What’s the Buzz?

03. January 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Nutcracker

One of the friends I made on my travels asked me how “The Nutcracker” should end. It’s not just a good question, it’s actually one of the two most troubling questions that this ballet prompts. Does the heroine, Clara or Marie (she has other names too), return to her parents? Was the ballet just her dream? Or do she and the Nutcracker Prince set off for yet another world — for his own land, which we never see?

If you attend to Tchaikovsky, the score implies that this second act should close as it started: perhaps it’s journeying music, perhaps it’s a distant view of the Sweets landscape. The 1892 premiere ended, most ambiguously of all, with a view of a hive with eight dancing bees: since bees make honey, they are agents of Sweetness, and the hive — as hymned by Virgil — is an image of a perfect state. The Sugar Plum Fairy, deep inside the hive, was the queen bee.

Nobody onstage has connected bees to “The Nutcracker” in a century.

Yes, I should really just leave the Nut in peace, but I had never read this before, so there you go!

RTWT

Music To Make You Howl

03. January 2011 · 5 comments · Categories: Videos

House Concerts

03. January 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Concerts

Chris Foley has a blog up about House Concerts.

I love the idea. Really. How cool would it be to play at someone’s house, get to know each other … really connect?!

But — yep, you knew I’d have a “but” right? — I have a feeling it would require someone much more organized than I. And getting my colleagues together for even the mandatory recital we have to do at UCSC every other year is a major challenge. I wonder how I could manage to pull something off like this. I’m also rather uncomfortable selling things. (When I made jewelry my dear daddy sold the stuff for me much of the time!)

Better yet, I wonder how someone else could pull this off and include me in the group! Yeah. That sounds like a huge improvement, doesn’t it? 🙂

We have a lot of wonderful homes in my area that are large enough to host a house concert. How cool would it be to walk to work … um, I mean play … well … work/play.

Here are some samples of House Concerts with classical musicians (it’s popular with other music as well):

And how about a “House Concert” on a street car? Hmmm. I guess some folks might feel as if they live on a street car, right?!

Oboe Outside My Little World

03. January 2011 · 3 comments · Categories: Oboe Outside, OutsideMyWorld™

I’ve met Keve … I can’t remember when, but I know she was here at some point. (Maybe she’ll read this and remind me?)

FBQD

03. January 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: FBQD

My new oboe needs a name – any suggestions?
PS. It’s a boy.

Asked Online

03. January 2011 · Comments Off on Asked Online · Categories: Asked Online

What is the name of the classical music price that has a two handed decesending scale?

This is a difficult question because I do not know the name of the piece. However, it is very unique in that it has a part where two hands play a descending sclae run again and again. Then in between each descending scale run their is a short melody. If you get this question you are a amazing person.

Some questions just make you smile, you know?

I read it here.

Anyone out there want to be an amazing person? Go for it! (Two people already responded, so perhaps the questioner already has his/her answer.) The truth of it is that someone out there will probably come up with the right answer. Someone once wrote to me with a very vague question about something she’d heard in an advertisement that she thought might be from an opera. There were two women singing. Can you guess what it was? I did.

(This also brings back memories of working at a bookstore. We’d get similar questions. “I’m looking for a book and I don’t know the title or author but it has a green cover with white letters on the front,” sort of stuff. Sometimes we did come up with the book, too.)

TQOD

03. January 2011 · Comments Off on TQOD · Categories: TQOD

Ukelele worth it. Very cute instrument. Like oboe.