That managed to become irritated, in a minor but uncomfortable way, as I woke to the alarm. Eye lubricant, a shower, more eye drops, and by the time I left for the morning spatiamentum all was well. Still, my pre-walk routine was upset and am late both to Terce and to this.
It is the feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady and Holy Mass will be livestreamed from Saint-Eugène in about an hour. The pious office of the feast is at Preces latinae. Today is the Octave of the feast of Our Lady's Nativity and so presumably the celebration of Our Lady's Sorrows was fixed on the 15th for that reason, and because yesterday was the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
The keyboard just stopped working; one of those days, I suppose. The first time it has required a new battery.
An appropriate day to listen to Henryk Górecki's Symphony no 3 op 36 'Symfonia pieśni żałosnych', 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs'. Maestro Górecki turned from the modern fashions of "serialism and extreme dissonance" with this work, so Wikipedia tells us.
Am listening, before Mass, to a broadcast on the brilliant Klassikaraadio channel of Estonian Radio of a concert at the Arvo Pärt Center: the Duo ObSolute (their Facebook page is here, presumably with the facility of translation to English), the soprano Jaanika Kuusik and oboist Riivo Kallasmaa. An interesting soundworld, I suppose. The Mad Song (soprano, oboe, electronics) of Mingo Rajandi will have its premiere (there is some sort of award being presented, too).
Forgive me, but I was distracted during the post-Elevation O Salutaris Hostia: the silly jay tried three peanuts, all three of which it watched me toss out the window, all three of which it picked up in its beak, one after the other, before flying out into the yard, oh, ten or twelve feet. I then threw out a fourth, which it also picked up and dropped. It then hopped over to the first, picked it up, and flew off with it. I may even open up The Encyclopaedic History of Jays to try to figure out what goes on with them.
Fifty minutes of Arvo ahead on the radio: Fratres (two versions) and Tabula rasa performed by Gidon Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko. This is the 7th segment of a series devoted to Pärtiana called 'Sound and Silence', including interviews with the various artists and with the composer himself.
I can see that if I were a regular listener to Klassikaraadio I might begin to find Pärt this and Pärt that a tad tiresome. Over here, the broadcasters become enthused about, oh, say, what's her name at the Metropolitan, or what's his name, the countertenor, and there end up being an apparently endless series of arts media 'events' devoted to her and to him, a function of fashion and virtue-signalling and the search for prestige, ratings, and funding. In Estonia, it's entirely plausible that the radio audience is sincerely interested in what I rather dismissively described 'Pärtiana', and the Klassikaraadio folks respond to that interest and enthusiasm. A different world.
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