Mysteries Abysmal

Yer blues

While reading Much Ado About Nothing today for my upcoming Master's exam in March, I came across an awesome passage about those who try to cope us through our sorrows:

Give not me counsel,

Nor let no comforter delight mine ear

But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine....

For brother, men, can counsel and speak comfort to that grief

Which they themselves not feel, but tasting it,

Their counsel turns to passion, which before

Would give preceptial med'cine to rage,

Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,

Charm ache with air and agony with words. 

No, no, 'tis all men's office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow,

But no man's virtue nor sufficiency

To be so moral when shall endure

The like himself.  Therefore give me no counsel. 

My griefs cry louder than advertisement. 

---Leonato (act 5, scene 1) 

Whoa there.  Even with the romance comedies, Shakespeare can serve the steak and potatoes. 

PS: That said, on Cyber Classical, many playlists ago, we played the nocturne from Berlioz's opera Beatrice and Benedict, which, I now see, is based on Much Ado About Nothing. 

He's everywhere. 

Proppage

Collegiate Broadcasters Inc. has recognized Radio DePaul's own Bryce Thompson's amazingly eclectic program "The Digital System" as a finalist for "best regularly scheduled program."  Way to go, Bryce: we're proud of you.  We at Cyber Classical have no sour grapes about the matter, but felt we should've been considered for the "fewest listeners that stayed from channel surfing" and "listenership largely supported by family and friends" categories. 

Leftward Christian Soldiers

With what I'd call a 40/60 shot of Rudy Guiliani winning the primaries (should he run) and Hillary the probable candidate on the other side, I'd say things are looking pretty good for '08.  Reminds me of a scene with Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin in the flawless piece of cinema This Boy's Life (probably the only movie I have committed to memory):

Barkin: I'm going to work for the Kennedy campaign. 

De Niro: Kennnnnnnnnedy...the senator from Rome.  No, bad idea. Too many Republicans in this town.  If they find out my wife is working for the democrats, they'll take their business elsewhere.  No, bad idea. 

Barkin:  I don't know about that.  He gives me hope. 

De Niro: Oh I know what he gives you and it sure is hell isn't hope.  You're not going to work for the campaign, now get that through your goddamned head. 

Barkin:  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....please Ricky.  Can I come work for you down at the club?

De Niro: What the hell?

Barkin:  Treat me like Lucy, I'll act like her.  I'm working for that campaign. 

Das Land Ohne Musik? Pshaw!

I always knew I identified with the British more than most:

Here was the fatal division that wrecked the English development of opera--it was not, as Montaverdi and his Italian successors saw it, dramma per musica, but drama with musical decorations.  Although at least one of the Jacobean masques was set to music throughout, recitative proved uncongenial to the English and in the Restoration theatres was often derided. --Anthony Milner "British Music - A Misunderstood Tradition"

Ysaye what?

Next week is the last show of 2006 and we'll have a surprise interview in the third hour.   37 shows for the first year suggests a little too much inconsistency; we've done everything we can to maintain a regular following, but it seems like every week there is some bizzarre hurdle to hop.  If some of you are looking for something a little different to listen to these days, give the Eugene Ysaye violin sonata a go.  I don't think I've heard anything quite like it. 

Arthur Honegger: Symphony #2/ Charles Munch, Orchestre de Paris (EMI)
Frank Martin: Petite Symphonie Concertante/ Armin Jordan, Orch. de la Suisse Romande (Erato)
Eugene Ysaye: Sonata for Violin #5/ Thomas Zehetmair (ECM)
Alberto Ginastera: Concerto for Harp/ Isabelle Moretti, harp; David Robertson, Orch. Nat. de Lyon (Naïve)
Astor Piazzolla: Cinco Piezas/ Eduardo Fernandez, guitar (Oehms)
Aonton Webern: Symphon7 op.21/ Giuseppe Sinopoli, Staatskapelle Dresden (Teldec)
Telemann: Suite in F major/ Jaap Schroder, violin; Frans Bruggen, Concerto Amsterdam
Mozart: Piano Trio K. 505/ Vienna Schubert Trio (EMI)
Villa Lobos: Bachanias Brasileiras #4/ Rosana Lamosa, Sop.; Kenneth Schermerhorn, Nashville Sym.

"This music blows"

So said an instant message to the radio station during the 3rd movement of Mahler's 4th.  Maybe it was the high wailing of the strings conductor Harold Farberman perhaps overly emphasized?  Or maybe the adagio in general was just too boring?  Or maybe our unknown sender was mortified that something-which-smelled-of-classical was being broadcast on his college radio station?  Probably the latter.  Converting the college kids is no easy task, especially when they tune in during the midst of an epic, 22 minute super slow movement.  Feedback like that is always appreciated, but next time tell us why Mahler blew. 

Show #35

Hour 1

Chopin, Frederic.  Ballade #4, f minor.  Krystian Zimerman, p.  (Deutsche Grammophon.) 

Zemlinsky, Alexander.  "Lyric Symphony in seven songs to poems by Tagore."  Op. 18.  Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Antony Beaumont, cond.  (Chandos.)

Hour 2

David Byrne.  "High Life for Nine Instruments." Balanescu Quartet (Argo.)

Bloch, Ernest.  Suite for Viola and Piano.  Daniel Raiskin (viola) Lisa Smirnova (piano) (Arte Nova)

Brahms, Johanness.  Piano Trio #3 in c minor.  Renaud and Gautier Capacon, Nicholas Angelich, p.  (Virgin)

Hour 3

Handel, GF.  Concerto Gross Op. 6, #5.  Academy of Ancient Music, Andrew Manze, dir (Harmonia Mundi)

Mahler, Gustav.  Symphony #4, movements 3 and 4.  Harold Farberman, cond.  London Symphony Orchestra (Vox)

A note on this blog

Apologies to those expecting to find thorough reporting on the classical music scene in Chicago (you might check out Andrew Patner's and Marc Geelhoed's fine blogs).  Since I write about classical music for a few publications, the blog is an opportunity to write--alongside classical music too, of course--about my other interests as well. 

So yes, the blog was born mostly out of selfish reasons, and continues to be only a medium to write what's on my mind and to keep in touch with others.  (Yep, just like the 10 million other blogs exactly like it!)  In other words, Mysteries Abysmal has and will probably always have very little consumer demand.  That's not to stay you shouldn't stop for a moment to snoop around. 

Lastly, since some have asked, the blog's name comes from the gorgeous preface to Henry James's The Princess Casamassima:

What it all came back to was, no doubt, something like this wisdom – that if you have n’t, for fiction, the root of the matter in you, have n’t the sense of life and the penetrating imagination, you are a fool in the very presence of the revealed and assured; but that if you are so armed you are not really helpless, not without your resource, even before mysteries abysmal.