Life seems to have been quiet so far this January, but I do in fact grow weary of simply reporting on books past. Here is a round up of small things, alas with few pictures. It seems, in my general contentment, I have been remiss in snapping photographs.
1. Although it turned chill while I was in Texas early last week, they too had been having unseasonably warm weather. These roses were still in bloom in my mother’s garden.
2. Two concerts this week, both focusing on Beethoven. I missed my normal night at the Concertmaster Series as my flight was delayed returning from Dallas, but I managed tickets for the second night, which combined Haydn and Beethoven trios, a beautiful performance of the Violin Sonata #7, and Mason Bates’ Ford’s Farm for Violin and Piano. Then, yesterday, an all-Beethoven program, which concluded with a stunningly fabulous performance of Symphony 1; a performance which both acknowledged the classical legacy of Haydn, while also highlighting Beethoven’s own restless modernity. Beginning with that slightly off-center opening chord, the music danced and playing with expectation, shining light in corners sometimes forgotten in the fog of familiarity. I was particularly taken with the incredibly playful Scherzo, which could only make me smile, kittenish as it was: flirting, happy, withdrawing and coming forward again; but also almost kitten-like with its tumbling, rolling, falling, and leaping.
Sunday’s concert also featured the two Romances: one played in a classically European style, with a surface reserve that did not hide the depths within but revealed them subtly; the other in a lushly and emotionally melodic performance, that flowed straight to the heart, but also captured the head, subtly shining light on the mathematics of the inner structure. The two together provided the perfect counterpoint to the lushness, depth and complexity of the music, to its utter and complex humanity.
3. Saturday was the first time in 2020 that I made it to the winter Farmer’s market. I went in thinking I would pick up only a few things, but January warmth has led to a flowering of produce and I came home heavily laden. I have been happily cooking. Tiny carrots were roasted and their tender fluffy greens, young enough not to have the typical tinge of bitterness have danced through salads, and have been washed and saved for a future soup. Many baby greens came home with me, as did beets, although they were purchased mostly for their lush greens. Once I finish this post, and after I head to the gym, those beets will be transformed into Monday brunch in the form of red flannel hash.
4. Knoxville Symphony Music Director Aram Demirjian’s talk before the concert had me making new connections, perhaps a stretch, perhaps not. As Demirjian talked about the young Beethoven and his really rather revolutionary musical explorations I was struck by a similarity to the young Winston Churchill. Perhaps this is a stretch, but perhaps not. I am still working my way slowly through the first volume of William Manchester’s life of Churchill, and young Winston also happens to be much in mind of late. After the concert I spent time alternating knitting with more reading about young Churchill, his own process of thinking and reshaping that which came before and his own path. Probably not the most efficient way to either read or knit, especially as my mind kept wandering to questions about the nature of creativity and genius. Oh, and I also finished the front of my cardigan, something that had been neglected of late. Now onto the sleeves.
5. Listening. Inspired partly by this week’s bonanza of Beethoven, a jazz concert I missed because I was away, and the necessities of travel (there is no longer a tv at my mom’s house so I listened to music in the evening), it seems there is always time for music. Recordings are not the same as live music, but I cannot imagine a life completely devoid of either. In fact, live music inspires me to listen more at home. These three albums (two new, one not) have been in pretty heavy rotation this week:
Maciej Obara Quartet: Three Crowns
Bill Fay: Countless Branches
Jupiter Trio: Beethoven “Ghost” Trio and Shostakovich Trio #2
There may be a theme there, between the occasionally naked emotionality of Obara’s saxophone, Bill Fay’s liltingly vulnerable songs offset by spare piano, and the dynamic passion of the Jupiter trio’s performance on this album. I would love to hear all three live.
6. I am reminded of a book I read earlier in the month, a book that has been in my mind this week, as it addresses so much, including yearnings, both the yearnings for a future combined its impatience of childhood, and the yearnings and occasional regrets of adults, combined beautiful evocations of place and the struggle between mind and heart that makes art, or genius. The book is Peter Goldsworthy’s Maestro. And I am reminded of a quote from fairly early in the novel, in the opening pages, where the Maestro is describing the hand, specifically the hand of a pianist, but also employing it as a metaphor about the struggle between mind and muse, head and heart, the relationship that makes art. Specifically he is talking about the fingers, but his description also reminds me of the way a great quartet works (or perhaps a trio, see above)
”They are great friends. A circle of friends. But also great rivals.”
Strong-willed, compassionate, occasionally struggling, at times vulnerable, emotional, at others reserved. The give and take, the release and the holding back. This is what makes life, and art, what we yearn for, but also, sometimes, what we fear.
