Hammerklaviered
I have told you that Verdi is The Man, or anyway My Man, but if I were allowed several composers* on my desert island Mozart would be number two and Beethoven number three.** Oisin says the problem with Beethoven is that he published everything, including not only the Friday afternoon after a hard week stuff, but the 3 o’clock in the morning, drunk on your butt and in a bad mood stuff–and Oisin does a deadly imitation of what he calls Beethoven’s lederhosen numbers, which I usually try to head off if I see them coming because I know exactly what he means . . . and I don’t want to know.
Pardon me, this is the grotesque generalisation moment. I love Verdi for the emotional sweep, Mozart for the transcendence, and Beethoven for the wallop. Harry on that mountaintop in Blue Sword has a particular bit of the Fifth Symphony playing in the background, and I realise as I get to the taking-deep-breath-and-plunging-into-battle*** point in Pegasus that the Sixth helps wind me up for it. I’m relistening to the Ninth right now because I got back from bell ringing halfway through it live on the penultimate night of the Proms and decided I wanted all of it.
And then there are the piano sonatas. If one more person, or Radio Three presenter, starts waffling on about how erotic Debussy’s L’apres midi d’un faune is, I’m going to bash them with their own CD player. I know what they’re talking about but the faune is so not someone whose fantasies I wish to engage with I want instead to say, oh, sweep it up and go home. I’ll take the Appassionata any day, and twenty-two times on Sunday.†
And then there’s the Hammerklavier. For knocking you down and standing on you it doesn’t get any knockier and standier than the Hammerklavier.†† Which is why, when I am feeling particularly shattered, I have been known to say not that I feel hammered, but that I feel hammerklaviered.
So. I’m hammerklaviered. I had a two and a quarter hour piano lesson today. About using††† Finale, of course, not about playing the piano: I couldn’t play the piano for two and a quarter hours with someone else in the room if my life depended on it.‡ I did not, after all, ring Oisin first thing Monday morning as I believe, last Saturday, I was swearing I would do: every time I got to a I’m-ringing-Oisin-NOW-before-I-BREAK-THIS-THING moment I’d have another microscopic insight and struggle on a little while longer, with my laptop going bing ting snigger at me. Today I just took it with me, sat down, plugged it in, and propped it against the piano. Oisin was, as so often, not there when I began, and he arrived at a nicely cresting wave of I’m gonna BREAK it and . . . ha . . . when he took the laptop away from me and started pressing buttons he said, Now that’s very odd. What’s it doing that for? Person–that would be me–torn between rich snarky satisfaction and total falling-lift-shaft pit-of-stomach horror that he may not know the answers.‡‡
He knew enough of the answers to send me away again (after two and a quarter hours) ready‡‡‡ to tackle another week of virtual mud wrestling and software mayhem. I’m going to learn the sucker. For one thing, as previously observed, poor Peter has already paid for it and has to sit on the other side of the kitchen table at the mews and listen to me scream. He’s done quite a lot of this already. As a return on his investment he’s seen better. For another . . . oh, for another I’m a composer. Small, twisted, odd and unnecessary but–a composer. Sue me.
Then I came home and struggled with Brief Descriptions of My Books a little more.
Then I went bell ringing. And there were people more hammerklaviered than me at practise tonight. I rang two§ touches of Stedman . . . one of them successfully. But on the other one someone else went wrong. Not me.
And now I am going to bed. Tomorrow is Connie, and another wedding to ring.
* * *
* Classical composers. This is going to be an extremely well-fitted exile, including the complete works also of, say, Steeleye Span and Led Zeppelin.
** Gods I’m boring. Well, can’t be helped.
*** Sigh. I was hoping not to have to write any more battle scenes.
† Not to mention the Pathetique, which my best girlfriend and I used–oh, getting on forty years ago–to listen to in the dark while eating butterscotch meringue cookies that her mum had thoughtfully made for us. I’m not sure she fully realised what teenage fires exactly she was stoking, but never mind.
†† http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2000/jan/21/buildingaclassicallibraryseries.culture7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0hAd2rSV20&feature=related
††† Employing, operating, wielding, manipulating, becoming the wrecked and gibbering slave of
‡ Well. Perhaps slightly contingent on the musical requirements. I could probably keep playing There Is a Tavern in the Town over and over and over and over and . . . if my life depended on it.
‡‡ There was one graphic moment, etched forever in my memory, when Oisin had been trying to eliminate one of my Incredible Rest Blodges–why does the wretched programme let you stack up 1,279 rests in a 4/4 bar?–and we got a little error box saying, Windows is having a problem with what you’re doing and we’re shutting your butt down. And it did. Taking my week’s work with it.
I did eventually find it again, hiding in a back-up folder. But it was not a nice moment. And Oisin had to eliminate the Rest Blodge all over again . . . hitting save every other button-press.
‡‡‡ Well, ready is pushing it. Foolhardy. Delirious. Never say die. Something more like that.
§ Okay, short
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I have to admit to not having exposed myself to much opera, but mozart and beethoven – yes! Also Brahms and Bruckner are great favourites of mine, and have taken me through many bad (and good) times so I can empathise with the girding the loins to a piece of music.
****** Then I went bell ringing. And there were people more hammerklaviered than me at practise tonight. I rang two§ touches of Stedman . . . one of them successfully. But on the other one someone else went wrong. Not me.
Yay! No more gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands! Break out the champagne! Yay!! Well done :)
Yes, I’m late to Bruckner and Brahms . . . but I got here! :) –Just bought the Barenboim complete Bruckner Symphonies in fact. I’m a biiiiig slavering Barenboim fan.
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****** Just bought the Barenboim complete Bruckner Symphonies in fact. I’m a biiiiig slavering Barenboim fan.
Oooohh! very envious! I have the Deutsch Gramaphon complete Beethoven symphonies with Herbert von Karajan, but on LPs so not played recently. Really I need some technology to convert them to CD…
If you keep your eyes open you can fall into ridiculously cheap ‘complete’ offers. I’ve just bought my second complete Beethovens this way–first is Muti, new one is Mackerras.
****I’ve just bought my second complete Beethovens this way–first is Muti, new one is Mackerras.****
I would very highly recommend the new Beethoven symphony recordings by the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vanska. This is not mere chauvinism–they have been very well reviewed. I’m not sure of the set is quite complete but it would be close.
Only if they’re CHEAP. I’ve only recently started bothering to accumulate symphonies because buying one at a time is hideously expensive and *one* tends to be like having one act of an opera. Well, it affects me that way. And full-price sets are heart attack prices. My *two* complete Beethovens are still about half what one full price would cost.
****Only if they’re CHEAP.****
Not yet, they’re too new. That’s why *I* haven’t bought them yet. Having just bought a puppy AND puppy health insurance AND having several books on pre-order, I have to practice Thrift.
Ah yes, pet insurance. Didn’t think of it till it was too late. . . .
Oh yes! When Noodles and I got tangled up and fell in a heap, with a sickening crack and some screaming, it cost me more than £3000 and a lot of anguish to repair her broken leg… and I still need to sort out my resulting bad knee :(
(southdowner – not convinced that wordpress recognises her yet, despite formal handclasp)
Gods, this is one of my nightmares–Chaos in particular LIVES to get between my legs.
****** Chaos in particular LIVES to get between my legs.
The irony was that noodles is such a peabrain that she dives in all directions, so I had her on a short lead, and Hazel on a longer lead. I turn left just as Noodles dashes across me from left to right, and the lead is so short that she can’t escape as I land all tangled up, on top of her… at which point her scream triggers Hazel to “get” her as she now sounds like a small prey animal (terriers – sighs and rolls eyes) and I start cursing in fluent dog-ownerese… thank heavens it was late and quiet…
Oh dear! But how did you get all of your damaged selves to suitable mending facilities?
****** Oh dear! But how did you get all of your damaged selves to suitable mending facilities?
I drove myself & Noodles to the night emergency vets (translate that to the “we will suck your bank account dry in one fell swoop” vets) despite a knee that I couldn’t walk on. Amazing what adrenalin and determination will do… I never did sort out my knee, which twinges occasionally.
****I never did sort out my knee, which twinges occasionally.****
Of course, you took care of the dog FIRST. This is right and proper behavior. :) And yes, alas, visits to the emergency vet don’t leave much left over for taking care of yourself. This is true on this side of the water, too.
to listen to in the dark while eating butterscotch meringue cookies that her mum had thoughtfully made for us. I’m not sure she fully realised what teenage fires exactly she was stoking
Sitting in the dark, eating cookies, listening to music? I know what kind of teenage fires were being smo— er, stoked, if that was me. But I don’t suppose that’s the kind of fire you are referring to? :)
Regarding the losing-a-week’s-work problem: if you don’t already do it, I heartily recommend not only saving, but BACKING UP to a secondary source regularly. Like, in the evening before you shut down for the night, if you’re really worried about losing things. Flash sticks (a.k.a. thumb drives or USB drives) are remarkably cheap these days, and Heaven’s gift to data recovery. (And if you accidentally leave one in your pocket and run it through the wash, it will STILL WORK as long as you let it dry out thoroughly afterward. Not that I would have any firsthand experience with such foolishness, or anything.)
Oh, and I keep meaning to mention, but… I know you grew up all over as a Navy kid, but it never ceases to amaze me how very British you sound here, given how many years you lived in the States. I find myself wondering how much of it is you and how much of it is the influence of a British-English spellchecker.
I SOUND totally American–I haven’t lost my accent at all. But my spelling went east long before I moved over here because I kept doing things like retelling Robin Hood. And the slang . . . I pick up the *words*. But really I’m transatlantic–neither one nor t’other.
I tend to hysterically and compulsively back up text. I just haven’t got used to Finale yet. Today’s little experience kind of REMINDED me.
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Gods I’m boring. Well, can’t be helped.
*****I adore Vivaldi so much it can’t be healthy. Is it better to be boring or insane?
Ah, well, I adore Vivaldi too. He’d be in the top ten. The very first piece of ‘classical’ music I fell in love with all by myself without grown ups forcing it on me was a Vivaldi concerto.
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. . . After I posted last night I thought, you twit, you didn’t even mention you were LISTENING TO VIVALDI while you typed. This was after the end of the Beethoven Ninth. . . .
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One of the best error messages I ever got was when I went to print my entire MA thesis from a school computer, having written it on my laptop at home. The thesis was written in English, but there were bunches of block quotes, titles in the Works Cited, and things that were in French, so I had turned off the automatic spell check on the laptop to make all the red squiggles go away. When I opened up the 90+ page document on a university computer without thinking to turn spell check off first, Word diligently set about underlining all my “errors” but eventually gave me a message that said [paraphrased]: There are so many errors in this document that I’m not even going to try to correct you anymore, OK? I defeated Word!!!
LOL! That’s BRILLIANT! –It’s on my list to ask Blogmom to start us a silly instructions/error messages thread. I have some lovely recent instructions I’ve preserved. . . .
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“There are so many errors in this document that I’m not even going to try to correct you anymore, OK? I defeated Word!!!”
I am sorry to deflate you, but this is common as s**t in bilingual documents. It doesnt’ take much to defeat Word. It is so much easier for Word to defeat us…
Oh, I figured as much–I’ve just managed to avoid getting it before or since ‘cuz I usually just turn the damn thing off. :)
It was very, very funny after months of working on the thesis every waking moment while trying to block out the music and video game sounds blasting from the apartment below, and the weekend parties that started on Thursdays…
Here’s hoping you get Finale down soon.
When I write I have to listen to folkish music or cosmic cowboy stuff. I have to know it very well so the lyrics don’t distract me from the writing.
I know I’m evil, but I do like the finale of Tristan and Isolde. Get’s me all worked up, but I can’t write to it.
About the leg. Er, um, bad news. Part of the wound has already died, and more is expected to. I will have surgery and skin grafts and a deformed leg. So I am trying to be brave like Aerin.
Thanks, all you guys. Keep it coming, please?
I agree about Tristan and Isolde.
**Find an alternative therapy that resonates for you and cleave to it.** I’m sure it is bad news (and I’m lining up the candles as we speak) but medical doctors DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING. they only want you to think they do.
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**Find an alternative therapy that resonates for you and cleave to it.**
All my sympathy, sshunt, but I agree with Robin. There are a passel of good alternative therapies that help with healing and can be done in parallel with conventional western medicine. And even if they don’t help with the wound (and both Reiki and Reflexology have helped with healing in me on two very traumatic occasions) they will help you be in a better and more relaxed frame of mind to focus on getting better.
Heaps of healing thoughts and best wishes coming your way.
****** About the leg. Er, um, bad news. …Thanks, all you guys. Keep it coming, please?
Big hug and candles lit for you.
Having had a serious scare two years ago, I’d recommend being your own advocate, and/or having someone to go to medical meetings with you. Modern traditional medicine is too good at working by moving along independantly, and lots of health psychology research shows the best results come from feeling empowered – hoping you find the best healing for you
More hugs
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Having had a serious scare two years ago, I’d recommend being your own advocate, and/or having someone to go to medical meetings with you. Modern traditional medicine is too good at working by moving along independantly, and lots of health psychology research shows the best results come from feeling empowered
************* YES. ABSOLUTELY. Modern med tech treats you as a problem, not a human being.
****About the leg. Er, um, bad news.****
I’m sorry to hear that things are going badly. Best wishes, candles, and prayers for a better outcome.
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****if I were allowed several composers* on my desert island Mozart would be number two and Beethoven number three****
It would be very hard to choose only ONE. If I could *really* only have one, it would probably be Bach, but I’d want Mozart and Wagner and Britten too. Now that there are things like iPods–and I don’t have one, so this is theoretical–and you don’t need hundreds of pounds of LPs for an extensive collection, I suppose the desert island rules could be changed. :)
****And then there’s the Hammerklavier. For knocking you down and standing on you it doesn’t get any knockier and standier than the Hammerklavier.****
The opening movement of the Waldstein is quite a rush, too.
****I rang two§ touches of Stedman . . . one of them successfully.****
Brava! A good omen for dealing with Finale.
Bach is growing on me, but I’m not even sure he’s on the top ten yet (!). I realise this is heresy.
Brava! A good omen for dealing with Finale.
********** I wish. I suppose it’s all noise. :)
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Mine would be Bach, any of his solo instrument pieces. I can listen for hours to endless variations… I think it might be something about combining mathematical precision with profound emotion. I have to say, however, that my inconstant mind cringes somewhat at the idea of listening to the same pieces endlessly on a desert island. Ad infinitum would quickly become ad nauseum.
****Bach is growing on me, but I’m not even sure he’s on the top ten yet (!). I realise this is heresy.****
No it’s not. Why should you have to like anything, even if it is in the canon?
But as to Susan from Athens’ comment–
****I have to say, however, that my inconstant mind cringes somewhat at the idea of listening to the same pieces endlessly on a desert island.****
–it would take quite a long time to get through Bach’s entire catalogue, so from the volume-of-work standpoint he’d be a pretty good choice. :)
I’m kind of an obsessive listener too. I could do pretty well on just my top favourites’ full catalogue.
–it would take quite a long time to get through Bach’s entire catalogue, so from the volume-of-work standpoint he’d be a pretty good choice. :)
But I thought desert island disks was one piece by each composer. However much you look at it that way, you will probably either have to be extremely zen or hate the piece after a year.
I consider desert island *lists* to be anything you like. And I’m going for complete works. :)
“Then I came home and struggled with Brief Descriptions of My Books a little more.”
Why not use the blog community to your advantage? I know that you are struggling with the short descriptions for your books, why not ask your blog readers to submit shorts and then you could choose what you consider the best for posting? Give us a deadline and see what happens. If nothing else it might just reaffirm why we pay to read your writing.
I’m sorry, it just seems Very Wrong to me.
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Speaking of hammerklaviered, Houston, anybody?
I live in Austin, but most of my family (dad, 2 grandmas, great-grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, bestest fwend) live in Houston, and NONE of them evacuated. I haven’t heard from any of them yet this morning; Ike is the first hurricane to directly hit Houston in 25 years, and according to news so far, it’s been a disaster. So if any of you others out there or your families live on the Gulf Coast, my thoughts are with you, too.
I’ve been worrying about Galveston. As soon as I tidy up here I’m going to go google for info.
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Yes, seconding and thirding good thoughts to Texas. Lighting candles.
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Anonymous candles are still candles, but for blog purposes name please. . . .
1. Mozart is very fine (though Bach would have to come to my island), and Steeleye Span would be extremely high on the list, but I would run away from Led Zepellin’s genre and take Gordon Bok, especially the older recordings with Ann Mayo Muir. Perhaps they will ring a bell from your days in Maine? (No one in Indiana seems to have heard of them.)
2. Does your software have a way to input sheet music and find out what it’s supposed to sound like? That would be fabulous for someone like me! I can translate bagpipe music’s 9-notes-one-key to the instrument, but don’t “hear” anything more complicated when I look at written music.
3. Scrabble remains my favorite game, but I plan to boycott its makers for removing Scrabulous from the internet. What good is an “official” on-line version that won’t allow US/UK games?
4. However, I really am posting to rejoice that, doubtless through the error of someone in the Barnes & Noble advance order shipping department, I have just read Chalice. And eaten two slices of toast with honey. :D :D :D
Thank you!
Oh, yaay on the toast with honey! :)
I may have listened to the wrong Bok and Mayo, but they tended to be too ‘soft’ for me. But I haven’t listened to/thought about them in a very, very long time, and I might have changed my mind.
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“Soft” as in not loud? As in buttery and smooth?
As in sentimental?
As in easy to understand?
I’m curious because I really like Gordon Bok too. Our once-a-month pot luck and sing group sings a lot of Gordon Bok songs. Of course living in Vermont means that most of us have soft spots in our hearts for the coast of Maine … and our enviro-geek leanings and closeness to the land (our fiddler and his wife and grown daughters use lovely big draft horses on their farms) means that his songs “speak” to us.
Of course we also sing Bill Staines, the Beatles, protest songs, show tunes, old hymns and rounds from various traditions, and anything else we have the words for and somebody remembers the tune.
I guess we do it instead of playing games … in any case it works well for everyone from grandmothers to grand kids.
By the by, do you know the “new” carol “Chariots of Cherubim” … I think you’d like the social commentary … and the music is terrific for whipping up anti-war spirit.
“2. Does your software have a way to input sheet music and find out what it’s supposed to sound like? That would be fabulous for someone like me! I can translate bagpipe music’s 9-notes-one-key to the instrument, but don’t “hear” anything more complicated when I look at written music.”
The Official Composition Software Flame Fanner here to tell you that my composing software can indeed scan and playback stuff. I’m not certian, but I think it’s possible that more updated versions of the software I have will even allow you to scan, playback, then edit! It’s a “plug-in” called Scorch (for Sibelius). I would guess that Finale can also do this, but their plug-in probably has a different catchy title.
Smiles,
Jeanne Marie
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You are an evil woman . . . :)
It’s good to know that Oisin is also a bit uncertain of things…and, the Incredible Rest Blodge doesn’t sound at all good (well, it’ll sound very funny in about a year when you’ve figured out how to avoid them…). But, I’m glad that you are gradually finding your way through it! Hooray! :-)
And in the Hooray department…I got a phone call from OCP (Oregon Catholic Press) and they were VERY HAPPY to receive my resume…long conversation about the joys of living in Portland and how did I feel about relocating, with occasional caveats about needing more resumes before they can fly me in for an interview.
*nearly inarticulate with excitement!!*
I’m not sure if you have followed the surprisingly swift “I might be getting a new job in Portland” saga, but at this point in the saga, Beethoven is definitely standing on my head, in a climactic and triumphal kind of way! :-)
Oh, that reminds me I wanted to tell you about a composer I’ve recently discovered – Adam Guettel. Gradnson of Sondheim. I bought Myths and Hymns, a collection of songs that was done together as a concert musical some years ago. Brilliant stuff, and he’s not fussy about staying in the same key (in the same measure, even!)…I love it! If I find links, I’ll send some, I think you’d enjoy it as well!
Smiles,
Jeanne Marie, still in Kc for now…
Oh, GOOD LUCK on Portland! Portland is a LOVELY town!!!
‘Grandson of *Sondheim*’? Huh?
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****‘Grandson of *Sondheim*’? Huh?****
I thought the last name sounded familiar, so I Googled to check–he’s the grandson of Richard Rodgers.
Ah. Okay. Whew. :)
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Oops! Sorry, yes, grandson of Rodgers…all those Broadway guys run together in my brain! :-) Also, Guettel won an award called the Sondheim award, so I think I got a wire crossed!
I picked up the Opera Australia brochure when I was in Melbourne on the weekend and noticed that they have a performance of Madama Butterfly on my mum’s birthday coming up……… Maybe I will ask the other siblings to make donations to the cause… ;) Mum can sing rather well and I think she would like to go to the opera. (She plays the piano too….)
She would probably enjoy it very much, and Butterfly is terrifically effective as a stage piece.
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“…Beethoven for the wallop.”
One of the best things I ever read about Beethoven came from one of my student’s papers when he quoted Robert Shaw. I copied down the quote and had it posted by my computer for years, though it now lives in my top desk drawer (cats, you know, love batting taped papers about!). I’m not sure of the context, but it sounds like he is chewing out a choir :):
“Our tenors are adolescent. Our altos have not passed puberty. Our sopranos trip their dainty ballet of coloratura decorum, and our basses woof their wittle gray woofs all the way home… Get your backs and your bellies into it! You can’t sing Beethoven from your neck up or you’ll bleed! Beethoven is not precious; he’s prodigal as hell. He tramples all over nicety. He’s ugly, heroic; he roars, he lusts after beauty, he rages after nobility. Be ye not temperate!
That’s wallop!
Oh, hurrah! Yes. I particularly agree with ‘ugly, heroic’.
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“Now that’s very odd. What’s it doing that for?”
is the sort of Mumbling-To-Oneself that helpdesk people get into to try to maintain that schauedenfreude in the user, lest they fall into a black hole of despair…
“Harry on that mountaintop in Blue Sword has a particular bit of the Fifth Symphony playing in the background”
Which particular bit is this? I remember listening to the Fifth the first time I read /The Blue Sword/, and the really dark part of the third movement was playing while I was reading the part of the story before the scene on the mountaintop, where things aren’t going so well… (sigh, I have a bad memory or I could be more descriptive) and the combination of the two was just so /intense/… I’m not sure what the right word for it was, but dark and frightening…
(Introduction, as I haven’t posted here before: I’ve been a fan of your books since I was 12 or 13… I’m 22 now, so I guess that makes it almost a decade. I’m quite fond of the /Hero and the Crown/ even though I find the parts where Aerin is under the influence of the dragon bloodstone to be depressively dark and oppressive… I guess you can tell it resonates with me… I’m from the Northeast US, but will be imminently moving to the UK to study for a year.)
(Also, the website tells me that “Comments for this post will be closed in 5 hours.” Why must comments close? I do feel so lucky…)