26 September 2018

Quartet at work

Often when my situation has been as desperate, as hopeless, or more so, if possible, than it is at present, some unexpected interposition of Providence has rescued me from a fate that has appeared inevitable.  I do not particularly allude to recent circumstances or latter years, for from my earlier years I have been the child of Providence–then why should I distrust its care now?  I do not distrust it–neither do I trust it.  I feel perfectly unanxious, unconcerned, and indifferent as to the future; but this is not trust in Providence–not that trust which alone claims its protections.  I know this is a blamable indifference–it is more–for it reaches to the interminable future.  It turns almost with disgust from the bright prospects which religion offers for the consolation and support of the wretched, and to which I was taught, by an almost adored mother, to look forward with hope and joy; but to me they can afford no consolation.  Not that I doubt the sacred truths which religion inculcates.
– Washington Irving, Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey

If anyone has Mahler on the celestial hotline, let him know I’ve got his Fifth Symphony playing as Music to Fold Laundry By.

No one will make you smile in quite the way a younger brother does when he writes, “I have a knack for making the women in my life angry with me, but I’ve reached new heights . . . .”

No one is calmer
Than Palmer’s embalmer.

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Friends.  It is really all about friends.

It appears that I shall indeed play the Voluntary on “Beautiful Savior” as part of a very special evensong next month, but I should say no more at present.  I see the bag out of which the cat is not to be let.

Last night we had a marvelously good (and efficient) rehearsal for the King’s Chapel program we shall play on 16 October.  The undeniable, and not altogether surprisingly obvious, benefit of refreshing Mistaken for the Sacred and Kurosawa’s Scarecrow has been, they are falling back in with ease, and the new performance will be a significant gain I musical polish.  The Boston Harbor Heave-Ho, too, is shuffling in very nicely.

And it is friends who are making all this possible, the talented musicians who are friends, and who generously make their talents and time available to me in order to put this program together.

We’re ahead enough in the process that we have more attention, earlier on, for a more playful interaction with the fixed media, and of course it makes for a whole new order of experience.

Thanks to a Virtual Friend’s kind listening to the fixed media for A Heart So White, I have revisited that as well, and I do think it good.

David Bohn has sent out a fresh call, this time for a toy piano piece, so I should bend some thought thereupon.


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