February 26 - The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

A drive-by picture on the freeway, but, judging from the folliage, Spring has come to Lagoon Valley Park and environs.


It's a month's aniversary since starting the blogspot blogs (now including markalburgerworks.blogspot.com, markalburgerevents.blogspot.com, markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com, and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com), and a month and a day since blogging in general, over at myspace.com/markalburger, so what better way to celebrate than another day of teaching: here are Nick M and Rob, back from sabbatical (as a prelude, we're watching a brief excerpt from Amadeus -- the music dictation bit -- is it funny or serious?)...


and let's not forget Bernie (taken before class, so he can't be faulted for not having his eye on a movie).


Evening class is mid-Romantic, from Frederic Chopin


to Pyotr Tchaikovsky.


Home late, with just enough time to prepare for publication rehearsal 53 of Act V, Scene 1 Mice and Men ("I done another bad thing"). Don't we all.

February 22 - Ready and Wailing

It's almost noon, so here some of us are ready to go with Theory -- Cristina, Mike, Chris, Ira, Cecilia, Deborah, Mercedes.


And, peace, let's not forget Sarah, with Cristina, Mike, and Chris again. View out the window of the Duck Pond used to be better before the new bookstore's loading dock loomed into view, but there is much to be said for the new situation, too. And what is it with cameras not being able to reproduce music staves -- Boards 4, 3, and 2 above have those interruptions also associated with scanning.

Still to arrive: Rob, Nick M, Curtis, Joel, Matt -- and we look forward to the return of John, Bernie, and Nick T.

More J.S. Bach today, and instead of his picture, how about his tomb?


At least our chairs have desks, and we can see out the windows (not that JSB has any needs in either regard, depending on one's cosmology)....

Dictation is the first five measures of the last movement (7) of Cantata No. 140 "Wachet Auf" -- melody and bass line.


Soprano: Do Mi Sol Sol Sol Sol La Sol

Bass: Do Mi Sol Fa Mi Re Do Ti Do La Re Sol

Harmonically:

Eb Eb/G Bb PT Eb/G PT PT Bb/D Cm7/Eb Cm7 F Bb

I I6 V PT I6 PT PT V6 vi65 vi7 II (V of V) V




In the lab thereafter, recording

Op. 84 FLUTE CONCERTO ("Mythological")
II. Adagio non troppo



III. Allegro



and Op. 87 VIOLIN CONCERTO ("Ticklish") (May 14, 2000)
III. Tempo di Menuetto / Allegro



Home again, past a row of eucalyptus,


a marsh ranch,


and a lonely, naked leafless Godot deciduous with the distant Vaca Mountains beyond, all under threatening skies.


Quick stop for the Times and a self-portrait, with Cordelia Junction and the Sulfur Springs Mountains in reflexion.


Two, actually.

Back on the road, Twin Sisters under relatively unperturbed sky,


a pale rainbow beyond the raingreen Southern Vaca Foothills in Fairfield,



the empty gate of the violation that is Rancho Solano,


empty sticks of a fallow orchard.


More alternate routes, with views of the South Lagoon Mountains above Paradise Valley,


the seemingly-rural frontage road of I-80,


and the North Lagoon Mountains, again.