events

[calimac]

Friday my editor phoned, wondering if I might be able to cover that week's SF Symphony concert. "I went to last night's performance," I said, "and I think I could ginger up a review." My editor said he really wanted to know what I'd made of the new work by Connesson, and we discussed it for a while, and I realized that this conversation was actually writing my review for me. So I completed it in written form and here it is, complete with grumblings against the serialist (well, post-tonalist) hegemony. Won't he ever stop going on about that? Not as long as the attitudes that engendered it still exist.

We took advantage of a week's maintenance shutdown of B's workplace to do something that would be too time-consuming and tiring to do on an ordinary day off, which was to take the 3-hour (each way) drive out to visit niece and family off in the distant rural expanses of the Central Valley. Children well-behaved, but also very energetic. Fun to be with for a bit, but glad we never had any of our own. Greeted at door with announcement from knee-level: "I'm four!" "Four what?" I asked, to see what she'd say. "Four and a half!" she replied. And as her birthday is September 12, that's true.

Spending several days back at the research libraries, this time reading through the long nomination list for the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award, for which I'm on the jury. Some good books out there, also some dubious ones, also some ones needing copy-editing. More on that later, perhaps. Got caught up like a ping-pong ball batted back and forth in a turf war between the check-out clerk and the security officer. More on that later? Perhaps not.

Oh, and my upcoming trip to England, a very tightly-scheduled event, just keeps getting more exciting. First my flight got canceled. Not discontinued; just canceled, that day's flight and no other. They say they decided to inspect the plane that day. Got rebooked onto another flight going somewhere else; will get home about 5 hours later than previously expected. Then the show I was going to see in London got canceled. Just that one performance and no other. No reason given. Can't make any other, so switched to another show; fortunately there was one I'd been considering and the same agency covered it.

Comments

[sartorias]

I know Pines of Rome is a tired old war horse, but I would still love to hear it some day with the brass located up high, so the sound would immerse me from all directions.

[calimac]

I don't see how I'd be able to tolerate my career as a reviewer if I did not firmly believe that there are no tired warhorses, only tired performances and - more commonly - tired listeners. I tell people who claim to be sick of some piece or composer just not to listen to it for a while. I've done this myself. Eventually it will sound fresh again.

[sartorias]

I feel the same, but times out of mind I've begun conversations with other classical music listeners (more sophisticated than I, a not very high bar) who, after asking who and what pieces I like, will roll their eyes at what they consider the overdone ones.

[calimac]

You're not the only person who's told me stories of having their tastes solicited by classical snobs in order to deliver a putdown. Ignore them. The classics became classics for a reason, and you're not obliged to develop comprehensive knowledge of a field you explore for pleasure.