Thirty-day classical music challenge, day twenty-five: a piece you've studied so much that it no longer has an emotional effect on you.

This has never happened. Studying pieces has only ever made them better. I guess that's why I'm still in theory?

For a while it was hard to listen to the first movement of Beethoven, op. 59 no. 1, but that had ( Read more... )

Thirty-day classical music challenge, day twenty-four: a piece you associate with school.

Bach, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied

(Yeah, I just had to stop everything else I was doing sing through the whole thing with the recording.)

Thirty-day classical music challenge, day twenty-three: a piece you despise.

Mozart, the K. 595 piano concerto. I have no good reason to offer for why this one annoys me so much more than the other piano concertos, but it does.

Thirty-day classical music challenge, day twenty-two: a piece you remember from your childhood.

That would be nothing. I remember going to hear La Boheme on a field trip in junior high, but I don't remember anything about the music from then. Other than that, my exposure to classical music was just commercials until I got to Kenyon.

Thirty-day classical music challenge, day twenty-one: a piece that represents a sad time in your life.

Rzewski, Coming Together -- in particular the eighth blackbird arrangement. Dangerous thing to listen to on the way to work. Some mornings I'd find myself reciting it aloud as I straightened up my classroom ( Read more... )

Thirty-day classical music challenge, day twenty: a piece that proves you have a soul.

Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 4/Symphony no. 5, when the Mahler comes in.

Thirty-day classical music challenge, day nineteen: a piece that reminds you of a particular place.

Philip Glass's first violin concerto, especially the second movement. I listened to this every day on my way to work for about a month this winter. I would get out of mass and get on the Red Line downtown, and when we came out of the tunnel before ( Read more... )

Thirty-day classical music challenge, day eighteen: the piece of music that is so well-constructed you could play it on two dustbins and a chainsaw and it would still work.

Is that really a measure of well-constructedness? What comes to mind is Clapping Music -- what comes to mind next is John Cage, For Paul Taylor and Anita Dencks -- but that ( Read more... )

10:53 and all is well! Still got power. No water in the street and almost no branches -- just leaves. News says that there's still more to come, but the radar maps look like there's not much more coming.

Pleasantly non-epic thus far. From the radar map, it looks like whatever's going to happen will happen soon. Winds don't seem too bad (although come winter this apartment is going to be drafty as ever, ugh -- it's like the window isn't even closed).

Going to unplug the computer now and get some rest. Hope all is well!