#117 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Saturday August 14)
Good morning,
Happy renewal of your vows, Jay and Kristine!
MUSIC
Today is my mother’s and sister’s birthday. As I think of them I think of the great music we shared together. Chief among these are the great violin and piano concertos but also the great symphonies. Here are a few of our favorite classical pieces, each of one brings joy when I hear it:
The Firebird Suite, by Stravinsky. Here’s the last movement (only a little over three minutes), with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic:
The New World Symphony (#9), by Antonin Dvorak. The great Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Symphony:
. And the “Going Home” theme (Second Movement, Adagio, with words added by Dvorak student):
Violin Concerto in E Minor, by Mendelssohn. The violin jumps in during the first measure. Ray Chen is the soloist. Really an exercise in melody and artistry:
. Heard this performed by Perlman, Heifetz, Stern, and Zuckerman, among others. But remember my mother playing it most of all.
Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major (“Emperor”), by Beethoven. Van Cliburn. Wow.
The Fantasy Overture from Romeo and Juliet, by Tchaikovsky, performed by the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (What a marvelous tone poem but, as a You Tube comment says, “this is not a poem; it’s an epic”):
And, of course, Also Sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss. Performed by the Berliner Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel:
. “Dave, this mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it…”
POETRY
The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
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