1. To pay tribute, a day early, to Jane Austen's 250th birthday, Sirius/XM's Symphony Hall channel presented a program entitled "Jane Austen Musicale" hosted by Colleen Wheelahan. The program featured two guests: pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason and historian and musicologist Lidia Chang. From this program I learned that Jane Austen played the piano, she collected published music, she featured certain pieces of music in some of her novels, and wrote scenes of piano playing which were never just about playing the piano, but were also about, well, other kinds of playing.
I also learned that Jane Austen lived in a world where the piano was considered to be the only appropriate musical instrument for a woman to play. Instruments like the flute or oboe were considered inappropriate because how a woman's mouth looked while she played and the violin was considered an offense to a woman's posture.
It was enjoyable listening to Jeneba Kanneh-Mason play selections from Jane Austen's music collection and to the interviews Wheelahan conducted with Kanneh-Mason and Lidia Chang.
If you happen to have the Sirius/XM app, this program is available any time. A "Jane Austen Musicale" search will take you to it. I don't know how long it will be available -- I hope for a long time!
2. Listening to Colleen Wheelahan's three hours of classical programming this afternoon on WUOL-FM, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 arrested my attention in a way his music never has before. It stopped me from moving, moved me to stare into the distance, and prompted me to think about all the music I listen to by myself, music I never discuss, mainly because I don't know of anyone who also listens to it. But, the truth is, I'm not sure I'd really have much to say. I don't know how to talk or write about Mozart or most of the other classical music I enjoy.
The one person I did listen to a lot of classical music with back in the mid-90s was not a musical expert either. We just enjoyed sharing tapes, listening quietly to different compositions together, going to occasional live performances, and talking about how the music struck us: some made us grieve, some uplifted us, some made us think of poems or of Shakespeare, and some of the classical music had an effect we had no words for.
More than anything, I'd say that time in my life increased my sense of beauty, of the sublime, and right now I'm experiencing beauty more consistently listening to classical music than from any other source and I thoroughly enjoyed being surprised by a newfound deep enjoyment of Mozart.
3. The bacon bean soup I made for dinner tonight wasn't exactly a culinary Mozart concerto, but I liked the way I used both black beans and kidney beans, the use I made of chicken broth, yellow squash, baby carrots, cabbage, and white onion and the way I seasoned this soup with salt, pepper, and Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute.
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