The week was long and cold. The big snowstorm that hit to the east and south of us did nothing here. We can be thankful for that. The cold is bad enough without adding several feet snow on top of it. With temperatures in the single digits and teens most of the week, it was too cold to spend anymore time than absolutely necessary outdoors. It was cold enough to make me bundle up just to make a quick dash outside to fill the bird feeders. I did brave the cold a couple of times to go out and photograph a beautiful sunrise or sunset. When I didn’t have to go out, I tried to stay near the wood stove or a heater. I coped with my winter incarceration by resorting to an old trick I learned long ago – filling my head with music.
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| Sunrise on Tuesday. |
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| Sunrise on Friday. |
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| Sunset on Saturday. |
When I was young, we had a lot of records in our house. They were my parents records, vinyl LPs, and most of them were classical music. My earliest memories of them is sorting through them in the wire rack where they stood upright and in order in the living room beside our old turntable. The turntable was a big wooden box with a hinged lid and a fabric front behind which were the speakers. You could put a whole stack of records on the spindle and it would play them one at a time. I don’t know how old I was when I began exploring those records, maybe seven or eight, maybe younger. I think I was first attracted to the records by the artwork on the album jackets. Here was what would become two to of my greatest passions, music and art, in one package right there in our living room.
So I began my journey into the world of classical music by picking the records with the most interesting jackets. I remember Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, with a painting of a man flying on a record over a desert scene.
So I began my journey into the world of classical music by picking the records with the most interesting jackets. I remember Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, with a painting of a man flying on a record over a desert scene.
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| The album cover for Scheherezade. |
There was Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring with a mysterious naked woman playing a flute in a jungle (I now know it was The Snake Charmer by Henri Rousseau).
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| The Rite of Spring. |
There was Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night with a scary face with fiery red eyes (The Red Gaze, painted by the composer – I didn’t much like the music or the painting. I still don’t).
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| Transfigured Night. |
There was a fascinating engraving of a man being pushed into the opening of Hell by demons with pitchforks on the cover of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. There was a boxed set of Beethoven’s symphonies with a drawing of the composer who looked grouchy. There was Schubert with his tiny glasses and Bach and Mozart in their powdered wigs. There were many others and eventually I listened to them all.
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| Beethoven and Schubert. |
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| Bach and Mozart. |
When I was ten my parents gave me a little record player for Christmas. It was blue and white and had a detachable lid and a handle. Along with the record player, they gave me a two-record set called A Child’s Introduction to Classical Music. It had a narrator who told about the great composers with a sampling of their works. I listened to that record over and over until I had it all memorized. To this day whenever I hear the beginning of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, I hear that narrator’s voice in my head saying, “Not bach, but mare, not a brook, but a sea should his name be, said young Beethoven.” From those records I learned about the men whose music would enthrall me for the rest of my life: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and so many more.
Over the years I’ve learned to like other music. My musical tastes are far ranging. I like some rock and roll, mostly the older, mellower stuff. I love big band music and the great American standards. I’ve even learned to like some country music, but then again, mostly older stuff. But my first and greatest love was and always will be classical music. I spent my teenage years exploring a musical world my peers were not interested in. Right after I graduated from high school and got a job, I bought a nice stereo and began collecting records. I went through phases when I craved Chopin or Mozart. I remember when I discovered Aaron Copland and for weeks immersed myself in his music. I went on Brahms and Bach binges. Later, after my mission, when we lived in Los Angeles, I bought and read biographies of the composers. In those days Los Angeles had an excellent classical music radio station, KUSC, and I listened to it night and day and discovered more and more classical music.
For a while, in the early 80's, I worked for a record company in North Hollywood and was able to add dozens of records to my collection. Then CD technology came along and the record company went out of business and I lost my job. I still have my old vinyl LPs and now I also have a collection of CDs and on my computer a vast collection of MP3s of all the classical music I love.
I write all of this because, during these cold winter days, when my hands are idle and my mind is restless, I find myself drawn to classical music more intensely. The world of classical music is so huge and so varied, you can never get to the end of it. There’s always more to be learned, even from pieces I’ve heard a hundred times. I never tire of it. Last week I developed a serious craving for Mozart. I have recordings of all of his music on my computer – over 600 works, enough to occupy my mind for ever. I started with his divertimenti. There are 25 of them and I began with the earliest, composed in 1771 when he was 15 and I worked my way to the last, written in 1788 when he was 32. Done with the divertimenti (for now), I’ve moved on to the symphonies. There are 41 of them – from the light and youthful No. 1 written in 1764 when he was eight (yes, eight) to the magnificent No. 41 written in 1788 (it was a good year for him) when he was 32 and only three years away from death at age 35. After the symphonies, I’ll go on to the concertos, piano, horn, and woodwind, and who knows where from there. Mozart is the perfect internal distraction I need for the external bleakness of winter. His music warms my brain. It entertains and at the same time enlarges my mind. It makes me happy.
Over the years I’ve learned to like other music. My musical tastes are far ranging. I like some rock and roll, mostly the older, mellower stuff. I love big band music and the great American standards. I’ve even learned to like some country music, but then again, mostly older stuff. But my first and greatest love was and always will be classical music. I spent my teenage years exploring a musical world my peers were not interested in. Right after I graduated from high school and got a job, I bought a nice stereo and began collecting records. I went through phases when I craved Chopin or Mozart. I remember when I discovered Aaron Copland and for weeks immersed myself in his music. I went on Brahms and Bach binges. Later, after my mission, when we lived in Los Angeles, I bought and read biographies of the composers. In those days Los Angeles had an excellent classical music radio station, KUSC, and I listened to it night and day and discovered more and more classical music.
For a while, in the early 80's, I worked for a record company in North Hollywood and was able to add dozens of records to my collection. Then CD technology came along and the record company went out of business and I lost my job. I still have my old vinyl LPs and now I also have a collection of CDs and on my computer a vast collection of MP3s of all the classical music I love.
I write all of this because, during these cold winter days, when my hands are idle and my mind is restless, I find myself drawn to classical music more intensely. The world of classical music is so huge and so varied, you can never get to the end of it. There’s always more to be learned, even from pieces I’ve heard a hundred times. I never tire of it. Last week I developed a serious craving for Mozart. I have recordings of all of his music on my computer – over 600 works, enough to occupy my mind for ever. I started with his divertimenti. There are 25 of them and I began with the earliest, composed in 1771 when he was 15 and I worked my way to the last, written in 1788 when he was 32. Done with the divertimenti (for now), I’ve moved on to the symphonies. There are 41 of them – from the light and youthful No. 1 written in 1764 when he was eight (yes, eight) to the magnificent No. 41 written in 1788 (it was a good year for him) when he was 32 and only three years away from death at age 35. After the symphonies, I’ll go on to the concertos, piano, horn, and woodwind, and who knows where from there. Mozart is the perfect internal distraction I need for the external bleakness of winter. His music warms my brain. It entertains and at the same time enlarges my mind. It makes me happy.
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| The Genesee River at Yorks Corners on our way home from church today. |
On Thursday the Shilligs returned at last from their long trip abroad. They’ve been gone since before Christmas. I feel sorry for them coming home from tropical Bali to this bitter winter weather. So tonight, after many weeks of being just the sad and lonely Howes, we’re going to the Shillig’s house for our Sabbath Soiree. We’re glad they are home. We’ve missed them.
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| Sunset Saturday. |
