Preparation for Gaudeamus
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Rant deferred
Have you noticed, a rant is relatively easy to produce, but have you ever thought that a rant is about as useful for the settling of the thoughts, or the removal of phlegm from the chest as a lump of sugar, which may provide the brief and passing, even less than ephemeral, notion of a greater strength and enthusiasm in the muscles than you know you have on a hot day half way through the marathon when what you really need is a glass of salted water to replace the fluids and salts than have for the past hour been flooding out of your gaping pores as if there were tomorrow?
Continue readingBeware the drum-kit
If Coco were willing to ignore my own advice this would have been posted on the 8 September, but to have done so would be rather like a prime minister ignoring the law and refusing to obey the bill that the parliament had passed even though it had been lawfully enacted. In such circumstances Coco would deserve the most severe of censures, however, fearing an orthographic mistake more than fearing censure, Coco deferred this post to an otherwise opportune time.
Continue readingTicky-tacky
Gaudiness
Gaudeamus igitur
Student games at the First Viennese School
Things you might need to know.
- Buxtehude was Bach’s mentor.
- Buxtehude called Bach The Master, and nobody disagreed.
- Mahler was a superb master of key and modulation.
- Bruckner was a superb organist, so much so that it has been said that when he played the orchestra he made it sound like an organ.
- Schubert knew how to modulate but never wrote a successful fugue in his life.
- Palestrina was the father of counterpoint. If it could be counterpointed, then Palestrina knew how to do it, even if he had deemed it would have been quite inappropriate to have done so for his audiences.
- Paul McCartney is a successful song writer unlike Schubert but he neither knew how to write a fugue nor how to modulate, though he could change key.
It was at a gathering of music students and staff of the first Viennese school that the game gained great popularity. It was very much as all student games are full of challenges, where penalties and rewards were handed out to the amusement and humiliation of those who were willing to complete and also on those who refused the invitation to do so. The game was very simple. It was to right(sic.) a fugue. The fugue would be five minutes long, no more no less.
Continue readingMoonlit night: Zhang Ruoxu
春江花月夜，张若虚
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In separation the moon understands our longing –
So it was said, but in the days of separation what goes through one’s head?
A Chinese author, 张若虚, expressed it in this way:
Continue readingTransfigured night: Richard Dehmel
Together they watched the moon –
And in the days of confession what must the response be?
A German author, Dehmel, expressed it in this way:
Continue readingCome, ye sinners: Joseph Hart
親愛罪人，請你來
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The only sensible thing to do –
So it was said, but in the days of separation what must one do?
A British author, Joseph Hart, expressed it in this way:
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