Summer weather is upon us, inexplicably, here in mid-March. (Well, that's not entirely fair: a goodly number of scientists have a reasonable explanation for why the climate appears to be changing.) The heat provokes both passionate intensity — mostly in the worst sorts — and an idle listlessness in the rest of us. It is perhaps the worst sort of weather for Lent, for he who loves not Lent, as Herbert reminds us, "loves not Temperance, or Authoritie, / But is compos'd of passion." Such heat encourages a sanguine humour in even the sanest fellow.
The past few days I assisted in the tuning of the (ludicrously oversized) organ at St. Luke's. While the organ-tuner was up in the chamber doing the actual work, I sat at the console, doing what is called "holding keys" — that is, playing a single note until told to play the next note. It is another one of those jobs, like organ calcant, that requires very little thought but constant attention. To call it torture would be hyperbole, but it was not pleasant, being stuck inside for the better part of two days while outside spring had arrived. It brought back memories of grade school — do you remember the feeling? — of being imprisoned in a poorly ventilated space doing nothing particularly rewarding. (I do not miss grade school.) At least, now, the organ is mostly in tune, barring any violent changes in weather. Holy Week will quickly be upon us, and I have, shall we say, plans.
16 March 2012
12 March 2012
The Lutheran Insulter
An esteemed correspondent has shared with me the Lutheran Insulter, which is not a tool for insulting Lutherans (unfortunately?) but rather a compilation of the many and varied insults Luther hurled at people in his writings. He was a rather combative fellow, after all. Anyone who argues that public discourse has become less civil these days should have a look-see at tracts from Luther's day.
03 March 2012
Upon Nearly Finishing a Translation
Spurred by the music of Ástor Piazzolla (I made a Pandora station), I have decided once more to try my hand at a translation of that Borges essay on Job I've been attempting to translate for almost five years, now. Again it is worth remembering Eco's dictum that "translation is the art of failure".
Nevertheless, I feel more optimistic this time around. I've managed to root out a few embarrassing errors. (Naïve younger-me glossed los caldeos han atacado su tierra as "droughts have attacked his land", assuming a link between caldeo and caldear, when in fact it is the word for "Chaldean". Well, I told you it was embarrassing.) And I've had more luck in finding some of Borges's more obscure citations, especially in Quevedo (who, it should be observed, is stylistically superior to Góngora). After some peer review and once I've nailed down some last few mysterious references, the translation should be as done as I'll ever get it. I am resolved that I shall never be entirely happy with it, but it is satisfying enough to decipher some of Borges's dizzying erudition. (In a relatively brief lecture on the Book of Job he offhandedly mentions Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, the Authorised Version, Fray Luis de León, Quevedo (many times), Ernest Renan, James Anthony Froude, Milton, Vergil, Leibniz, Max Brod, Huxley, Coleridge, Jung, Aristotle, and Plato. No doubt there are other citations, as I am surely missing some of them.) I'll let you know, dear reader, when I am finally finished.
I need little projects such as this. I have found life outside of a college campus to be rewarding in some ways, but not especially intellectually stimulating. (Perhaps, pace Republicans, there's nothing wrong with a college education.)
Nevertheless, I feel more optimistic this time around. I've managed to root out a few embarrassing errors. (Naïve younger-me glossed los caldeos han atacado su tierra as "droughts have attacked his land", assuming a link between caldeo and caldear, when in fact it is the word for "Chaldean". Well, I told you it was embarrassing.) And I've had more luck in finding some of Borges's more obscure citations, especially in Quevedo (who, it should be observed, is stylistically superior to Góngora). After some peer review and once I've nailed down some last few mysterious references, the translation should be as done as I'll ever get it. I am resolved that I shall never be entirely happy with it, but it is satisfying enough to decipher some of Borges's dizzying erudition. (In a relatively brief lecture on the Book of Job he offhandedly mentions Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, the Authorised Version, Fray Luis de León, Quevedo (many times), Ernest Renan, James Anthony Froude, Milton, Vergil, Leibniz, Max Brod, Huxley, Coleridge, Jung, Aristotle, and Plato. No doubt there are other citations, as I am surely missing some of them.) I'll let you know, dear reader, when I am finally finished.
I need little projects such as this. I have found life outside of a college campus to be rewarding in some ways, but not especially intellectually stimulating. (Perhaps, pace Republicans, there's nothing wrong with a college education.)
22 February 2012
John Donne, for Ash Wednesday:
At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go;
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.
— John Donne, Holy Sonnets, VII. (Westmoreland numbering)
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go;
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.
— John Donne, Holy Sonnets, VII. (Westmoreland numbering)
21 February 2012
Organ Preludes and Postludes through Lent
22 February (Ash Wednesday):
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck: Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott
Samuel Scheidt: Modus ludendi pleno organo pedaliter, SSWV 157
26 February (Lent I, Invocavit):
Louis Vierne: Berceuse (sur les paroles classiques), Op. 31, No. 19
César Franck: Poco allegro, in C minor (from L'Organiste)
4 March (Lent II, Reminiscere):
Johann Adam Reincken: An Wasserflüssen Babylon
Heinrich Scheidemann: Praeambulum in D minor, WV 32
11 March (Lent III, Oculi):
J.S. Bach: O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622
J.S. Bach (arr. Edwin Arthur Kraft): Komm, süßer Tod, BWV 478
18 March (Lent IV, Laetare):
Tiburtio Massaino (tablature by Bernhard Schmid): Laetare Jerusalem
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau: Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, LV 9
25 March (Lent V, Judica; Annunciation):
Marcel Dupré: How Fair and how Pleasant art Thou, Op. 18, No. 5
Dieterich Buxtehude: Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn, BuxWV 192
1 April (Palm Sunday):
Jeanne Demessieux: Hosanna filio David, Op. 8, No. 6
Jehan Alain: Litanies, JA 119
5 April (Maundy Thursday):
Olivier Messiaen: Le banquet céleste
As a matter of fact, only my Lutherans will be hearing preludes; for the Episcopalians we will be omitting the prelude and instead singing the proper introit for each Sunday from the Liber.
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck: Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott
Samuel Scheidt: Modus ludendi pleno organo pedaliter, SSWV 157
26 February (Lent I, Invocavit):
Louis Vierne: Berceuse (sur les paroles classiques), Op. 31, No. 19
César Franck: Poco allegro, in C minor (from L'Organiste)
4 March (Lent II, Reminiscere):
Johann Adam Reincken: An Wasserflüssen Babylon
Heinrich Scheidemann: Praeambulum in D minor, WV 32
11 March (Lent III, Oculi):
J.S. Bach: O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622
J.S. Bach (arr. Edwin Arthur Kraft): Komm, süßer Tod, BWV 478
18 March (Lent IV, Laetare):
Tiburtio Massaino (tablature by Bernhard Schmid): Laetare Jerusalem
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau: Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, LV 9
25 March (Lent V, Judica; Annunciation):
Marcel Dupré: How Fair and how Pleasant art Thou, Op. 18, No. 5
Dieterich Buxtehude: Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn, BuxWV 192
1 April (Palm Sunday):
Jeanne Demessieux: Hosanna filio David, Op. 8, No. 6
Jehan Alain: Litanies, JA 119
5 April (Maundy Thursday):
Olivier Messiaen: Le banquet céleste
As a matter of fact, only my Lutherans will be hearing preludes; for the Episcopalians we will be omitting the prelude and instead singing the proper introit for each Sunday from the Liber.
06 February 2012
Book as Sacrament
I grow increasingly tired of incorporeal worship. Scripture and music are good, and all — of course they are; would I be a church musician if I didn't think church music was important? — but I don't get much out of a church service without sacrament. I almost added "and without ritual", there, but of course a sacrament is by its nature an act of ritual. The really sustaining thing about sacrament is the thrill of the tangible — and I use the word here according to its root: tangere, "to touch". It is remarkable that we should be made aware of God's mercies by means of things as simple as water, bread and wine. It helps remind us that we cannot dwell entirely within abstractions; that is to say, it goes some way towards rescuïng us from gnosticism.
It is for similar reasons that I cannot abide e-books (among other e- things; I grudgingly use e-mail, but that completes the list of e-nouns and e-verbs I employ. No doubt some wag will point out the irony that I am writing this on a web-log. My only response is to sigh). The experience of reading a book is a tangible pleasure. Bibliophiles will tell you how pleasant is the crispness of new pages, the smell of the ink, the heft of a weighty tome in one's hands. These things I could take or leave, but they are certainly preferable to the antiseptic experience of staring at a screen.
More important is the notion of book ownership, something that is only possible so long as books remain physical items and not a series of zeroes and ones in a hard drive. (Indeed, the notion of ownership is an ephemeral one on this series of tubes: when we are dead, who shall inherit the mp3 files that replaced our records? The Word documents that replaced our manuscripts? Those jpegs that have replaced our family albums?) I am a habitué of used-book shops, so perhaps I am more aware than some that a book ought to outlast its reader. Moreover, it is an gratifying experience to be lent a book, or, better (though indeed, worse), to inherit one. The book becomes more than an object: it is the signifier of a bond between us and those who have shared with us this collection of characters, locations, ideas. If the secondhand book has annotations in someone else's handwriting, so much the better. The tangible object that points us to a greater reality: that is what we are truly losing if we switch to e-readers.
It is for similar reasons that I cannot abide e-books (among other e- things; I grudgingly use e-mail, but that completes the list of e-nouns and e-verbs I employ. No doubt some wag will point out the irony that I am writing this on a web-log. My only response is to sigh). The experience of reading a book is a tangible pleasure. Bibliophiles will tell you how pleasant is the crispness of new pages, the smell of the ink, the heft of a weighty tome in one's hands. These things I could take or leave, but they are certainly preferable to the antiseptic experience of staring at a screen.
More important is the notion of book ownership, something that is only possible so long as books remain physical items and not a series of zeroes and ones in a hard drive. (Indeed, the notion of ownership is an ephemeral one on this series of tubes: when we are dead, who shall inherit the mp3 files that replaced our records? The Word documents that replaced our manuscripts? Those jpegs that have replaced our family albums?) I am a habitué of used-book shops, so perhaps I am more aware than some that a book ought to outlast its reader. Moreover, it is an gratifying experience to be lent a book, or, better (though indeed, worse), to inherit one. The book becomes more than an object: it is the signifier of a bond between us and those who have shared with us this collection of characters, locations, ideas. If the secondhand book has annotations in someone else's handwriting, so much the better. The tangible object that points us to a greater reality: that is what we are truly losing if we switch to e-readers.
30 January 2012
26 January 2012
Downton Abbey: the Interactive Fiction Video Game
Perhaps you, dear reader, like everyone else, are watching the television programme Downton Abbey? I saw the first season when PBS re-aired it back in December, and am currently in the midst of the second season (unlike the Limeys, who have already completed the second season, but like all the rest of the Americans who hesitate to watch it illegally on the series of tubes that is the internet). For those who enjoy costume dramas, the Edwardian era, Maggie Smith, and Anglophilia, as I do, it is the perfect storm. It is commonly observed that the first season is far better; indeed, it is nearly perfect. But the second season, so far, is still quite satisfactory, even though the plots feel far more rushed. I almost hesitate to recommend it, for everyone is doing that now and popular media usually drive me to be contrary, but Downton Abbey really is quite good and you should probably watch it. Start at the beginning, though.There's already been some merchandising — observe the PBS store, should you need proof of that — but the obvious next step is Downton Abbey: the Text-Based Video Game. I am clearly the man to make this happen, but for the fact that I have only great ideas and no relevant skills to do so. (Such is the plight of the "Idea Man", as no doubt Newt Gingrich could tell you.) Nevertheless, a taste:
You are a DOWAGER COUNTESS.
You are in the library. There is a SWIVEL CHAIR here. There is a FOOTMAN nearby.
Exits are EAST, SOUTH, and WEST.
What do you do?
>
12 January 2012
South Bend, Again
It was pleasant to visit South Bend for a few days this week. Officially, my stated reasons for the visit were gastronomical: Madame Chen's (the best Chinese food in the world, so far as I know) and the South Bend Farmer's Market. These were both worthwhile. But it was a pleasure to visit with friends as well, and to play the Fritts (oh, how I've missed playing a tracker instrument!), and to see campus. I was struck by how nice it was, just being in South Bend again. I assure you that the climate does not appeal to me, nor the charm of the city. More than anything it was like seeing an old friend again — not a particularly close friend, but someone worth seeing nonetheless. After a certain amount of time one becomes aware of those little annoyances (or indeed, great glaring flaws of personality) that have prevented closer friendship. But before that happens it is very pleasant, indeed.
Perhaps this goes some way towards explaining our culture's incurable mobility: we long to be somewhere else because we are constantly overstaying our welcome. What we must learn is how to be at home. To do this we must become comfortable not only with a particular place and its particular people, despite their flaws, but also with ourselves. Introspection requires a certain stability, and stability encourages a certain introspection. Doesn't it?
Perhaps this goes some way towards explaining our culture's incurable mobility: we long to be somewhere else because we are constantly overstaying our welcome. What we must learn is how to be at home. To do this we must become comfortable not only with a particular place and its particular people, despite their flaws, but also with ourselves. Introspection requires a certain stability, and stability encourages a certain introspection. Doesn't it?
04 January 2012
Upcoming Orgelmusik
Organ preludes and postludes through Quinquagesima, 2012:
1 January (New Year's Day; Holy Name):
J.S. Bach: In dir ist Freude, BWV 615
Johann Gottfried Walther: Das alte Jahr vergangen ist
6 January (Epiphany):
Dietrich Buxtehude: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223
Max Reger: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, Op. 135a, No. 29
8 January (Epiphany I, Baptism of the Lord):
J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau: Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, LV 3
15 January (Epiphany II):
Claude-Bénigne Balbastre: Fugue in D minor
Gerald Near: Alleluia. Laudate Deum omnes angeli eius
22 January (Epiphany III):
César Franck: Prélude, Fugue & Variation, Op. 18
César Franck: Andantino poco allegretto, in Eb Major (from L'Organiste)
29 January (Epiphany IV):
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort
Johann Ludwig Krebs: Toccata in G Major
2 February (Candlemas):
Marcel Dupré: Élévation (Très modéré), Op. 32, No. 2
Marcel Dupré: Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf, Op. 28, No. 31
5 February (Epiphany V; Septuagesima):
Clemens non Papa (tablature by Bálint Bakfark): Circumdederunt me
Anonymous (tablature by Jan z Lublina): Conradus
12 February (Epiphany VI; Sexagesima):
Domenico Zipoli: Canzona in C Major
Girolamo Frescobaldi: Preambulum tertii toni
19 February (Transfiguration; Quinquagesima):
Gerald Near: Visionem
Felix Mendelssohn: Sonata, Op.65, No. 2: II. Allegro maestoso e vivace
It should also be added that St. Luke's Episcopal Church (Dixon, Illinois) will host Mr Kevin Vaughn for an organ recital on 29 January (at 4:30pm). It promises to be a worthwhile occasion; I am looking forward especially to his Howells and Reger.
1 January (New Year's Day; Holy Name):
J.S. Bach: In dir ist Freude, BWV 615
Johann Gottfried Walther: Das alte Jahr vergangen ist
6 January (Epiphany):
Dietrich Buxtehude: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223
Max Reger: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, Op. 135a, No. 29
8 January (Epiphany I, Baptism of the Lord):
J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau: Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, LV 3
15 January (Epiphany II):
Claude-Bénigne Balbastre: Fugue in D minor
Gerald Near: Alleluia. Laudate Deum omnes angeli eius
22 January (Epiphany III):
César Franck: Prélude, Fugue & Variation, Op. 18
César Franck: Andantino poco allegretto, in Eb Major (from L'Organiste)
29 January (Epiphany IV):
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort
Johann Ludwig Krebs: Toccata in G Major
2 February (Candlemas):
Marcel Dupré: Élévation (Très modéré), Op. 32, No. 2
Marcel Dupré: Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf, Op. 28, No. 31
5 February (Epiphany V; Septuagesima):
Clemens non Papa (tablature by Bálint Bakfark): Circumdederunt me
Anonymous (tablature by Jan z Lublina): Conradus
12 February (Epiphany VI; Sexagesima):
Domenico Zipoli: Canzona in C Major
Girolamo Frescobaldi: Preambulum tertii toni
19 February (Transfiguration; Quinquagesima):
Gerald Near: Visionem
Felix Mendelssohn: Sonata, Op.65, No. 2: II. Allegro maestoso e vivace
It should also be added that St. Luke's Episcopal Church (Dixon, Illinois) will host Mr Kevin Vaughn for an organ recital on 29 January (at 4:30pm). It promises to be a worthwhile occasion; I am looking forward especially to his Howells and Reger.
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