1. Christy gave me a book for Christmas entitled, Year of Wonder:Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day by Clemency Burton-Hill. It's structured like so many devotional publications like Our Daily Bread or The Upper Room, but rather than invite readers to devote a part of each day to a Bible passage and prayer, Burton-Hill presents a different piece of classical music to listen to each day and she provides short, accessible background information and some quick commentary.
I couldn't wait until January 1st to start reading this book, so I jumped right in.
The first thing I did was go to Spotify and see if Year of Wonder playlists are available.
They are.
So I added the January playlist to my library.
I then listened to the January 1 selection, the Sanctus from J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor, an uplifting, really celebratory way to start the new year.
I couldn't resist jumping ahead to January 2nd which featured an Etude in C Major, Opus 10, No. 1 by Frederic Chopin. Etudes are sets of exercises for the piano, but Chopin's transcend the genre. Yes, they presented great challenges to piano students working to improve their technique, but Chopin took them far beyond being mere technical exercises and endowed them emotion, and, in Burton-Hill's words, "melodic inventiveness and harmonic richness."
This single piece, only about two minutes long, staggered me and so I did what any reasonable staggering person would do: I played piano compositions by Chopin much of the day.
2. After being closed for two weeks, today Beach Bum Bakery opened up again in the morning. Rebekah had posted that French bread would be ready around noon, but GOOD NEWS! She had a steady stream of customers this morning and the good business set back her baking schedule.
So, no French bread, and, no problem.
I bought a loaf of Rustic Sourdough, toasted some soon after I returned home and it was awesome.
3. I suppose if I really wanted to blather on for about 1500 words or so, I could explain why I put Lonesome Dove down a few months ago and never got back to it. (It had nothing to do with the quality of the novel.)n
Well, today, I decided to bear down and pair my PC laptop with my wireless speakers in the living room using Bluetooth and finally play the audible file of the book I downloaded in October, being read by Will Patton, and get myself back into that south Texas world again.
I also realized I needed to start Lonesome Dove over again.
Great decision.
The musical quality of Larry McMurtry's writing didn't sing to me earlier in the year as I read the book to myself, but hearing it read aloud, whew!, it's a lyrical evocation of life in a hot, dry, unsentimental world with few comforts or pleasures.
But these characters have some dreams.
No comments:
Post a Comment