Mysteries Abysmal

Spring quarter

Here's a taste of a grad class in the humanities (English). 

ENG 428: Shakespeare

Reading list: Taming of the Shrew; Twelfth Night; Macbeth; Titus Andronicus; Othello; Antony and Cleopatra; Richard III; The Tempest.  Plus sonnets, contemporary workings (Gloria Naylor's Mama Day), and about 30 (!) pieces of criticism including two full-length books. 

Things to accomplish: three 5-6 pg. essays, one 30-minute presentation including a performance of a particular scene with our own  "creative interpretation,"  active participation in class (if you're quiet, you lose), 7-source annotated bibliography, thesis proposal, and final 10-15 page paper due June 5th. 

This is a nice workload for a regular 15-week semester, but we're on much too short 10-week quarters here.  I'll post a summary of the syllabus for my other class, History of the English Language, on Thursday. 

Numbuh 9

Next Sunday marks my 10th show, which seems like a milestone when I think back on those early clumsy programs. While I was out of town tonight, Gerry filled in and ran things solo. I tuned in only with the intention of seeing if he got on-air alright, but ended up listenening for the three hours. I love the format we've created, and you'd be hard pressed to find another classical program that follows Beethoven-on-period-instruments with Edgard Varese. Job well done, Gerry. I'll be back in the studio next week and then resume posting our playlists (I got lazy during those cumbersome finals). Monday is my first Shakespeare class, which appropriately completes my trilogy with England's literary big boys (Chaucer and Milton the others). I'll look back on my lit. education one day, perhaps penniless, and appreciate these single-author classes most.

Update: Gerry has just sent me last night's playlist.

Galina Grigorjeva: On Leaving /Paul Hillier conducting the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (Harmonia Mundi)

Francis Poulenc: Concerto for 2 Pianos/ Jacques Fevrier & Francis Poulenc, pianos/ Orchestre de la Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire, cond. Georges Pretre. (EMI 1962)

Alberto Ginastera: Harp Concerto/ Nancy Allen, harp , Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico, Enrique Batiz , conductor (ASV)

Gwyneth Walker: The Sun Is Love Song cycle on poems of Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks/ Michelle Areyzaga, soprano, Jamie Shaak, piano. (Proteus)

Beethoven: Concerto for Pianoforte No 4 op 58/ Arthur Schoonderwoerd, fortepiano, Cristofori (Alpha)

Edgard Varese: Ameriques / Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Zoltan Kocsis, conductor

Debussy: Prelude a L'Apres-midi d'un Faun (arr. for 2 pianos by composer)/ Michel Beroff, Jean-Philippe Collard pianos.

Blood of Scriabin

When I was a freshman in college, making fun of Yanni was an art. Now it's no longer vogue to do so because it's just too easy (and not all that original). In 1999, a friend (dave) and I signed up on a Yanni message board and chimed in with bogus, overdramatic praise for his music: "His long flowing hair and delicate moustache really bring out the character in this piece," or "I think I'm most touched by Yanni's music because of my background in mystic bagpipe music." Etc. We were jerks, and deep down I thought Yanni was probably a good guy, which made reading this today all the more surprising.

(mug shot: without moustache dye)

J'yce

"My mind is of a type superior to and more civilized than any I have met up to the present."
--25 year old James Joyce confiding in his brother Stanislaus.

Richard Ellmann goes on to say "an empty wallet did not diminish this conviction. When Max Eastman asked him why he was writing Finnegans Wake in the way he was, Joyce replied with a brag intended for a smile, 'To keep the critics busy for three hundred years.' The first hundred of these three hundred years appears to have weathered quite well..."
--Four Dubliners

Mr. DePaul dies

Ray Meyer, who died at 92 on St. Patty's day, put our little school on the map.

Strangeness

Chopin wrote enough mazurkas to "keep the professors busy for centuries," and I'd like to know what one of them could say on these two measures above (from Op. 59 n.1). I haven't the mental equipment for theory to tell you how incredible this piece is, so just listen to it a few times. Its home key is apparently a-minor, but it seems to change every other measure until it solidly becomes A-major in measures 37 and on. But even then there is so much chromaticism that I'm not sure if A has become something entirely different. I do know that measures 75 and 76 (see pic above) are quite unlike anything I've ever heard elsewhere: meaning the transition of those notes from what preceded them. If the section is in A-major, we see a low B, D# B (does that approximate B major?). Well, yes it should, because the next chord in the right hand gives us that missing F#. But measure #76 throws us a G which completely alters the personality of that passage. The effect is so peculiar. Why am I forgetting the simple term for a half-step down from the sixth? The real interesting thing, however, is how this passage secretly morphs from A to B. Still, this is probably a simple construction, and I just don't know it. Theorists urged in my comments section.

Comatose blogger

until 3/16; after last final. In ten weeks: 14 novels, 2 plays, 1 short story, 1 presentation plus piles of criticism and 23 pages written (6 to go). All new records for me; I am thoroughly drained.

Penury

I'm so sick and tired of all these able-bodied, well-spoken, grown men who choose to sit in the rain on their crates and bother me for money. Fuck that.
--a woman of about 60 mumbling aloud on Clark St. today

WRDP Show #6 playlist

If any of you heard the enormous technical gaff in the first hour, we apologize. Gerry's learning to work the equipment and accidentally hit a wrong button. Not all Gerry's fault though, I didn't have any "crisis" dialogue prepared during the unbearably long silence. That won't happen again. Was nice to hear Gerry throw me Chopin's scherzo #2 during the "guess this" portion. I thought my voice-overs during that were my best stuff; and Gerry's introduction to Der Rosenkavalier was his. Perhaps a more conventional playlist than other weeks, but still a damn good one.

First hour
Beethoven String Quartet #14 Op 131, Alban Berg Quartet. Angel
Fesca, Friedrich Ernst Symphony #2, NDR Philharmonie, Frank Beerman. CPO

Second Hour
Chopin Scherzo #2, Yundi Li.
Schumann, Robert "Gluckes Genug." Daniel Barenboim, p. DG
Howard Hanson, Symphony #2 "Romantic," Eric Kunzel, Cincinnatti Pops
Schubert, Franz "Der Tod und Das Madchen," and "Der Winterabend." Dietrich Fischer-Daskau, baritone. Gerald Moore, p. EMI

Third Hour
R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier Presentation of the Rose Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano, Teresa Stich-Randall, soprano, Herbert von Karajan, conductor (Angel)
Brahms Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115. Jozsef Balogh, Cl. Danubius String Quartet. Naxos
Satie Sarabande #1. Jean Yves-Thibaudet, piano.

MAs

MA turns one year today!
MA degree is now but a year away.
Ma and pa are 30 years married tomorrow.