notes

It was dry when I went out to pick up our weekly grocery order, but otherwise today it rained a lot, first heavy rain of the season. This followed a couple days of blustery winds, which knocked another slat out of the fence around our front porch. I tucked it back into place, where it will probably stay until the next high wind.

Still working on a large bag of lemons we were given as a casual gift. (And what's the next post on the neighborhood association list? Someone giving away free lemons!) Having had success with a lemon-butter sauce on chicken, this time I tried a lemon-cream sauce on the same chicken. I very much like the way of cooking chicken, by the way: slice a breast fillet into two thin pieces, season and coat lightly with flour, and pan fry on medium in an even mixture of butter and olive oil for 4 minutes a side. Take the chicken out, leave the drippings in, and cook the sauce in the same pan. It also works with winglets.

I am vastly amused by the distress of the QAnon people who were utterly convinced that DT was going to stage a military coup at 12 noon on Wednesday, that being the last possible moment he could have done it. Why do they think he would have waited so long? I guess only because he never did it earlier, when it would have made more sense if any of the conspiracies had been true. When asked about it, DT would indicate that he was aware that QAnon considered him their savior, but he seemed vague about what they expected him to do about it. Possibly they thought he was mounting the ultimate stealth operation, or maybe they just ignored what he said, which anybody considering him either sane or competent would have to do.

A few orders of books have come in:

Dan Ackerman, The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World
Not a gaming book, but a business book, because the process of marketing this thing and sorting out the rights was far more complicated than anything about inventing it, let alone playing it. Though I did like the story about showing the game to one software marketing CEO and having to pry him away from the computer six hours later.

Roger Angell, This Old Man
I like Roger Angell's writing, even when too much of it is about baseball. He is a worthy successor to his stepfather, E.B. White.

Christopher Fifield, The German Symphony between Beethoven and Brahms
Will tell you all about composers you've never heard of, like Woldemar Bargiel (Clara Schumann's brother, bet you didn't know that) and Felix Draeseke, and even some composers I'd never heard of, like Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (what a moniker) or Julius Otto Grimm.

Gary Krist, The Mirage Factory
The making of Los Angeles, 1900-1930, by which date it was well on its way to being a great metropolis, and also by which date the careers of all three of the book's protagonists - William Mulholland, D.W. Griffith, and Aimee Semple McPherson - had crashed and burned.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters from Father Christmas
A new "deluxe edition," more physically readable than the 1999 edition with the text overprinted on the illustrations, but they still haven't managed to accurately transcribe the letters, even the ones actually shown in the illustrations. This is vexing.

Anthony Tommasini, The Indispensable Composers: A Personal Guide
Never mind that I consider half of the 17 composers covered in this book to be eminently dispensable, though I am distressed by Tommasini's extremely traditional modernist limitation of what constitutes 20th century greatness. "Personal" means a lot of reminiscences of what particular compositions meant to him, especially piano works from his early career as a budding pianist. The book was redeemed by its Epilogue, which stoutly says yes, the serialist hegemony was a real thing, and more of a blight for its awful rhetoric than its music, which modernist Tommasini finds valuable.

and two movies:

Soul
Even though I don't care for jazz, certainly not this guy's jazz, I was beginning to get caught up in this story of a man who's trying to make it as a musician and escape from the drudgery of teaching high school band, when all of a sudden the plot made a left turn and became a remake of Defending Your Life, a movie I disliked and not just because it starred Albert Brooks.

The Vast of Night
Demonstration that you can't make an effective movie out of people talking nonstop, or at least these people can't. Hushed accounts of mysterious happenings and conspiracies don't cut the mustard. I'd just say "uh-huh" and back slowly away.

The Senate: it's done

The Senate was called to order, VP Harris announced the submission of two electoral certificates from Georgia and an appointment to replace for her own resignation from California (which she added was a weird thing to say) and swore in the incumbents. Then they formally elected the most senior Democratic senator (Patrick Leahy) as president pro tem to replace the most senior Republican senator, and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took the floor as majority leader, and began by welcoming his three new colleagues: Senators Warnock, Ossoff, and Padilla.

"Well, that's it," I said. "Our long national nightmare is over."

Of course I was watching the inauguration. Klobuchar as MC was enthused. Amanda Gorman, the national poet, gave her own version of an inaugural address. It felt securing to have such determination and aspiration from a young person. Biden's speech was also aspirational, but it specifically brought up all the major problems we face, including racial issues: so it felt clear-eyed and also determined. Justice Sotomayor, didn't anyone tell you how to pronounce "Kamala"?

Three ex-presidents and their wives were there, huddled together. Everyone wanted to talk to Barack Obama. Were I to greet him today, I'd say, "We miss you. I liked your book." The Carters had to decline attendance due to age, I guess, but Biden mentioned them. He didn't mention the one who was missing.

Mike Pence, thank you for being there, sir, to represent the transition, as also for having carried out your duty in presiding over the electoral vote count. Now you can go home to Indiana and may we never have to think about you again. And take the fly with you.

Of course I was interested in the music. Lady Gaga was a little creative with the tune to "The Star-Spangled Banner," and dressed as if to remind everyone that the Duchess of Windsor was American. Jennifer Lopez was extremely creative with her tunes. I don't think I'd heard her sing before; is she always like that? Garth Brooks had to refrain from being creative with "Amazing Grace" if he wanted everyone to sing along, which we did; and he walked as if he were trying simultaneously to ride a horse.

Aerial shot of the scene. Look, Donald, a smaller crowd than yours!

Now the next exciting news is the Senate. When does it turn to Democratic control? Maybe this afternoon - they meet at 4:30 EST - but not yet. As of this writing the new senators have still not taken office, as the list of senators on the official website doesn't include them and still has Loeffler (who as an appointee stays in office until her successor formally takes over). She gave a farewell speech yesterday, in which she went so far as to denounce "cancel culture," pretty ironic since she supported the biggest cancel-culture warrior of them all. It's not until both of VP Harris taking the chair and all three new senators, including Harris's successor, take office that the Democrats can take control. You need all those things, not just some of them.

Anyway, we got through that OK, though I nearly froze in terror at a momentary break in the tv feed during President Biden's speech. "President Biden": that feels good, and especially "Vice President Harris" - wow, that's amazing. Well, on to the next step.

English suites and others no. 32

Ottorino Respighi produced another suite of ancient airs and dances besides the three that bear that name. My favorite of his works is the suite Gli uccelli "The Birds", which orchestrates five avian depictions from early keyboard or lute pieces.

The five are, with time stamps for this recording, 0.00 Prelude (Bernardo Pasquini), 3.07 The Dove (Jacques de Gallot), 7.30 The Hen (Jean-Philippe Rameau), 10.26 The Nightingale (Jacob van Eyck), 14.08 The Cuckoo (Pasquini again).

But you have to be careful in selecting a recording of this suite. Too often it's played mechanically, and becomes tick-tock and dull. It needs life and breath, and, for that, no conductor is more reliable than good old Eugene Ormandy.

o to be a blogger

1. Today Kamala Harris officially resigns her Senate seat prior to taking office as VP on Wednesday. I'm anticipatory too.

2. Ben Sasse actually called Marjorie Taylor Greene "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs." I thought I was the only person who still said that. Sasse is 15 years younger than I; I'm surprised he remembers those ads. Will he warn us of "Danger Will Robinson" next? I have never seen that line quoted without a common reaction of "huh?"

3. Oh, come on. I know Joe is better than the last President, but ... a halo?

4. If the last guy pardons the rioters, that will really bite. But perhaps not, since they only rioted for him, they didn't give him thousands of dollars.

5. His most notable and characteristic lies. When it's said you cannot trust a word that man says, it's meant literally.

6. But he is not the only politician to suffer mouth-diarrhea. Lip-synch parody of Andrew Cuomo.

7. Le Guin is on a stamp! And for a single representative scene from her work: Estraven and Genly on the ice. I guess that'll do. Too bad it's a 3-ounce stamp: how often does one need one of those?

8. Recovery of lost music from WW2 by a Polish composer.

9. I know it's not charitable, but I'm kind of relieved that this guy is gone.

10. Dept. of Isolating Even More: It's time to stop even masked errands. OK, I've been worried about this since last month. Oh, and cloth masks were only intended as an interim solution until they could distribute something better: that I didn't know.

English suites and others no. 31

This is the continuation of a series I was keeping for several months a couple years ago, starting with 20 favorite suites by English composers and then going on to a few that were Celtic and then French. Now it's time to move on to other countries, and the outstanding Italian suites have to be Ottorino Respighi's three sets of Ancient Airs and Dances, ideal examples of the neoclassical penchant for retelling older music in modern instrumentation. Here you will hear pieces originally by Fabritio Caroso and Jean-Baptiste Besard and such historical names.

The Ancient Airs and Dances get played a lot, particularly on radio, but if there's one of the sets that gets overlooked it's No. 2, so that's the one you'll get here, from the LA Chamber Orchestra under Neville Marriner.



The movements are Laura soave (0:00), Danza rustica (3:51), Campanae parisienses & Aria (7:32), Bergamasca (12:41).

Janáček's Capriccio

Excuse the interruption, but I've just found a recording I've been looking for for nearly 50 years.

It's a particular performance of Leoš Janáček's Capriccio for piano (left hand) and wind/brass ensemble. This is the performance I first encountered the work in, way back then, and despite its spiky modernism I was captivated, much as I was by other Janáček works like his famous Sinfonietta.

But being unable to find a copy of this recording of the Capriccio for my own, I turned to other recordings of the work, and found they didn't have the particular blend and balance of instruments, and the ensemble and flow of this performance. Eventually I gave up.

Suddenly it occurred to me to check YouTube and I found it had recently gone up. It's single-channel mono (I'm pretty sure it was stereo when I heard it before) and scratchy, but it's the right performance at last. I don't expect anyone else to like this as I do, but here it is: Leonid Hambro, piano, with the Boston Brass Ensemble conducted by Eric Simon, in the Capriccio by Leoš Janáček:

impeachment notes

So I was reading the Congressional Record for impeachment day (PDF), and, besides the comment from Rules Committee chairman Jim McGovern about how he started out on Capitol Hill as an intern working for Senator George McGovern - "No relation. Great last name." - I was most interested in the speeches for and against the impeachment measure and the report that enabled it. So many representatives wanted to speak that the floor manager lined them up in alphabetical order and gave them 30 seconds each, which was not usually enough time to get past denunciations of the riot.

Most of the Democrats said the same thing - they denounced the riots and said therefore we must impeach - but the Republicans had a few points. One frequently deployed argument was that yeah, the riots were terrible, but what we need now is unity and healing, not recrimination. This was effectively responded to by Mike Quigley (D-IL), who said, "Never, as a criminal defense attorney, did I say: Judge, yeah, my guy completed the armed robbery, but let's heal now. No. There was accountability. There was accountability then, there should be accountability now, and there should be impeachment now."

Brian Mast (R-FL) asked what he intended as a rhetorical question, was there any evidence that rioters had come to Washington because Trump encouraged them to do so? An article in the Washington Post answered that: Yes.

But the strangest Republican argument was an attempt to somehow delegitimize the impeachment by claiming that Democrats have something against Trump and have been trying to impeach him since he took office. The usual response to this one was to point out that Democrats, as a group, voted those early attempts at impeachment down. They said that because at heart they're timorous beasties, just like Republicans. They should have said, "Yes indeed, we have something against Trump," and then said what it was with something like this:

The millions of Americans who understood this Presidency from its first day as a national emergency, a threat to domestic and global security, can be excused for finding it curious that so many are now taking the exit ramp for the road to Damascus three years and fifty weeks later. How surprising can Trump's recent provocation be when for years he has served as an inspiration to bigots everywhere, to damaged souls plotting to mail pipe bombs to journalists and to kidnap the governor of Michigan?
This dawning of conscience is as bewitching as it is belated. The grandees of the G.O.P. always knew who Trump was - they were among the earliest to confront his most salient qualities. During the 2016 campaign, Ted Cruz called Trump "a pathological liar" and "a snivelling coward." Chris Christie described him as a "carnival barker." Mitch McConnell remarked, with poetic understatement, that Trump "doesn't know a lot about the issues." And Lindsey Graham warned, "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed." He added, "And we will deserve it." (David Remnick, New Yorker, 1/18)

it's giving me nightmares

What a strange dream. I dreamed I was attending the electoral vote count of 1825 - how I got there I don't know. All the presidential and vice-presidential candidates were there (there were a lot of them that year) and all the then-living ex-presidents. But I didn't like the way some of them were smirking at me, so I got angry and stole some of the electoral vote certificates when nobody was looking. I stuffed them down my trousers and then hid them under the turf representing California (which wasn't part of the US then, so I don't know what that was doing there) at the other end of the hall. Then I went away and waited for the next day's newspapers to come out to find out if they noticed anything was missing, while worrying how I was going to explain this to B. and how I was going to write about it on my blog.

Dreams are incomprehensible, but sometimes reality is incomprehensible also.

from the original tape

A couple months ago, B. was cleaning out some of her stuff and handed me a couple of thin square boxes. They contained the recording of her senior recital when she was a voice student in college. It had been preserved on a pair of reel-to-reel tapes, but who has a reel-to-reel tape recorder? In over 40 years, B. had never heard herself do this. Could I see about getting these transferred?

I thought I could. I found a small local firm that does audio transfers and has a good rating, and filled out my order online for a CD transfer. It said at that point it would probably take about 4 weeks, which would make it just in time for a Christmas present. It was pretty expensive, but I knew it'd be worth it.

Then I had to label the tapes and take them to the firm's office, which was tucked away close to the morticians' office that handled my mother's funeral, about 15 miles from here, and handed them over in a proper socially distanced manner that had been outlined on the web site.

It was when I got the invoice by e-mail that I found the formal ETA was seven weeks - I guess they were busy - so without saying what it was I told B. at Christmas that the arrival of her present had been delayed.

So I got the notification a couple days early that it was ready, went and picked it up, and played it in my car's CD player on the way home and then out later, taking notes of the time stamps when the pieces started. There had been copies of the program with the tapes, but the audio people of course didn't know what would be on the tapes; they just made one CD track for each tape. Then I typed up an insert with all the program info and the time stamps, and put it in the case, wrapped up the result, and gave it to B. after dinner.

She was thrilled and listened to the whole thing. The transfer was excellent and the sound quality turned out to be good. (I had suspected noise reduction wouldn't be necessary, and am now glad I opted to omit it.) B. sang a large chunk of a Bach cantata,* song sequences by Mussorgsky (in English) and Poulenc (in French), and as a final treat a French opera aria which you may have heard: it's this one. The program was interesting to hear: I thought she did very well for a student, though this was about a decade before we met, and her voice had matured in tone quality a lot before I heard her sing. Anyway, now B. has heard herself, and we have it in a nice little accessible form.

*Well, not quite. B.'s teacher chose this piece because it's one of the two times Bach set lyrics in Italian, only it turns out he didn't. It's misattributed and is actually by G.P. Telemann. (The other one is also misattributed.) By the way, nobody has told Wikipedia about the authorship problem, but I'm sure not going to.