This is certainly not going to be the first time you read about Wagner here. This fall, when I was working readings for my comprehensive exams and reading a lot of Wagner, I definitely had some blogging material, but they never materialized. I'll be working closely with some of those sources in the future, so I'm sure that there will be future ( Read more... )

Why don't people see what is new in my works, how in them, as is found otherwise only in Beethoven, the human being visibly plays a part in the work...

~  Richard Strauss, 19 June 1949
 

On Monday my seminar of two presented our papers. My paper is something appropriately Eventhere-like. That is, it involved reading up on a Florentine family who 'made it big' in Rome because one of them became Pope, Galileo and his trials, and Church history (think Counter-Reformation, 30 years war, and the Spanish Inquisition*1). Oh yes, and an ( Read more... )

You dance over me,
While I am unaware.
You sing all around,
But I never hear the sound.

Lord, I’m amazed by you
Lord, I’m amazed by you
Lord, I’m amazed by you
How you love me.

You paint the morning sky
With miracles in mind
My hope will always stand
For you hold me in your hand

Lord I’m amazed by you ( Read more... )

"It matters not if the world has see, or approves, or understands. The only applause we're meant to seek is that of nail-scarred hands."

~BJ Hoff

O Sacred Head Now Wounded
by Paul Gerhardt, 1607-1676
Isaiah 50:6

1. O sacred Head, now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down ( Read more... )

something I wrote last January...

Out of reach
I'm searching.
They push it away ---
that for which I've worked so hard -
that which comes from You.

You gave it to me.
You wanted me to have it;
To use it!
to please You - for you made it.
to please me - for you intended joy.They try to steal it ( Read more... )