Eileen and I are back in Holland. My brother and his wife are such gracious hosts. (Thank you, Mark and Leigh, for the visit!!) It was good to get away. I still need to do more of this, but it was very helpful and relaxing. I’m a bit tired right now, but am planning to go over and practice a bit at church on the Pasi.

So yesterday I discovered that Bach does some interesting word painting in his Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book). Specifically in the one based on the German chorale, O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross (O humankind, your sins bemoan).  I own several copies of Bach’s Little Organ book as many organists do. I recently repurchased the edition by Clark and Peterson since my old one was falling apart from use. It was released at about the same time the Neue Bach Ausgabe (the modern scholarly collected works of Bach) released their version of the Little Organ Book. I heard  Clark and Peterson talk about this edition. At the time they expressed relief that their editorial decisions were borne out by the new scholarly edition. I, personally, love this edition.

But I also love the “Organ Pedagogical Materials” Series from Wayne Leupold publishers. It was in Quentin Faulkner’s edition of Bach’s work in an edition in this series that I learned that In the aforementioned setting of “O humankind, your sins bemoan”  Bach does some cool word painting. This organ piece is often performed very slow and adoringly meditatively. I, myself, have been known to play it at funerals. it is a beautiful piece of music, but I don’t think I understood very well until yesterday.

The mood of the title is a bit somber. However Faulkner (and other schol ars and teachers I now find out) points out that the words for the first stanza of the hymn actually outline what churchy Christian types call “Salvation History” including Christ’s birth and his life and his “atoning sacrifice” on the cross. Bach’s beautiful melody comments on these in an unmistakable way as the German melody and its associated text goes by. For example on the word, geboren, “is born,” there is suddenly several beautiful runs. Anton Heiler maintains that in the inner voices Bach is subtly alluding to a famous Christmas Lutheran Hymn: Vom Himmel Hoch (From Heaven Above).

I actually found this in a footnote in the Clark and Peterson edition. The citation is dated 1965 so these ideas have clearly been around awhile. This brings this piece to life. It also clearly explains the slow section that Bach asks for at the end of the piece. The first stanza of the original hymn ends with “an dem Krueze lange” (“on the cross extended” or “stretched out on the cross”) It’s pretty dam logical to have a slow down in the melody at that point.

This morning I was reading Peter William’s bio of Bach and learned that it was the practice to hand out lyric sheets to congregational members when cantatas were performed in church. I didn’t know that either. Very cool.

I mentioned this guy recently. Vijay Iyer is one of my new heroes. I like his compositions and improvs quite a bit. I like their lack of obvious debts to jazz and their ability to just be good music.  This is a long video (about an hour and half) but there is some very fine playing here by all three musicians.

I’m back on the porch a bit before midday. I practically slept in this morning and didn’t get out of bed until around 7 AM. I just spent some time rehearsing the Mozart Violin sonata accompaniment I played on Sunday. Then I explored more of the sonatas. These pieces are beautiful and amazing. It’s rewarding to just work on the accompaniment.

The preface to the volume I am working from says that Mozart wrote them as a sort “compositional calling card in Vienna” after permanently moving there in 1781. He wanted gigs so he wrote these pieces and imbued them with the spirit of his operas which is saying a lot. These kinds of pieces were called at the time piano sonatas with violin accompaniment. The piano parts are beautiful and exceed the piano sonatas by Mozart (for the most part). I think the piano sonatas were largely learning pieces and are fun. But the piano accompaniment to the violin sonatas is in another world of beauty as far as I’m concerned.

I translated my first Greek sentence by Plato this morning. I continue my second time around on chapter 6, doing the last exercises (chapter tests really). I was saving beginning on chapter 7 for summer vacation. Chapter 7 begins with a slightly dumbed down version of some of the trial of Socrates. This study is a very good way to relax.

I started working on Carson Cooman’s “organ demonstrator,” “Hiker’s Gear,” yesterday at church. It’s kind of goofy but the music is growing on me. Cooman’s composition has a sort of “pop” charm. A visitor on Sunday afternoon at the recital told me she wept when the choir sang his anthem, “If ye love me.” He does get through to listeners well sometimes. I do sort of think of him as a 21st century Gordon Young, but that probably sells Cooman short since he is “composer in residence” at Harvard Memorial Church.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: By the Book – The New York Times

This guy seems to be very educated and articulate. Who knew?

Bob Dylan’s Nobel Lecture on Literature Is About the Mystery of Art – The Atlantic

His lecture is embedded here.

Donald Trump’s Twitter feed welcome change to supporters – Washington Times

Warning. Washington Times is a highly reactionary Trump supporting paper and this article shows that. I read it as part of my ongoing attempt to dilute my own echo chamber a bit. I also sent a friend request to Ted Hayes who is mentioned in this article and described as a black activist, homeless advocate and immigration opponent.

I’m still feeling a bit tired but I am definitely feeling relaxed. It’s good not to have anything on the schedule other than a daily trip into town to practice organ.

A while back I loaded a free app onto my tablet which is a Greek dictionary. Recently I noticed that you can build your own vocab list from it (“favorites” of course). I completed transferring my home made flash cards to it this morning. There are a few words I was drilling with my flashcards that are not in it, but it is so nice to actually read a dictionary definition of words I am working instead of a glossary one or two word description.

It’s set up so that I can use it as a flash card drill, only seeing the word before seeing the definition.

Speaking of apps, before he left, Martin Pasi turned me on to a phone app which will tune in different unequal temperaments. In the process of talking to Martin, reading about unequal temperament and thinking about all of this I realized that it’s actually only a matter of discernible frequencies that make up each of the temperaments and that these can be accurately ascertained.

I figured this out when Martin told me that he had his own combination of a couple of tunings and that he had put the numbers into the application. Of course. Approaching tuning from equal temperament with no instruction other than the introduction to the instructions to assemble my harpsichord kit years ago left me with a fuzzy understanding of tuning.

Martin uses the app with his harpsichord but after setting the unequal temperament on the organ he calibrates the app to the organ and then can use it, I guess.

There is more than the frequencies of course. But thinking about using an unequal temperament on my harpsichord if I ever get it fixed suddenly seems more doable than setting an equal temperament something that I never actually learned to do well.

So. This is cool. One of my choir members recorded the concert on her phone. I haven’t had the courage to listen to it yet, but help yourself. Let me know if you can’t get it to work and I’ll email it to you.

Click here to play or download Sunday’s concert

I’m sitting on my brother’s back porch in Unadilla Michigan. He and his wife are letting Eileen and me visit. In my case, it is for some badly needed rest. However, I have already driven into Chelsea and practiced organ for an hour. A local church lets me do this.

I am exhausted. I had more will than energy to practice.

I am very excited! My brother is letting me read a rough draft of one of his short stories. He has been working on his writing since retiring. I have been looking forward to seeing some of his work. Cool beans!

 Climate Science Meets a Stubborn Obstacle: Students – The New York Times

This is a weirdly written report. I find the stubborn student reprehensible, but she is only a high school student. I think some of the details in this story are a bit invasive on the part of the reporter. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to see such personal stuff the subject of a national newspaper article I wonder how the people described feel about this article.

Here I am again, sitting with my martini at the end of the day blogging.

I played a lot of music today. This was pretty satisfying. I had an email from Rev Jen asking me if I could sneak in at the end of the early service and play something so they could hear the instrument.

I learned that playing cold at that time of the morning might not always be the best idea. I attempted to play my prelude. It didn’t go so good. Even though I had spent some time rehearsing Mozart on the piano in the choir room, I had trouble concentrating.

I learned something from this experience after I nailed the same piece in the prelude to the 11 AM. Warming up is good even for old farty organists.

The Pentecost service went quite well. The choir sang a new Anglican chant for the psalm and the congregation seemed to join in pretty well. During her homily, Rev Jen came to the back and invited the kids to come with her. Then, following up on the first part of her homily given at the front of the church, she asked me to show how the wind blows through, say the trumpet pipes. Then she asked me to show some other ways the wind blows through different pipes.

I improvised silly windy things on “Come Down O Love Divine,” our opening hymn. Then she and the congregation blessed the organ. That was cool.

The choir sang the Tallis well at the 10 AM service. We were scrambling to get the program finished between the service and the recital. Rev Jen helped Eileen and me and we had 75 programs printed off by the time we left.

We just had time to say hi to my Mom at the nursing home, go home and have some lunch, and then I took a shower.

The recital went very well. I tried my hand at commentary. I kept pretending I was Chris Thile who now hosts Prairie Home Companion.

His enthusiasm seems genuine. We had maybe fifty or so people. I had fun and we pretty much nailed all the pieces.

Whew. Now for a little time off.

We took Edison to the vet this morning. We are planning some time away next week. We are monitoring Edison closely these days since the vet thought he had cancer. We discovered this when he was obviously losing weight. One of the things the vet recommends is a cortisone shot which can boost a waining appetite. We have been taking him periodically to do this. Since we are planning to be away we wanted to have the vet look at him and see if he’s lost weight. He hasn’t! This is good news. So no shot for the cat today.

It’s past martini time (5 PM) and I’m blogging as I have my evening martini. I managed to get most everything done today that I needed to. I worked over the Mozart very carefully before lunch. After lunch, I met with my string players and we had a good rehearsal for tomorrow’s recital. Then I rehearsed music for tomorrow morning, the recital and next Sunday at the organ. By this time, Eileen had dropped by and got to work using her skills on the “Publisher” program She was immensely helpful.

But the printer seemed to running out of ink. We were running out of steam at about the same time. The program is in “publisher” waiting for final corrections and printing. It’s possible after all of Eileen’s hard work we won’t have program due to church’s printer being out of ink. But we’ll deal with that tomorrow.

As the NPR News Hour played on our computer last night, I remarked to Eileen that it was really the Bizarro Fox news.

Low on content and high on noise. A bit like Fox news, but calmer with inverted content or at least approach. Being an informed US citizen is a difficult task. And since we have descended into the reality TV world of President Trump and his corrupt cronies (the ones applauding him in the Rose Garden yesterday as he announced withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords), since this is our environment, fact based discussions are hard to find.

But they can be found. I keep flitting back and forth between US news sources, Journalism critiques of these sources and the BBC.

Today’s is Thomas Hardy’s birthday. Years ago I began reading my way through his complete poems. This morning I discovered I was on poem # 803. I do find him a bit like an old easy chair, familiar and comfortable.

I heard about his birthday on today’s Writer’s Almanac. I sometimes wonder why they use such bad poetry for “Here’s a poem for today” section. I listen to this pod cast daily to time my five minute wait before taking my Blood Pressure. I like to learn about anniversaries and birthdays. Sometimes, the poem for the day is good. Usually not.

Speaking of poetry, I impulsively checked out a couple of books yesterday.

Odes by Sharon Olds and The Last Shift by Philip Levine.

I loved Old’s book of poems about her father, The Father. I loved her brutality in those poems. Since then, I have been disappointed in much of her work I have read.  Odes looks pretty good.

I haven’t read much Levine. But he died recently and graduated from Wayne State University when it was Wayne University. I think that’s why he’s on my radar. I had to return two books of poetry I was working my way through by Stephen Dunn and Hayden Carruth. I had renewed them as much as could. When that happens I make a note and then re-check them out at some point.

Steady Jobs, With Pay and Hours That Are Anything But – The New York Times

I know a couple of people personally who are at the mercy of their employers. This seems very unfair to me.

ChurchPublishing.org: A Failure of Nerve, Revised Edition, 10th anniversary edition

This came in my email. I do love Friedman. Not sure I need another copy of this, however.

David Lewiston, Who Recorded Indigenous Music Far and Wide, Dies at 88 – The New York Times

I didn’t know about this guy. I hope to check out some of his recordings online.

John Mace, 97, Voice Coach and Campaigner for Same-Sex Marriage, Dies – The New York Times

This kind of obit, a good story, is one reason I like to read obits.

First, let me acknowledge a creator who had the wherewithal to contact me about my use of his image. In January of 2011, I posted a blog post  which used this image.

I repeat it here because Alfred Laing, it’s owner, said in his email he had no problem with my use of it. I like his attitude. Then he wrote: “I am flattered by it’s spread across the internet since it won an honourable mention at the 2007 Mandelbrot Fractal contest.”

He goes on, “In order to celebrate my new store, I am offering a 55% discount on Spiral Fantasy. However, the discount is also a site wide. The code is “spiral” (no quotes, all small letters). Enter the code in the shopping cart to apply the discount.

“You can find the Spiral Fantasy here.

http://www.art-by-ajil.com/store/art_print_products/spiral-fantasy

“You don’t even have to buy Spiral Fantasy. If you are not interested in a print, maybe you know somebody who does. Please feel free to distribute the discount code.
If you do use the code to actually purchase Spiral Fantasy, drop me a note and your website will go into the hall of fame on my website.”

He signs off: “Art By Ajil
www.art-by-ajil.com
www.facebook.com/inquistve
Store@art-by-ajil.com

Wow. What a great way to approach that!

I had an incredibly busy day yesterday. I set off to get my organ music  and shoes from church and then practice at one of the churches in town that is allowing me to do so. Then I remembered my intention to purchase a guest book for the new organ. I knew that Martin might be leaving as soon as today. I wanted his signature to be the first one in the guest book. So I drove up to Barnes and Noble and bought a nice one and dropped it off at church.

I didn’t have much time left before lunch to practice so I went home. After lunch I had a long fruitful meeting with my boss. She liked the way I described handing the “man on the stairs” incident. We talked about the upcoming recitals and services as well as other things. I do like working for her.

I put in for reimbursement for purchases. This came to over $500. I let that go too long. I gave Eileen a call and we went and saw Mom. Then she came to church and helped me get ready for the evening rehearsal. While she did that, I timed all of the pieces in Sunday’s program. Rev Jen (my boss) and I talked at length about that program. The times came out to just over thirty minutes. From watching me work on the Christmas eve pregame choral and carols half hour, she suggested I add ten minutes to any total of music time. It’s probably a good rule. I would be very glad if Sunday’s recital came in around 40 minutes but would take anything under an hour.

Last night’s rehearsal went well. My people are tired and stressed (which affects their signing, of course), but I felt like the morale was high. We are all looking forward to Sunday.

Why is English so weirdly different from other languages? | Aeon Essays

I didn’t read this, but I did listen to the embedded recording of it.