Tone Poem Tuesday
Like Edward MacDowell, Frederick Shepherd Converse was an American composer who came on the scene perhaps too early to really take note of the rise of jazz, the first really true American musical idiom. As such, his music is fundamentally European in its language, even if he was inspired by American subjects (moreso than MacDowell, anyway). A good example is this symphonic poem, called Flivver Ten Million, which he composed in honor of the ten millionth automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company.
Incidentally, the orchestra here is none other than the Buffalo Philharmonic. Yay for local musicians!
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Why #ImWithHer
I think that she is genuinely the best choice in this election. I believe that she would and will be a good President, and that she also represents the best chance to avoid electing a truly awful one. Her chief opponent has said almost nothing that has made any sense at all and a whole lot of things that are terrible. The “third party” options — which are generally a giant waste of time anyway — are all laughable in one way or another, whether we’re talking about the loopy Libertarian, the oddball Green, or that other guy who is basically Mitt Romney with a better resume.
That’s it. Maybe not terribly convincing, but I don’t really feel the need to be.
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Good news, bad news, and NaNo News
It’s a mixed bag today, folks!
First:
STARDANCER received a really nice review from the book blog Tea and Titles. Check it out: Four Things I Loved About STARDANCER!
The world is Stardancer is hugely detailed, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Kelly has thought of everything from food to customs to games, and none of it feels overdone or irrelevant. There’s this really beautiful scene where two of the characters are teaching each other their language—it’s one of the best scenes I’ve ever read. The best thing is that it’s very easy follow. Sci-Fi can be quite confusing at times, but I didn’t get lost in all the details here.
Read the whole thing, and then, if you haven’t read STARDANCER yourself, well, I think it’s time you started questioning your life choices!
That’s the good news. Next we have the not so great:
Sadly, Amongst the Stars (The Song of Forgotten Stars, Book III) is not going to be out in November. I simply have not been able to get the work done. I’m hoping for December, but January is looking more likely. I apologize to you all. I really want my readers to finally learn what’s been going on since we last left Princesses Tariana and Margeth and their trusty navigator, Lt. Rasharri!
Stay tuned, folks — the wait will be worth it, I promise!
(Now, why is the book delayed? Well, I hate to admit it, but I think that John Scalzi is on to something here….)
And in NaNo News….
My current WIP, the kayaking-meets-Greek-tragedy horror novel, has spun a wee bit longer than I expected at first, so I’m likely to spend the first part of NaNoWriMo finishing that. Then I will be onto my new space opera novel, which will be followed by Forgotten Stars IV, and then, way down the road, the second half of Seaflame!. So at least I know what I’m writing for a while. Also, I’m hoping to have the first John Lazarus novel (still trying to nail down a title) ready for release sometime next summer.
So that’s where we are for right now. If you haven’t read STARDANCER or THE WISDOMFOLD PATH, now would be a great time! AMONGST THE STARS is coming soon, folks! Just not quite so soon as I’d hoped. But soon!
Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!!
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Bad Joke Friday
Something for Thursday
Tone Poem Tuesday
As much as I love the Russian Romantics, the work of Modest Mussorgsky has always left me a little cold. However, it’s the Halloween season, and Night on Bald Mountain is a staple of scary music, so…here it is.
Kind of.
I was driving home the other day and Night on Bald Mountain was on the radio, but it wasn’t really Night on Bald Mountain. There was a vocal component to it that I had never heard before, and I ended up listening to the entire thing. It turns out that this was an earlier version of the work, called St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain. Confused, I looked the work up when I got home.
Mussorgsky’s personal life was apparently something of a mess — and by that, I mean, he was an absolute wreck. So much so that when he died young, he left behind piles of manuscripts in various states of completion and/or disrepair, which is why the most famous version of Night on Bald Mountain, the one that everyone knows, is actually an edit made by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. (Also, his famous Pictures at an Exhibition‘s orchestral version is by Maurice Ravel.) At some point, Mussorgsky made a version including child choir, standard choir, and baritone soloist. It’s hard to figure out what is Mussorgsky and what belongs to later editors, but this version of the work is, to my ears, more interesting than the standard Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement.
And as a bonus, here’s another Halloween-appropriate work, Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead.
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Colors of Autumn, again
Bad Joke Friday
Something for Thursday
It’s October and it’s gloomy in WNY today so here’s some of my favorite spooky movie music: Howard Shore’s score to The Silence of the Lambs, which remains by far my favorite exploration of the Hannibal Lecter character and one of my favorite horror films.
(If I did this right, it should be an embedded playlist.)