It is a gloomy day in New Jersey. My desk is cluttered, and I have yet to work up the motivation to do all the work I need to complete before I go home on Tuesday evening. Maybe I will be able to after I write all of this...
Wednesday hosted a performance I have been looking forward to for quite some time; a performance of Samuel Barber's Vanessa at the New York City Opera. After a very quick meal at what seems to the only restaurant I eat at in New York, we flew across the street. I must say I was not disapointed. This piece has long been an opera I have admired and the cast delivered the beauty of the drama and the incredible score. Of course, wth and opera by Menotti one can only expect there would be slow moments. But the great moments of neo-romanticism far outweighed the periods of dragging drama. The beginning was especially exciting, with Must the Winter Come So Soon? and Do Not Utter a Word back to back. The cast delivered and made a fantastic evening in the theater.
Today I have been listening to the English composers. Finzi, Bax, Gibbons. Lately I am also entranced by Baltic composers - Vasks, Part, Gorecki (Polish, eh?). Who said great music comes in one package?
I have been spending a lot of time with these words...
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.
Well, now I am going to try to write a paper. Then, a nap? ;)
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