30 August 2011

Tonight's classical music play list


PLAY LIST
KZYX fm 90.7 ... streaming at www.kzyx.org

August 30, 2011 “Ensemble” (8-10 pm) Tony Miksak, sitting in for Marcia Lotter

8:00 pm station ID, underwriting. Music of Mozart, Haydn, Shostakovich, Smetana, Martinu and Dvorak

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio      5:37
Performed by the Capella Istropolitana, conducted by Barry Wordsworth.

Franz Josef Haydn Symphony No. 100 in G major “The Military” 26:49
Performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Sir Georg Solti
1 Adagio - Allegro 2 Allegretto 3 Menuetto e Trio: Moderato 4 Finale: Presto

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Concerto for piano, trumpet & strings No.1 C min Op 35 22:12
Performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly. Soloists Ronald Brautigan, piano; Peter Masseurs, trumpet
1 Allegretto 2 Lento 3 Moderato 4 Allegro con brio
Shostakovich wrote his First Piano Concerto in 1933 when the composer was 27 years old, for himself to play. High spirited. Many changes of mood, parodies of popular music. Truly a piano concerto, but the trumpet speaks througought and has a lot to do, esp. at the end of the final fourth movement.

9 pm station ID, underwriting
Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) Piano Trio in G minor Opus 15 29:14
Performed by the Golub Kaplan Carr Trio.  David Golub, piano; Mark Kaplan, violin; Colin Carr, cello
This recording won the AFIM Indie award for best classical ensemble in 1995 in honor of its recording of Smetana and Tchaikowsky piano trios.
Smetana composed only four mature chamber works, yet each had a deep personal significance. The Piano Trio in G minor of 1855 was composed after the death of his daughter Bedriška. You definitely hear the influence of Robert Schumann; maybe some direct quotes, in fact, with hints of Liszt, and the overall tone is elegiac.

Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) Concerto for Oboe & Small Orchestra (1955) 15:44
Performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Paul Freeman, conductor. We hear Alex Klein on oboe, Daniela Kosinova, piano.

Antonin Dvorak (Waldesruhe) Silent Woods; Notturno in B Op. 40 5:41 + 6:50 = 12:31

18 August 2011

Damn you, Charles C. Mann and your big books with numbers on the cover


I was reading 1491, New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, for about six years, when you popped up again with 1493, Uncovering the New World Columbus Created.

The new books I really want to read are getting in the way of finishing the other not-quite-so-new books I also really want to read.

While waiting for 1491 to turn into 1493 I read 1945, The War That Never Ended (Gregor Dallas) I also read parts of Moscow, 1812, Napoleon’s Fatal March (Adam Zamoyski) and 1688 A Global History (John E. Wills, Jr.) I have to cover another 323 years of reading before I’m up to date. I also am dipping into a novel by Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood, which turns out to be highly entertaining futurist fiction, so although it’s about a single year, with some flashbacks, it’s not clear exactly which future year she is talking about.

I can report that a lot of things changed after 1493. According to the author, that year marked the beginning of absolutely immense changes in the history of mankind, and the fate of all the other species.

It began with the now vanished town of La Isabela, personally established by Christopher Columbus, on what now is the island of Hispaniola, Dominican Republic side. “It was the initial attempt by Europeans to make a permanent base in the Americas” not counting the Vikings in Newfoundland five centuries before. It failed, as many other settlements, but even this small effort brought changes:

“(Columbus) and his crew did not voyage alone. They were accompanied by a menagerie of insects, plants, mammals, and microorganisms. Beginning with La Isabela,” Mann writes, “European expeditions brought cattle, sheep, and horses, along with crops like sugarcane (originally from New Guinea), wheat (from the Middle East), bananas (from Africa), and coffee (also from Africa). Equally important, creatures the colonists knew nothing about hitchhiked along for the ride. Earthworms, mosquitoes, and cockroaches; honeybees, dandelions, and African grasses; rats of every description – all of them poured from the hulls of (Columbus’) vessels and those that followed, rushing like eager tourists into lands that had never seen their like before.”

From here, the author goes deep into the weeds of history, carefully delineating the changes – how New World silver changed everything, bankrupting Spain and bringing down a dynasty in China; the tobacco saga and the reinvention of slavery; the fatal progress of malaria; the growth of international trade and our subsequent dependence on it, and much much more.

This is a book in which you will rediscover some things you already knew, and many you never imagined. It’s rich in imagery, research, and plain good story telling.

I found myself bogged a bit in some of the detail – but there’s always another page, another story, another fascinating connection I had never seen before.

Mann and other historians call the process The Columbian Exchange. Most importantly, he insists, “there is a growing recognition that Columbus’ voyage did not mark the discovery of a New World, but its creation.”

When the Old World landed in the New, the effect of newly introduced plants, animals and diseases was to quickly wipe out the natives, plant, animal and human, and replace one ecological system with another – to make the New World in effect something of a replica of the Old. It was this accidental but overwhelming transformation that allowed Europe and Europeans to dominate the next several centuries.

We arrived ill-equipped and soon starving; in no more than 50 years after Columbus we were beginning to rule the New World and its inhabitants. We accidently invented what now is called Globalization, too. It is an amazing story, and in 1493, Charles Mann tells it exceedingly well.



NOTES:

1491, New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Vintage paperback $14.95. ISBN 1400032059.

1493, Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann. Knopf hard cover $30.50. ISBN 9780307265722.

Wikipedia on La Isabela

1945, The War That Never Ended by Gregor Dallas. Yale University Press paperback $28.00 ISBN  9780300119886.

Moscow, 1812, Napoleon’s Fatal March by Adam Zamoyski. Harper Perennial paperback $16.99 ISBN 006108686X.

1688 A Global History by John E. Wills, Jr. W. W. Norton paperback $16.95. ISBN 0393322785.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. Anchor Books paperback $15.00 ISBN  0307455475. Set in the same future as the author’s earlier novel Oryx and Crake. YouTube author interview on the subject of Book Three of this trilogy

04 August 2011

Vote YES on Libraries

Vote Yes on Libraries! is the battle cry of freedom going around Mendocino County. All it will take to make our public libraries forever financially independent will be a 67% yes vote on the library initiative, Measure A next November.

Which vote will include a teeny tiny little increase in the county sales tax.

I forlornly hope this thing does pass with two-thirds of the voters plus one affirming it. 67 per cent in favor of an increase in sales tax? Forlorn hope.

According to supporters, the tax increase will amount to 1/8 of a cent on the dollar, or 13 cents for every hundred dollars spent on taxable items. It might cost the average household, if there are any of those left around here, maybe $2 a month. The result would be an estimated windfall for county libraries of $1.3 million each year. The money could be spent only on supporting libraries, nothing else – providing longer hours, more staff, better book replacement, more outreach, more programs for children.

About that term “forlorn hope” ... I came across it in Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels. British soldiers fighting Napoleon, ordered or volunteered first into the breech to face fully loaded cannon and muskets, were termed the Forlorn Hope. Few survived, but they fought with honor. Honor was not a small thing in those days.

Our more recent ancestors built magnificent libraries – their descendants so far have not managed to keep them open.

Today I walked up to the Fort Bragg Public Library. It was closed, of course. I could see walls of books, computers, comfortable reading chairs and tables. I pictured knowledgeable librarians ready to point out good reads and collect overdue fines.

A sign taped to the locked door disclosed this library now is staffed by two 36-hour employees, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, for a total of 23 open hours a week. These tragically short hours are damaging to our community, a drag on the future and a blow against the general well-being.

Presently there are virtually no services for children in local libraries. In Fort Bragg the summer reading group for children is ending and nothing will take its place. Supporters of the library initiative report that state funding for Mendocino County libraries has dropped more than 80%. Three years ago local libraries were open 40 hours per week.

Due to lack of funding you no longer can enter a Mendocino County library to obtain a book from out of county. You just cannot do it. Until recently if the book was on a library shelf in, say, Modesto, upon request it would shortly appear in Fort Bragg and be held for you at no charge.

If you’d like to find out more or support the Yes on A campaign, you can phone a volunteer, or look into their web site. The coast contact phone number is (707) 937-5925; inland call 485-5827. The Yes on A web site is voteyesonlibraries.org

Are libraries still relevant? Is visiting the library on your to-do list if you have a smart phone in your pocket and an iPad in your backpack?

Let me list the ways...

Some children have a parent who will read to them, talk them through the pages of a picture book, associate reading with happy times together. Some do not. Those children especially need the nurture and support a librarian can provide. And the responsibility of returning a book on time.

Not everyone has access to digital media, and not everyone is able to use it successfully. Help is available at the library.

Not all reading materials are digitized and available through Google. And not all books and documents are free, but these materials can be found for free in a library. No serious researcher can afford to skip library research. Where else can one read actual newspapers, magazines and books, listen to books on tape and see videos. Find sheet music to play. For free.

You can read alone, you can browse alone, but it’s fun sometimes to share with others. It is inspiring to hear about a new author and it’s inspiring simply to watch others enjoy reading.

Peace. Quiet. The ineffable smell of actual books. The library as refuge. Vote yes, and keep libraries open!


NOTES:

Origin of “forlorn hope”

Vote “Yes” on Libraries