Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, eyes moist, because I just listened to Mr. Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, one of the most sublime pieces of music tied to words ever written. The text is adapted from the prologue of James Agee’s A Death In The Family. What’s fascinating is to read the text without music, because it is so musical on its own. But Barber’s setting, which only uses about half the text, somehow enhances it, somehow makes it even more magical than it is, somehow lifts it into a new and higher place. His orchestration is brilliant and, in certain ways, very reminiscent of what Tunick occasionally does for Sondheim. By now I think I’ve heard every recording of this piece, at least those on LP and CD. The early recordings are very good, but my first exposure to the piece was Dawn Upshaw’s recording with David Zinman and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and, for me, no other recording touches it. Miss Upshaw bonds with the music and words so beautifully, so simply, so majestically – it’s one of the best vocal performances I’ve ever heard, and the orchestra and Mr. Zinman are right there with her, as are the engineers of the recording. If you don’t know this music, hie yourself to amazon.com and find the Upshaw recording, purchase it, listen to it, and revel in its luminous beauty. It’s one of the most transcendent pieces of music I’ve ever heard. What am I, a music critic all of a sudden? Don’t I have notes to write? I do and therefore I shall, not necessarily in that order. Yesterday was a fine little day. Once again, I arose at five, stayed in bed, and finally fell back asleep around six-thirty, after which I arose at ten. I answered some e-mails, then went to the Dale of Glen to Mystery and Imagination Books for a visit. After that, I picked up no packages and an important envelope and yes, more bills. I then came home.
Proofer two sent me back the new book manuscript with her suggestions for fixes – some were very easy to do (including a really silly missing letter in a word in the very first paragraph that neither I nor the other proofer caught – the word “friend” spelled “fried.” Really glad she caught that one! I did all the punctuation stuff, and then I ran the rest of the suggested fixes by Muse Margaret – we did a lot but not all of them, the ones we didn’t do for the usual reasons of tone, rhythm, and flow. So, now the book is ready to be designed by Mr. Grant Geissman, so hopefully we’ll get to that next week – it shouldn’t take very long, since he already has the templates for these books in his computer. I have some material for the cover – several different photographs that could be used, so he’ll choose and do his usual wonderful work.
After that, the twelve-year-old and her family arrived, along with The Singer (I’m directing acts for both) and we all toddled off to Genghis Cohen for an evening of great food and wackiness, with an emphasis on the latter. If I’m with a twelve-year-old I immediately revert to that age, and I have so much fun and we all laughed and laughed and just when we thought we could laugh no more, we laughed again. We had two orders of orange chicken (extra crispy), steamed sole in a soy sauce, green beans, Kung Pao chicken, and crackerjack shrimp. There was nothing left when the five of us had finished. It was the first Genghis Cohen experience for the guests and they all were properly amazed by how yummilicious it all was. After dinner, we came back to the San Fernando Valley and went to a nearby frozen yogurt place called Chill, where we chilled. I had a teeny-tiny bit of vanilla and that was that.
Back home, I finished entering the fixes into the manuscript, listened to music, and played on the computer. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I am tired and I really need my beauty sleep.
Today, I shall try to sleep in, and then I’m attending the opening of a new store, after which I’ll eat something light but amusing, and then I’ll come home and watch some motion pictures.
Tomorrow is a heavy shipping day and that’s what I’ll be doing for at least four hours. After that, I must attend to casting the Gardenia show, pulling charts, and finishing choosing the music. And I’ve decided on the show that follows it, so I may, for the first time, actually be able to get ahead of things. The rest of the week will be filled with The Singer rehearsals, meetings, meals, picking up packages, and errands and whatnot.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep in, attend the opening of a new store, eat, and watch motion pictures. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland with the haunting Knoxville: Summer of 1915 wafting its beauty through my head.