeated until there are 10 outs. Every six balls is an "over" and a new bowler will come in. So you hear sentences like, "after 10 overs, the Chennai Superkings are 80 for 3." which translates to "after 60 balls bowled to them, the Chennai Superkings have 80 runs and 3 outs."
The whole point of batting is actually to protect the stumps. You want to hit the ball away from the stumps, and you need to do it with your bat. If you accidentally kick the ball away, that's an out. And you can't hit too hard, because if the other team catches the ball in the air, that's an out.
And here's where the strategy of different types of matches comes into play. With Test cricket, you play for five days, and you still only get 10 outs. So you play very carefully. You don't hit at every ball that comes your way (unless it's obviously going to hit the stumps and you need to hit it away). You don't try to have huge hits out of the park, which count for 6 runs. You don't try to have the ball hit the edge of the playing field, which is known as a boundary and counts for 4 runs. You're very protective of your outs, because they need to last you for so long. But with T20, you only get 120 balls bowled to you - 20 overs (and an over is 6 balls, remember), so the chances that you'll try to hit a six, or be a little more reckless with what you hit at is a little higher because your team still has 10 outs. So getting out doesn't screw up the potential for three more days - it only potentially screws it up for a few overs.
There is a lot of strategy in cricket, and one of the biggest things to watch for is the partnership between the two batters. At any given time, it's possible that only one of the two can see where the ball is headed, and so the communication needs to be really on. Remember, if the fielders get the ball to the stumps before the runner is there, the runner is out. So if there's a miscommunication and one runner runs, or hesitates because he can't tell what's going on, he could be out for that. So the players need to really trust each other, and there's always a big deal made of the total for the partnership - when the partnership hits 100 runs, for example.
It all takes a huge amount of thinking, both to play and to watch. Most people don't take the time to really get into understanding it, but the rewards if you do are high. Even though I lived in the UK for years, it took going back there during the Ashes with my hubby to really start to learn it. He's a huge sports nut, and wound up getting really sick on one of our trips, and camped out on my friend's sofa watching the Ashes tournament (between England and Australia). With the help of google, and my friend explaining things to him, he figured it out, and is now a huge fan.
Every April we look forward to the IPL, which is a tournament in India where they take the best players from all over the world and play exciting T20 matches for 8 weeks, and it always makes me a little sad when it's over. Because with the exception of Formula 1 (which is a Physics and Math Nerd's dream sport) there are very few sports as well designed for nerds as cricket.
Monday, May 27, 2013
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/
Thursday, May 23, 2013
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...
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...
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
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.
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.
Friday, May 3, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
The Beethoven Project: the String Quartets
A few years ago I was at a chamber concert and one of the pieces on the bill was one of Beethoven's string quartets (I forget which one). Someone in the audience in front of me sighed, "I do so love the late quartets," and I remember being blown away at the idea that "the late string quartets" was actually something that a non-musician could be so excited by.
Recently I've realized that I'm not going to live forever (duh) and there is a lot of Beethoven that I would like to listen to during the rest of my time on earth. And a lot of Schubert. And Brahms. That's not to mention Guesaldo or Tallis or Byrd. So I need to get cracking, and not just in some sort of random form. I need a plan. I want to start off learning these string quartets - what makes the early ones different from the middle, or late ones. I want to know these pieces really well. They seem a really good jumping off point for really delving into Beethoven. So each week I'm going to really listen to one of these string quartets, research it, and get to know it. Live with it for the week and absorb it into my skin so that someday, when I'm at a concert, I can also say, "I do so love the middle string quartets," and actually know what that means.
So the first - Opus 18 number 1, String Quartet #1 in F major.
Here's a link on Spotify to the album I'm listening to:
Endellion String Quartet – Beethoven : Complete String Quartets, Quintets & Fragments
A quick Google search on Beethoven String Quartets brings up a number of sources, but my favorite is this one from Earsence.org.
Here's what I've learned so far:
Haydn developed the string quartet. Mozart first tried to master it when he was about 28. In the late 1790's, 28 year old Beethoven, also newly arrived in Vienna, spent two years in deep study of the String Quartet, and the result of those two years was Opus 18, published in 1801, and dedicated to Haydn.
The first of the group, in F Major, was actually the second one he wrote. And he revised it before it was published, telling a friend to not publish it yet, because he had studied so much more and now had a better idea of how to write a string quartet.
Even Beethoven's earlier music has so much depth and emotion - I wonder what 19th century audiences would have thought about it. The second movement is based on Romeo and Juliet, and around halfway through I really started to notice the tension and haunting sounds. The first movement uses a six note motif, something that was still relatively new - it's not quite a melody, but it dances around and repeats itself in different keys from different instruments the entire way through the movement. It's like a kid learning to walk and explore, but still going back to his mother for comfort and familiarity.
The scherzo is short and sweet. Some say it's almost a relief after the emotional second movement. The final movement doesn't do much for me - it's very busy with lots of point and counterpoint, and I'm sure there's a ton of juiciness in this, but right now, I'm almost tired from listening to everything else, and it's lost on me. I wonder if Beethoven's audiences felt the same way. Beethoven is a demanding composer.
I just realized there are, I think, 17 string quartets. I am 22 weeks pregnant, so if all goes well, I will go on a Beethoven journey which will finish up right before I'm about to give birth! How fun is that?
String Quartet Opus 18 Number 1 in F Major resources:
Liner notes from the Robert Simspon Society: http://robertsimpson.info/writings/simpsons-writings/beethoven-string-quartets.html
Earsence.org: http://www.earsense.org/chamberbase/works/detail/?pkey=33
All About Beethoven: http://www.all-about-beethoven.com/stringquartet.html
LCS Productions: http://www.lcsproductions.net/MusicHistory/MusHistRev/Articles/BeethovenStQrts.html
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Project Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
You know where I get lots of Deep Thoughts? On long drives through the Central Valley coming home from my office in San Mateo. On such a recent drive I was listening to Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt. I consider myself pretty literate. I read lots of books, both purely fun and also the challenging ones. I use my library card a lot. My kindle overfloweth.
But I haven't read any Shakespeare since college.
Seriously. And that was in the 90's.
I feel shamed. I have read books about Shakespeare, I read histories, I know quotes, but I haven't read any actual complete Shakespeare plays since around 1997. The first Melrose Place was still on tv.
This train of thought winds up reminding me how very stuck I have become in life. You know how when you're a teenager you're trying all kinds of new stuff, trying to figure out what you like and who you are? You listen to Miles Davis just because, to see if you're a Jazz Person. Somewhere along the line I made up my mind about the Kind of Person I am; what kind of music I like, what kinds of books I read, what kind of stuff I'm into - and I rarely deviate from that steady diet.
So it's time to broaden my horizons.
I decided to start by reading Shakespeare. Each week I'm going to immerse myself in one play. After googling "what order should Shakespeare be read in," and seeing the passionate discussions, I decided there was no right answer, and randomly chose Much Ado About Nothing this week, because I heard that the movie with Kenneth Branagh was really good.
After reading these awesome Shakespeare reading tips, I decided to start out this week by watching the movie, so I get a feel of what the story is about. I have the play itself downloaded on my kindle, and the audiobook marked on Librivox. I'm thinking that this is a good start to get to know this play.
I watched the movie today and am going to start listening while reading along tonight. I think, after watching the movie, I'm going to enjoy this play a lot. It seems quite clever. Something I remembered from reading Shakespeare before is that, sadly, it takes me until practically the play is over until I start to become comfortable with the language. So I think that having watched the movie to start with will serve me well.
One thing I need to say to start with - after watching the movie, and having read a bit of the play, I'm really not a fan of Claudio. That guy can't be trusted. He freaks out over everything. He says he loves Hero, but at the first test (and the second) he gets all stroppy and publicly humiliates her. If I were her, I'd have slapped him and not taken him back. Other than my disdain for Claudio, I'm a fan so far.
Much Ado About Nothing Links:
Wikipedia article with overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Ado_About_Nothing
Librivox audiobook: http://librivox.org/much-ado-about-nothing-by-william-shakespeare/
Info about the 1993 film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Ado_About_Nothing_(1993_film)
Spark Notes studyguide: http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/muchado/
Cliff's Notes: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/much-ado-about-nothing/play-summary.html
But I haven't read any Shakespeare since college.
Seriously. And that was in the 90's.
I feel shamed. I have read books about Shakespeare, I read histories, I know quotes, but I haven't read any actual complete Shakespeare plays since around 1997. The first Melrose Place was still on tv.
This train of thought winds up reminding me how very stuck I have become in life. You know how when you're a teenager you're trying all kinds of new stuff, trying to figure out what you like and who you are? You listen to Miles Davis just because, to see if you're a Jazz Person. Somewhere along the line I made up my mind about the Kind of Person I am; what kind of music I like, what kinds of books I read, what kind of stuff I'm into - and I rarely deviate from that steady diet.
So it's time to broaden my horizons.
I decided to start by reading Shakespeare. Each week I'm going to immerse myself in one play. After googling "what order should Shakespeare be read in," and seeing the passionate discussions, I decided there was no right answer, and randomly chose Much Ado About Nothing this week, because I heard that the movie with Kenneth Branagh was really good.
After reading these awesome Shakespeare reading tips, I decided to start out this week by watching the movie, so I get a feel of what the story is about. I have the play itself downloaded on my kindle, and the audiobook marked on Librivox. I'm thinking that this is a good start to get to know this play.
I watched the movie today and am going to start listening while reading along tonight. I think, after watching the movie, I'm going to enjoy this play a lot. It seems quite clever. Something I remembered from reading Shakespeare before is that, sadly, it takes me until practically the play is over until I start to become comfortable with the language. So I think that having watched the movie to start with will serve me well.
One thing I need to say to start with - after watching the movie, and having read a bit of the play, I'm really not a fan of Claudio. That guy can't be trusted. He freaks out over everything. He says he loves Hero, but at the first test (and the second) he gets all stroppy and publicly humiliates her. If I were her, I'd have slapped him and not taken him back. Other than my disdain for Claudio, I'm a fan so far.
Much Ado About Nothing Links:
Wikipedia article with overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Ado_About_Nothing
Librivox audiobook: http://librivox.org/much-ado-about-nothing-by-william-shakespeare/
Info about the 1993 film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Ado_About_Nothing_(1993_film)
Spark Notes studyguide: http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/muchado/
Cliff's Notes: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/much-ado-about-nothing/play-summary.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)