I must admit I am guilty to a degree of neglecting the television and being somewhat of a bookish, prudish, nerd. One thing that this has allowed me to do over the years apart from build up a degree of culture from the printed word (me with culture? Get out of the city!), but also I've developed a very very big internal music library.
This was evidenced on Sunday night when a bunch of us went to the Chensee's after church and a few rounds of the musical quiz "Buzz" were played on PS2; on which I kicked butt up and down and then back up the street.
Anyway, to the story at hand:
Helen Lovejoy, beautiful heiress to the Halibut millions, has been jilted at the altar by Villion de Paprikon, son of Louis XIV. Peter, Villion’s Eton boating friend, has heard this, but being in Tibet has embarrassed Mary, his fiancée, who being the only cousin of Sir Ray Ellington has past the title on to Baron Geldray, also heir to the Halibut millions. Now read on.
I went into the backyard with my iPod (the replacement Gipsy, not Mintie - Mintie died) and because it was a nice night lay on the grass staring up at the sky watching the stars go by. It was then that I noticed two things:
1. The number of stars in the sky seems to have decreased by a factor of 10 since I was a kid. Pollution, extra lights and possibly because I don't have the eyesight of a 9 year old anymore, mean that the night sky is but a poor parody of what I remember.
2. I really like Mussorgsky.
If you remember Mitsubishi's "Please Consider" adverts from about 10 years ago then you'll may recall the brass thing in the background. This was "Promenade" from this suite. This bit is returned to in about 6 different keys throughout the suite. Apparantly the story is that some guy walks about an art gallery and looks at paintings, returning to some as he randomly wanders.
I think that the concept is a good one and it's one of the few pieces of Russian music I find tolerable - having said that it plays around with all sort of tempo, key and even meter within the same phrase.
With the sky spinning above and the music wafting below a good nigh was had by moi.
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