church went well yesterday…. back to bach

 

I found church pretty satisfying yesterday. The congregation sang lustily on most things. The psalm was a little shaky but I sang along myself from the bench. It was a single chant and Rev Jen had okayed it as looking easy enough. That it was, but it took the cong a while to catch on. I especially enjoyed accompanying “I bind myself unto myself this day.” Good clear singing. We also sang “Now the silence” which I think is particularly excellent example of 20th century hymnody and a good marriage of melody and words. The closing hymn was “All glory be to God on high” sung to the tune, “Allein Gott in der Höh.” the Praetorious accompaniment in Hymnal 1982 is a good one. I have been thinking about this tune. I played a good variation by Walther as the postlude. I also recently rehearsed the BWV 711 and pulled it out of my hat on Saturday for the funeral communion music. Nice piece.

I have purchased this volume twice. Now I have an old beat up one and newer one which is getting beat up.

Yesterday afternoon, while Eileen was visiting her aunt Mickey I returned to the Bach English suites. I have played these for years. It was interesting to return to them and find that how I approach the music is so different from the way I did the last time I practiced or performed these pieces. By omitting ornaments and thinking about the melodic and motivic things going on while I play, I believe I had new insights into them yesterday. Cool beans. I do love this music.

I also continued reading Glass’s Etudes for piano. I discovered that while I found #11 difficult, I read easily (under tempo) 12 and 13. It was only about a third of the way into 14 that I discovered another technical difficulty which gave me pause (4s against 3s in a devilish little figure). This is where I will pick up when I return to them today.

There were numerous errors in the bulletin yesterday. It’s discouraging because I pointed them out to Rev Jen, Eileen emailed Mary Miller and still there were some embarrassing mistakes like putting the stanza numbers in the margins of a text only hymn instead of at the beginning of each stanza. I further noticed during service that Mary had crammed lines together destroying the poetic integrity of the text. Ah well. When this sort of things happens, when my observations go unheeded, I try to let go of it since I don’t have responsibility for it nor for helping Mary continue to learn (and remember) how to do a fucking bulletin. Not my monkey, not my circus. Still it grates on me to see it on Sunday morning.

I am madly typing my reading notes for George Steiner’s Antingones into a google doc. I think the book is overdue but I plan to just keep it out and pay the fine since I’m so close to being done with it. I keep checking to see if I can a cheap used copy online. Nope. Cheapest is $20 or so. Our money right now is very tight and I can’t rationalize it.

Who Will Debunk The Debunkers? | FiveThirtyEight

Debunking Popeye and Darwin. Who knew?

How Facebook Warps Our Worlds – The New York Times

Worth thinking about, I know I do.

What My Mother Sees in Hillary – The New York Times

Some reminders about Hillary’s journey.

 

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