Sent-- as it does each year to people who sign up to receive their marketing mail-- a seven day voucher that I redeemed earlier. Am listening to a concert performed in June, without an audience, the program being Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi concertos (e.g. Handel's Concerto grosso in B flat major op 3.2 HWV 313 and Bach's Concerto in D minor BWV 1060R). It was amusing that it was thought prudent to preface the concert with two minutes of explanatory justification for the performance of these works so far outside of the range of... I don't recall the exact words of the English but... 'the usual repertory of the Berlin Philharmonic'. The trailer for the concert:
The Handel Concerto for harp, strings etc is here.
I managed to bloody my right forearm quite spectacularly whilst returning from the supermarket; one of the berry bushes or other thorny shrub or weed. Didn't realize it happened when it did, only after I got back and unlocked the front door. I do try not to do this.
The jays and squirrels are boycotting my window this morning for some reason-- the dog, probably. Yesterday I laughed aloud at the sight of two of the jays fussing over a peanut: the first jay decided it didn't want the nut, at least not immediately, and flew over to examine a second one, at which point the second jay swooped in to seize the first peanut. But the first jay was having none of that and sped back to contest the possession of the nut. I think the second jay flew off with it but, as I suggested supra, I was laughing at that point and so my visual concentration was rather shaky. I hear the jays now, squawking at the silly dog, who is finding some grand interest in a patch of parched grass and earth. A stupid animal but its ability to discover purpose in the least substantial of things is admirable, perhaps.
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Yet again I neglected to note Dr Townsend's Friday Miscellanea, tsk. I read with sadness about the 'cancel' nonsense but am simply not trying to keep up with it all, myself: it will be terribly sad when more music faculties are shuttered but, eh, that is one way to eliminate the positions of the ideological martinets. One ought to distinguish, I reckon, between the voice and instrumental performance etc department and the 'theory' department, so far as one can.
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Am faced with the alternatives of, on the one hand, performances of the last four of Beethoven's piano sonatas broadcast live on France Musique from the festival at La Roque d'Anthéron, or, on the other, of a performance by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Andris Nelsons and streamed live from the Salzburg Festival, of Mahler's Symphony no 6.
Since I know I'll be able to listen to the Mahler on Arte later, I've opted for the Beethoven sonatas: the pianists are François-Frédéric Guy, Emmanuel Strosser, Rodolphe Menguy, and Nicholas Angelich, none of whom I am familiar with. I do see that M. Angelich was born in the Queen City of the West, Cincinnati.
Post Nonam. What better to do to celebrate the feast day of the martyrs Saints Cyriacus, Largus, and Smaragdus than to indulge also in Mahler's 6th? I had to fiddle with the VPN to make Arte Concert work but not France Musique-- both France-based (I know, or think I know) and both state-supported (I believe I know). I suppose it may have to do with the stipulations of the festivals themselves.
The members of the Philharmonic are not 'socially distanced' although if the prophylactic of one meter is used 'the norm' has to be not much less than that, really. There is a long series of paragraphs etc at the Salzburger Festspiele site devoted to response to the plague; an article at the Times about the Festival's plague nonsense.
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