How to really play a Strauss waltz

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Most conductors try to make it melodious and strictly in time, constrained by starched shirts and gowns. Seated audiences typically go for that tuneful approach, not that humming along is approved.

What I find more compelling and exciting, though, is when the performance is filled with bubbles, like champagne, and a tad tipsy. One dance partner stepping on the other’s toes. Even better, when there’s some tension between, say, the brass and the strings, with a hint of freedom within the beats, the way one dance partner is a hair ahead or behind the other. Yeah, a little swing, if you will. And a little playful unpredictability.

Well, here we go, in the air approaching another new year.

Finally, the goddess Kali

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I awaken to a horrible surprise, the feminine face of death.

Well, at least in the dream.

 

I’VE BEEN DIGNOSED WITH a terminal illness. Suppose what or who was on my mind was the retirement or “brand-value” issues. Somehow Ohio was in this or related sequences as someone was trying to reconnect with me or seduce me … while I kept moving on to my own lover and eventual wife and projects.

I’ll label this part Disturbing.

A few things I’m grateful for in the past year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. A second presence in the house year-‘round. Plus our guests.
  2. Seeing the home renovations finally under way. And how.
  3. My maiden voyage in a ship overnight. As you’ll be seeing.
  4. A steady supply of real tomatoes, once they started arriving at the beginning of September, thanks to a serious, raised-bed garden already featured here at the Red Barn.
  5. Our new choral director. We may be a small community, but there’s some deep talent.
  6. The resurrected film society. The showings are followed by some serious discussion into the wee hours.
  7. Contradances, too, both here in Eastport and at the Common Ground Fair.
  8. My appearances resulting from Quaking Dover. You can still find some of them online.
  9. Scallops in season. (And local blueberries, cranberries, lobsters, and crab.)
  10. All the eagles I observed during the alewives’ run and additional encounters after. Always inspiring.

Hodie, hodie!

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My choir has been singing a joyous Renaissance piece that translates, in Allen M. Simon’s rendering, as:

Today Christ is born:
Today the Savior appeared:
Today on Earth the Angels sing,
Archangels rejoice:
Today the righteous rejoice, saying:
Glory to God in the highest.
Alleluia.

I first heard it in the second classical concert I ever attended, around age 12, with the velvety Roger Wagner Chorale on tour. Never, ever, did I imagine I’d be part of presenting it myself.

Still blows me away, all around.