0 Tax Season, Semi-Frozen Waves, and Beethoven

This is what tax season looks like here in the office. Sigh.

Today my friend B linked me to these beautiful pictures of semi-frozen waves in Nantucket, taken by photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh. And now I'm linking you.

In other news... it's been a while since I geeked out about Beethoven on the blog. In recent days, the symphonies have been my background music. A few days back, I listened to the seventh intentionally, because I needed to calm down and I knew the peaceful repetition would help (as opposed to the strident repetition of the fifth, which I knew would not help!). Then, when the seventh came to an end, the ninth began playing automatically. I have this problem wherein once the ninth starts playing, I need to listen through to the end. It doesn't matter what other thing I was supposed to be doing; now I'm listening to Beethoven's ninth. When it ends, I certainly do not feel that I've wasted my time. My chosen recordings are Christoph von Dohnányi and the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus.

Have an hour and thirteen minutes today? Below is the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna Singverein performing the ninth, conducted by Christian Thielemann. Press play. :o)

Detail: Tax Season, Semi-Frozen Waves, and Beethoven

0 A Musical Quiz for You

Recently, I organized some tickets for an upcoming concert. A friend sent a check in the mail to pay for her ticket. Above is her accompanying note. Can you guess what we're going to see/hear?

Now I'll talk about something else for a minute so there's some space between the question and the answer. Um. Hi. I don't have a lot to say right now. Except that today I find myself wondering how the drive is between Ísafjörður and Akureyri (Iceland). Based on this Google maps image, it looks delightfully fjordy.


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Oh! I could also tell you about one other exciting upcoming concert for those in my neck of the woods. Recently I have blogged (more than once) about the Slovenian/Croatian duo of Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser known as 2Cellos. These two very talented classically-trained cellists perform classical crossover covers of various pop, rock, and metal songs, and their music is completely infectious. And – they're doing a USA tour in October/November, starting in Northampton, Boston, and New York. Take a look at their other locations and dates, too. Very exciting! (I think you have to type "2CELLOSLIVE" into the promo code box in order to buy tickets right now.)

Okay, has that given you enough time and space to figure out the answer to my quiz above? Yes, we're going to a performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (with the Boston Philharmonic), and the note above is the Ode to Joy :). Local Beethoven-lovers, if you're interested in dates, times, and locations, here's the link.

Detail: A Musical Quiz for You