1. To declutter the living room before Family Dinner a while back, I moved the book Christy gave me entitled Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill about five feet from the table next to the chair in the living room where I sit to read, write, and work puzzles over to the bottom shelf of our tv stand. The book is a day-by-day exploration of 365 pieces of classical music. The idea is to read Burton-Hill's reflection on the daily piece either before or after playing it (or both).
Well, when I moved that book away from the chair, I might just as well have moved it to the top of Mt. Fuji.
Today, I recoiled when I saw the book in a pile of book under the television.
I realized I was just over two weeks behind, so I started to catch up.
The music I listened to and read about ranged from explorations of the Divine to expressions of human confusion and suffering.
This session of listening and reading felt autobiographical and expressed my experience with the Divine as well as my many periods of confusion and suffering better than any words could.
The sacred music felt just right for Sunday and I experienced awe and wonder, including feelings associated with the gravity of all of our mortality, especially as I took in, for the very first time, a piece by Stefano Landi (1587-1639) called Homo fugit velut umbra which included, when translated, these lines: "We die singing, we die/playing . . .yet die we must./We die dancing, drinking/eating . . . yet die we must."
2. I started my day of listening in earnest when Leonard Oakland's weekly Sunday classical music show came on KSFC 91.9, the Classical station on Spokane Public Radio. I'm not sure, but I think lately Leonard has opened each show with brass music -- like the Canadian Brass or the Empire Brass -- and he did so again today, to my delight. I also very much enjoyed hearing Vivaldi's Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra No. 2.
All of his selections were exquisite, but, as I write week after week, the greatest pleasure I derive from Leonard's Sunday program is hearing his voice and his mind at work, still strong, just as it was when I first heard him teach and speak over fifty years ago at Whitworth.
3. I didn't listen to classical music every minute of the day -- I did eat and launder bedding and check the weather in Valley Cottage, NY to see if I could get some idea of how the big storm in New York has hit Debbie and Adrienne's family.
But, I did begin a focused project of music listening this evening.
On Saturday, I'll be joining Kenton Bird and Gerri Sayler and Anne Franke, another person I knew and worked with back in my days at Whitworth, for dinner and a Spokane Symphony concert.
I like to be familiar with the music I hear at symphony concerts, so tonight I listened twice to Robert Schumann's Manfred Overture. I'll listen to it more and I'll get familiar with Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor.
I'm somewhat familiar with the program's third offering, Brahms' Symphony No 1 in C Minor, but I'll listen to it more and I'll listen to Joshua Weilerstein's podcast episode on this composition over at Sticky Notes. If you'd like to hear his presentation, here's the link: Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast: Brahms Symphony No. 1
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