The Bear Necessities

this morning ive been listening to some excerpt frm Alexander Borodin’s opera ‘Prince Igor’. This particular excerpt had a very striking similarity to one song from Miss Saigan (Andrew lloyd Weber i think). I don’t recall exactly which song it was, but it sounds almost exactly the same.
oh well. i guess there’s no point changing a good thing?

Guess what?

Well, as you probably guessed, this is another post on music. I am currently listening to Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 “Rhenish”.

What does this have to do with Willow?

Well, this symphony (or at least the first movement) has a VERY striking similarity to the Willow soundtrack. In fact, one could conjecture (and probably rightly) that the main theme from Willow borrows very heavily from this theme of Schumann. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it dos give some insight into why some professional musicians look with disdain upon the movie music industry (thieves, all of the them! and John Williams is the worst!).

if you dont believe me, try comparing Leia’s theme (from star wars (duh)) to Tschaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

not that i mind of course. just sayin is all.

Another post on the radio (have you had enough of this yet?).

Today (actually, right now) i heard Bruch’s 1st Violin Concerto. Now, this piece happens to be one i like quite a bit, but have only managed to pick up the 1st and last movement at random from two different people. This results in a somewhat incomplete conception of how this piece goes, especially since it is being performed by two different artists.

Finally, i get to hear it all at once!! That makes me happy.

Normally, i consider myself an extremely healthy person. Like an Ox, id say. I rarely get sick and have never broken a bone.

Unfortunately, now is not one of those times. Somehow i got this soar throat that has somehow infused my vocal cords with some sort of solidifying agent, rendering me barely capable of speech. Which, in the end, is pretty funny. Now that it doesnt hurt much anymore, i have a great excuse not to talk to people. Which, i suppose, is not necessarily a good thing.

nonetheless, it is kinda funny to listen to myself when i do get around to talking. For some reason, i can only make my voice work if i talk real low, you know, kinda barry white-esque. what is even more funny is that sometimes a random word will just fail to sound when i am talking - like puberty all over again.

i guess soar throats arent so bad after all. pretty fun really. especially when i try to make high pitched sounds - all that comes out is this hoary rasp. the chords just fail to start vibrating. i would make a great ghost.

today is one of my coworkers’ 70th bithday. This is absolutely incredible. He has been working here through the entire cold war and saw the birth of the space program - its is really amazing how much he knows about the satellite business.

I can only hope that i love what i am doing so much that i continue to come to work through my 70th birthday…

well, they finally got the heater’s around here working.

i came to work in a sweater, and now its like 80 degrees in my office. i was roasting. so i started discarding clothing.

which, is all well and good, except it does nothing for the induced drowsiness. which, if you know me at all, you will recognize as a big problem i have. i can never stay awake. big problem. ack. must… focus…

omg, i love this radio station. ive been listening to it online all day, and it totally rocks.

AND there is no commercials! it doesnt get much better than that.

like 2 sec’s ago they were giving a lil spiel on some concert in LA and they were playing Dvorak’s cello concerto in the background (we played that last quarter) and i got kinda excited.

almost as excited as i was when they played Ravel’s piano concerto earlier today (we played that on the last, last tour - when we went to london and paris).

but not quite as excited as i am right now, cause they are playing ‘The Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla’ from Das Rheingold (Wagner’s intro opera into the ring cycle). This piece is reeeeeally fun, cause there is a lot of brass and cool trombone solos/solis. ooh! and wagner used the contrabass trombone. he gets an A++ in my book for that alone.

why does SF classical radio have to suck so much?