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I’m not often one for the “Wow, that makes me feel old” line of thinking. I like to think that I’m pretty realistic about the passage of time. But…good lord, how can it be that we’ve just passed the fiftieth anniversary of the series premiere of Laverne and Shirley?! I haven’t watched L&S at all since it first aired, but it was still iconic as hell. It was huge in its first few seasons, and I remember it being one of those shows we kids would talk about at school the morning after it aired. There was a kid in my kindergarten class, as IDown the rabbit hole….

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Two days ago marked the 270th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart was one of those miraculous artists whose talent eclipsed the perceived limits of human ability. Mozart produced work of effortless profundity, in perfect proportion, in all genres and for nearly every instrument that existed in his time. Not one musical form was not elevated by his having touched it. Mozart stands among the very greatest artists in all of human history…and to think, his life nearly overlapped that of JS Bach and did overlap that of Ludwig van Beethoven. Were I forced to name one favoriteDown the rabbit hole….

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The recent theme here, Works Inspired By Water, will be wrapping up next week…not for lack of works to continue presenting, but because I want to move on to other things! This particular theme, which occurred to me almost randomly one day, has proven even more fruitful than I expected. It turns out that water has inspired a lot of wonderful music! But how about a work that isn’t just inspired by water but which literally uses water as an instrument? Enter the always fascinating Chinese-American composer Tan Dun. Tan is a prolific composer of whose work I have both heardDown the rabbit hole….

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OK, everyone! Comment as follows: On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 meaning “a gentle No, Carla” and 10 meaning “getting swatted with a rolled-up Sunday New York Times and being sent to bed without dinner”, what level of scolding do you think Carla actually received to react like this? Spoiler: It was no more than 2. Carla can bring the drama when she wants to. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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It seems to me that “Cops have the right to kill you if you inconvenience them in any way” is not any kind of fundamental principle for a healthy society. It is, however, an excellent fundamental principle for an authoritarian police state. An awful lot of Americans would do well to give some thought into what kind of country they really want to be living in. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Here’s a movement from a Bach partita for solo violin. But what is a partita? It is simply a suite for solo instrument or voices, usually in several movements. Hey, why should everything have a complex definition? This particular movement, the third from Bach’s Partita No. 3 for solo violin, is pretty well known, and it could be even more well-known across the universe as the centuries pass: this movement is one of the selections on the Voyager record. Cool, huh? Here it is played by Hillary Hahn. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Continuing our ongoing exploration of classical music inspired by water in some way, we have this short and lovely piece by Maurice Ravel. It took me longer than I suppose it should have to “discover” Ravel, because my introduction to him was Bolero, and that’s just bad news for anybody. Ravel’s work is so much more wonderfully colorful and pictorial than the dreary Bolero, and that is certainly true of today’s piece, Jeux d’eau.  This is an early work by Ravel, and it’s sometimes considered one of the very first Impressionist works for solo piano. The title doesn’t translate well to English;Down the rabbit hole….