Chilly day. More rain and snow forecasted.
I subscribe to the BBC Music magazine, and even though I am not a musician by any stretch of the imagination, I enjoy learning about the art. Here are some notes I made from the March 2016 issue:
Largo:
Largo and adagio are both used to signify a slow musical pace. However, Largo means "broad" in Italian. Key Largo.. is the broad island. Sometimes it is used as "broadly", as in: "Largo al factotum" which translates to "Make space for the all-purpose manservant Figaro" in the Marriage of Figaro.
Beethoven, Handel, Dvorak, and Shostakovich all used the term Largo to great effect.
Pictures at an Exhibition"
When I was stationed in Germany, I had lots of free time, and I spent it reading, studying, or listening to classical music. One of my favorite works was Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Modest Musorgsky wrote the piece in 1873 in just three weeks, after he had visited an exhibition of paintings by his friend, Victor Hartmann. The piece is a tone-poem that takes us musically from painting to painting.. ten subjects are created for our ears:
o a limping dwarf
o a troubadour
o children playing in the Tuileries
o a Polish ox-cart, thundering by
o a ballet of "unhatched chicks"
o two Polish Jews, one rich and one poor
o the market at Limoges
o the Paris catacombs
o the flight of the witch, Baba Yaga, who lived in a hut on chicken's legs
o the Great Gate of Kiev
If you haven't listened to this tone-poem, I highly recommend it to you.. the melodies will linger in your memory for the rest of your life.
A Poem by fellow Illian, Ken Wibecan:
Why Dogs Bark at Night
Swift legged couriers
of instinct
and timeless memory
prowl the dark
pupils distended
hackles raised
they search the corridors of the night
and bark
their warnings
of ancient things
that we have not yet
learned to see
................................................
I think that is enough for today
................................................
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