h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cool... i look forward to reading it in the morning (don't tell my mum I'm up this late - or early for you..)

Thanks - your review tightened up the Ravel article a treat. BTW - I regard this covering article as a "joint authors" thing - hoping for heaps of input (hint, hint)
The first (incomplete and very unpolished) draft is at A420724 , Take a look when you get a chance. Is it too academic? I want to give people some insight, but not bore them with 100s of facts ...

I don't think its too academic. I shall post some notes to it... I'll maybe refer to things you haven't put in yet - just 'cause my mindreading skills are not perfect, & its probably better if something is pointed out that you are going to do than if I don't point it out & you weren't going to do it... But I like it.

*quickly grabs some tea, & goes back to reading entry*

That's great - thanks. Yes - by all means point out any gaps; some I may intend to cover, some might be "real" holes. Besides, it'll tune up on our mindreading skills.

Your help is much appreciated. I'll be logging off soon (damn these timezones), so see you around.

Have a good day, Princess

Okay, I'm just trying to post my thoughts...

Have a good evening.

Thanks.
Definitely going now ...
Very, very not here ...
'Bye

lol has your boss noticed you're not so keen to leave the office yet...

It has been noticed (not by boss yet), and put down to amazing keenness. A couple of weeks ago they gave me a huge & complex job, but I'd second-guessed them and done some of the work in advance ... so I've managed to look busy and generate output! The boss comes back next week. That should be "fun"!

Nobody's yet noticed that I've also been sneaking in with the cleaners early in the morning .....

Looking forward to your comments.

BTW I went to another of Robert Levin's concerts last night - he soloed in Mozart's 25th piano concerto. Great fun. He did a talk before the concert, and played from some early sketches, showing how M worked up the piano's first entry - about three drafts worth. Very interesting.

When he came on stage, he dragged two stagehands with him, and got them to move the piano - from the usual concerto position (left front, lid up) to where M would have had it - back to audience, sticking into the middle of the strings, lid off ... and then announced that the cadenza would be improvised, so if anyone wanted to help, they should start praying around bar 56. Had a great time

See you.

Found your comments (by the simple method of looking for them in the right place )They are a really good help. I'll develop the draft a bit more, and let you know by posting on that thread.

Many, many thanks. I hate working in isolation!

grrr... netscape complicator.... keeps crashing..

What I was going to say, before it rudely lost the entirity of my post, was that concert must have been cool - how fascinating to get that step closer to Mozart

Its good being able to colaborate with someone on the other side of the world...

Yes - it was very good. One of the downsides of being "down under" is that you don't get the same extent of "culture" as back in the UK - I have to grab every chance I get.

Must admit, I don't play a lot of M - to get him really right needs so much precision and concentration (not to mention ability) that I usually give up in despair.

I'll keep going on the article - you keep criticising!

With a bit of luck, I'll make a start on the "Hidden text in 4 seasons" item soon ... that will be fun!

I did the first movement of his flute concerto (often played on the oboe, though) in D major for my a level practical. I loved it, although it was hard hard work...

I'm really looking forward to the hidden text bit.

So, silly question time, who's your favourite composer?

I haven't resolved that question myself, but am down to a short list, which is (not in any order):

Beethoven: piano works - such depth, the technical developments that he took full advantage of ... power and beauty combined.

Elgar: emotional favourite - my dad when young met EE when old - got lots of "first hand" info. on his music ... and that first symphony - so sustained.

Vaughan-Williams: English, so English ... strings that make you cry.

Sorry - I'll take a tablet and calm down now!

With regret - must dash! RL summons me.
CU soon, Princess

What did you think of Payne's completion of Elgar's third symphony? I really liked it as a piece of music, but having not really listened to any Elgar I couldn't say whether it was true to the composer....

I was very impressed by it. Payne has extensive knowledge about EE and his music, and EE's estate gave him access to the scores and sketches. It's a very sympathetic completion. If it has a weakness, it is that the themes are not as sustained as Elgar might have scored them. One of his characteristics is the ability to thread a theme in and out of multiple movements, without it always being a "recap". (If you give his 1st Symphony a try, you'll see this clearly). In the 3rd, the themes are contained within movements. Mind you, it's fair to say that Elgar's style was changing, and he did lose some "power" from his later works, so perhaps Payne created a version that was an old Elgar, rather than "the best".

Other characteristics to watch for (all faithfully present in the 3rd):

- great empathy for 'cellos - often given main themes.
- falling sevenths (in all his works; as an easy example, the opening of the Enigma contains some 15 of them in 32 bars!)
- the ability to score brass with strings (rather than in competition).

OK - your turn - who's your nominee for Favourite Composer?

At the moment I'm going throuhg a Stravinsky in his Russian Style phase.

Also there's Tschaikovsky, I really like his fifth symphony, and his ballet music, 'cause of course it sounds like you can dance to it

Thomas Tallis as well, for something completely different...

Vaughan Williams too, but partly because of one of his songs: The Sky above the roof...

and Fauré.

How about Tschaikovsky 6th? or are you put off by its history? The slow movement with the "waltz" in 5/4 time is quite something.

Stravinsky - I've never gone into depth (or breadth?) - maybe I should.

No progress on the article today - sorry - hit a few crises.

Oh dear... is there anything I can do to help?

I studied Stravinsky as part of my a level, and I really liked his Russian style (I guess stuff written pre 1920, before he went neoclassical). He was such a character - he claimed that there was only one folksong in the Rite of Spring, the opening bassoon melody, which was Lithuanian. But he lied, there's many many more, lots from Rimsky-Korsakov's collection, and they're all relevant to spring. Listening to the Firebird and Petrushka you can hear whats going to develop into the Rite... (*resists temptation to write essay on Strav's influences in forum... the feeling's still there, even after a year that she should be writing essays...*)

I must listen to Tschaikovsky's 6th again; I don't have a recording of it atm

Thanks for the info - now wiser about Strav.

and thanks for the offer of help. No, I have to fix these myself - IRW. Nothing that a platoon of SAS, a tactical nuke and a case of Scotch couldn't fix

Sorry - gotta go RW now. Talk to you soon.

Stalin called Stravinsky the 'musical businessman'

The other thing was, he said serialism was a bad bad thing, and continued saying so until the death of Schoenburg (who I was told he lived next door to in America, although I may have made that up)... at which point he took it up.

'I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. Its the only way to be sure.'