That the door fabricated for its use in accessing the back yard (set into the larger, for human use, sliding door in the dining room) is not entirely fit for canine use. I cannot think why, otherwise, it has taken to standing at its door and barking instead of simply going through and doing its barking outside (which it continues to do, most of the time). Perhaps as it reaches mature dog years it is become lazy or sensitive to the rain or otherwise selective. I am not much bothered because, in the house, all it requires to silence the animal is a hiss or a few clicks with the tongue on the roof of the mouth and, as I mentioned, it is not at all a habitual behavior. (Outside barking needs a stronger rod-- I have to use a voice of command and say 'stop it', and that sometimes a couple of times-- but of course I care about the outside barking only at night or if the silly animal is being terribly persistent for some reason. It should bark if it wants to except when it inconveniences me or is likely to unduly irritate the neighbors.)
Today is the feast of Saint Francis de Sales (CE, Introibo, Wiki) who was renowned for his pastoral zeal amongst both the Catholics and heretics of Savoy and Geneva and all that country. I haven't read much of his spiritual writing but it is reputed to be gracious and wise and not rigorous. He founded the Order of the Visitation (along with Saint Jeanne Françoise de Chantal) for the education of girls, which was a novel ministry in those days.
Holy Mass is streamed from Saint-Eugène at 1000. Blessed-- I ought to have been acknowledging his holiness of life all these days-- Cardinal Schuster in his Liber sacramentorum:
The great saint who was the personification of gentleness,
benignity, and love of God, died at Lyons on December 28;
but, as that day was already dedicated to the feast of the
Holy Innocents, to whom St Francis had great devotion, his
festival was deferred until today, which is really the anniversary of the translation of his body to Annecy.
The Mass is the Common of Doctors, but, as on the feast
of St Hilary, the Collect is proper. It was composed by
Alexander VII (1655-66), to whom the saint had foretold his
vocation to the priesthood and his election to the Papal See.
Two flourishing religious orders represent to-day in the
Church the spiritual progeny of St Francis de Sales. These
are the nuns of the Visitation, actually founded by himself,
and the Salesian Congregation, which the Venerable Don
Bosco owed to the heart and mind of the holy Bishop of
Geneva.
Time for Prime and first breakfast.
While I have no idea where Dorval is or the 'West Island', it did strike me, the last of the sentence, "... (they) will sing gems by great composers of the Renaissance, followed by two 20th century works by James MacMillan and Gustav Holst".I can't tell if that says anything about the relative popularity or status of either of those two estimable composers. Somewhere in the region of Montréal in Canada-- I had to skim about in order to find my sentence two hours after first spotting it.
As always, the Friday Miscellanea at The Music Salon is an entertaining and instructive read. For example, I hadn't read any music criticism at the Washington Post since Anne Midgette abandoned ship (although it is also true that I haven't read anything at WaPo since before the end of Mr Trump's third year in office) so Dr Townsend's introduction of Michael Andor Brodeur's notice of '21 composers for 2021' was welcome. Identities upon identities, pft. I listened to perhaps ten minutes altogether of music by e.g. Inti Figgis-Vizueta and am pretty confident I'd not return to hear any of her work a second or third time in the concert hall. And I think that I am adopting the provisional rule: if, on opening an artist's biographical page, I am forced to learn in the first second that he requires us to use plural pronouns to refer to him, well, he might compose a second Grande valse brillante but I won't ever hear it or sing like an angel but I won't ever hear him.
Reading at l'Année Liturgique while Canon Guelfucci gave his homily, I noticed that Dom Prosper quoted this saying of Cardinal Jacques Davy du Perron (1556-1618), who was as much a politician as it is possible to be:
If you want heretics to be convinced of their errors, you may send them to me; but if you want them to be converted, send them to the Bishop of Geneva.
The alarm is reminding me that there is a performance of Schubert's Winterreise at Wigmore Hall at 1130. The concert-- three tenors and a baritone-- happened at 0800 or perhaps 0700; in any event, it was one of the early ones, not the late ones (which are indeed at 1130 here). Tsk. The immediate practical consequence is, that I'm beginning to listen now instead of in 40 minutes. There is some melodrama involved; David Webb, one of the tenors or perhaps the baritone, made a 500 mile cycle ride "over 12 days in the darkest month of the year" to raise funds for mental health charities; he himself deals with depression et cetera. I don't seem to be familiar with any of these people; but, after reading a little about Webb, I have to admit that he seems to have a weary face, marked by troubles, in spite of the fake tan or whatever (although only in England could a 'Plymouth accent' mark one for life... US woke identities folks would have roaring fits in the UK). The others are Rupert Charlesworth, Alessandro Fisher, Benedict Nelson (the baritone, whose voice I'd rate at the top of the list), and the pianist Iain Burnside. Each of 'em is singing a certain number of the songs. As I've thought about this, gosh, we live in societies that do therapeutic nonsense non-stop, celebrity therapeutic nonsense hyper-non-stop. Perhaps the classical performing communities are subject to some pressures the rest of the public world isn't-- but surely every discrete community has its own. It's actually rather interesting hearing the four different voices in rotation, although the spectacle of them walking about the stage is faintly ridiculous.
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