MARK ALBURGER, 2022: March 13

Begin updating the Works site re

Babel, Op. 47 (1992)

including uploading and linking video of

    I. And the whole earth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im0jXGLmoCE

also supplement the hallucinatory content of

Book of Dreams, 2022, Op. 376 (2022)
     March 12-13 (After Looking at Map of New Hampshire, and
        Thinking About Andover -- Just Below in MA -- Exeter, and Dartmouth)...
        Having Begun G. Crumb Memorial a Few Days Back...
          7am Ringmaster of Three Bassoon Tones: Low C - D Octave and Step Above, F Atop That....
               Prep School Inside Royal English Palace, Music Teacher in White w/ High Collar,
               a Few Students That Typically Hang Around, I Am Leaving, Have Been Gifted a Few Things,
               Come Back One More Time, My Hair Is a Mess and One of the Female Students
               Eventually Offers to Give Me a Haircut w/ Red Scissors, Cutting Off Tufts...
               Sad Goodbye, a Recent Death, the Tones Above and a Second Action /
               Instructional Page Are Another Memorial to George Crumb,
               Music Area Is Almost a Clean Reasonably Well-Lit Dungeon-Like Basement,
               But There Is New Constructon as Well... I Am Seeking New Work Elsewhere,
               Yet Have Been Glad for This Job,
               Items I'm Taking Are Suspect re Ownership in New Employ...

and produce Clarinet part for

Three George Crumb Tropes, Op. 392 (2022) from The Decameron: Fifth Day, Op. 247 (2015).

Putin's evil aggression

against Ukraine

continues to expand

its murderous way --

and where will it end?

Well,

off

Davis Community Presbyterian Church with

Harriet,

for the first Chancel Choir warm-up (at 8:30am, but semi-psychologically at 7:30, due to the change-over to Daylight Savings -- eagerly anticipated for the past 5 months!) and

participation in service

since Christmas Eve 2021.

Direct scenic route back,

on the 49th day of spring,

high down 3 to 69 (ABB'A lst 4 days, wavering between spring and summer as 69-73-72-69) --

the anniversary re the naming of

Harvard (1639 -- one of Cliff's alma matesr!) and birthday of

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903 -- revisiting his

Italian Serenade (1887)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn9_fhw9nTY

originally conceived as

Serenade in G for string quartet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlQI-lEjImw

***

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Wolf

Wolf had scornfully rejected the libretto to Der Corregidor when it was first presented to him in 1890, but his determination to compose an opera blinded him to its faults upon second glance. Based on The Three-Cornered Hat, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, the darkly humorous story about an adulterous love triangle is one that Wolf could identify with: he had been in love with Melanie Köchert, married to his friend Heinrich Köchert, for several years. (It is speculated that their romance began in earnest in 1884, when Wolf accompanied the Köcherts on holiday; though Heinrich discovered the affair in 1893 he remained Wolf's patron and Melanie's husband.) The opera was completed in nine months and was initially met with success, but Wolf's musical setting could not compensate for the weakness of the text, and it was doomed to failure; it has not yet been successfully revived. . . .

Wolf's last concert appearance, which included his early champion Jäger, was in February 1897. Shortly thereafter Wolf slipped into syphilitic insanity, with only occasional spells of wellbeing. He left sixty pages of an unfinished opera, Manuel Venegas, in 1897, in a desperate attempt to finish before he lost his mind completely; after mid-1899 he could make no music at all and once even tried to drown himself, after which he was placed in a Vienna asylum at his own insistence. Melanie visited him faithfully during his decline until his death on 22 February 1903, but her unfaithfulness to her husband tortured her and she killed herself in 1906

***

Other media for the day includes

Johhannes Brahms (1833-1897) - Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 (1877),

Franz Scheker (1878-1934 -- what a great name!

Looking the part, and whose premature death by stroke was undoubtably at least partially brought on by Nazi anit-semiticm...) - Chamber Symphony (1916),

a trio of composers who were exact contmporaries of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971, but none of them living nearly as long) -- namely

Robett Nathaniel Dett (d. 1943 -- Afro-Canadian-American!) - Magnolia (1912: V. The Place Where the Rainbow Ends