Another week of music and projects

Two and half concerts this week. The first was by the University of Massachusetts Orchestra and was an excellent program of Beethoven's Coriolanus Overture ( one of the most dramatic and tragic pieces he wrote), Prokofiev's Lt. Kije Suite, and Bruckner's enormous Fourth Symphony, all performed very well.

Then it was the Hartford Symphony conducted by a member of the world famous Julliard String Quartet. We heard the Pachalbel Canon, a viola concerto by Telemann, Vaughn Williams' Fantasia on a them by Thomas Tallis, and Tchaikovsky's First Symphony. The first three pieces are for strings only and were played nearly perfectly. The Vaughn Williams was particularly beautiful. The conductor's rendition of the Tchaikovsky was very individualistic and even a bit jarring in the first two movements. While the sound from the instruments was beautiful and precise, the total result was not completely satisfying. On the bright side, the last movement was rendered superbly.

Yesterday, we collected our two grandsons and went over to Amherst to hear our granddaughter, Audrey, sing in the 7th grade chorus holiday performance on the town hall steps. It was cold, but they were worth hearing. Hearing them was difficult at times as the American public, even parents and grandparents, have so much to say that they cannot possibly be quiet during a performance. Rudeness and inattention are rife.  Too many people attend events at some cost or trouble and then treat them as background for their conversations or phone messaging.

I have been doing a lot of wiring, or at least spending a lot of time wiring, to replace some of the electrical madness in our house. I broke up one circuit that fed a microwave, thirteen light fixtures, and several outlets into three circuits.