Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Norman Dello Joio’s marvelous opera, The Trial at Rouen, or The Triumph of St. Joan Symphony, which is the way this piece began. I’d never heard this until last year, and I was really taken with it and thought it high time I give it a second listen. And it’s every bit as good the second time through, even better. The musical language is much like that of Robert Ward’s opera of The Crucible, which, as you know, I absolutely revere and was happy to issue on CD finally sounding as good as it always should have but didn’t, thanks to shoddy CD mastering by the first company that released it. The music for The Trial at Rouen is beautiful, dramatic, moving, and beautifully orchestrated. And this stereo recording is wonderfully sung and performed. The bonus feature is the symphony, which is a whole other stunning piece. I really cannot recommend this highly enough. The entire thing is on YouTube if you’d like to hear it. I’m wondering if this performance was filmed – I’ve never looked for it and I really must. Well, if they filmed it, it was never released. There are a couple of short trailers for it on the Tube of You. Anyway, I love it large. I never had time to watch a motion picture because I ended up working for hours, doing some prep work for the announcement of our next two releases, getting the tracks chosen and sent, and then the arduous task of going through the A Carol Christmas score and script, checking for wrong lyrics or words and that took hours, but I got it done and sent the fixes to those who needed them.
Yesterday was another weird day, sleep-wise. I got to bed around three-thirty but was awakened by the churning of a loud cement machine at seven-thirty. This was for Grant’s new driveway next door. It was most annoying, especially as there’d been no warning. The huge truck was also completely blocking my driveway. I could do nothing but do stuff on the computer and finally texted Grant, who told me they’d be gone within the hour – it took a bit longer than that, but there were gone by ten and I went back to bed and slept until one-thirty, so I ended up with seven hours of fragmented sleep. Then I got up again, cleaned out the trunk of the motor car and carefully put the charged charger in there, so that gives me some bit of comfort level.
Then I decided to make the rest of the rigatoni pasta, but this time I had it with the rest of the ground beef, onions, butter, and cheese, and it was quite excellently excellent. After that, I chose the audio samples and then sent them off, I did the prep work for the big announcement eBlast, had a swell and long telephonic conversation with a wonderful gent in the UK who I hadn’t talked to since we did the re-recording of the Korngold The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex back in the Bay Cities days, with Carl Davis conducting. I listened to it a couple of weeks ago for the first time in thirty years and it’s better than I remembered it being – in fact, it’s terrific. This gentleman acted as the liaison for the recording – he’s credited as the orchestra coordinator on the album. Don’t say anything, but we’re in discussions about doing a new recording of a beloved film score – we’d do a crowdfunding campaign for it, which is something I wanted to do long before the Intrada label went to that land, but I couldn’t get anyone to do it at a price that made sense, in terms of the orchestrations and such. This new project has nothing to do with that other thing, but it’s something I love and would love to do. Discussions have been ongoing for a few months now – I have a conductor and someone who’d orchestrate from the conductor scores, and so I’m just trying to figure out how to do it for a price that I know I could crowdfund and succeed. Intrada has funded two so far and rather easily, and most of that is just people ordering the CD in advance. They don’t even do what I do – cheerlead like crazy – they just sit there like so much fish because they have fans on all the boards who do the cheerleading for them. I will, of course, expect those very fans to do the same for this and should they not, well, I shall be very vocal about it, oh, yes, I shall be VERY vocal about it (insert smiley face here). Anyway, it’s looking more and more likely and that is very exciting indeed. This would happen in the first four months of next year.
The fellow in the back house and I moseyed on over to K’s Donuts around eight-thirty. He’d never been. He got a chocolate peanut butter thing, as did I, and he also got a glazed buttermilk bar. I suspect he’ll become a regular there. Then I listened to music and here we are, still writing these here notes even though they should have been posted five damn minutes ago.
Today, I’ll be up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll get the new releases ready to announce, hopefully tonight but if not, then tomorrow for sure, during the day, I’ll eat something very light, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages (even though I was told there was nothing there yesterday, there, in fact, was something there and I know something’s coming today), then I’ll definitely watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I have the Zoom thing with David Wechter, Thursday is the rehearsal with the singer and then the Pearls are coming over with food from Barbie-Q, so that will be fun. Can’t remember what’s happening on Friday, but it’s something, and then I have no idea what the weekend holds. I hope to hear from the helper’s mom today – I believe she got back yesterday, and she really needs to get on the piled-up stuff immediately – and I’m hoping we get the last two releases in by Friday or Monday at the latest so we can get all those out.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, get the new releases ready to announce, eat, hopefully pick up packages and perhaps some important envelopes, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite film, plays, novels, and music the depict Joan of Arc? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping there’ll be no more churning of a loud cement machine.