New-Music Mondays
Mondays spotlight new and recent recordings of special merit.
Month: March 2016
Nathaniel Rosen Plays Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations”
One of the most popular works for cello and orchestra is universally known as Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations (Op. 33, of 1877). But what that name makes up for in concision, it somewhat lacks in clarity, in that it is the theme that is Rococo, and not the variations… . The formal name is usually rendered in English as Variations on a Rococo Theme, but the BSO’s broadcast announcer here calls it the Variations on a Graceful Tune.
George Washington Carver’s List of Eight Cardinal Virtues
Dear Friends,
I intend to use my blog as a way of sharing my love of music and the other arts, and also sharing my love of audio engineering and of home hi-fi equipment. I am not going to turn my blog into a political platform.
That said, while doing other research, I ran across a List of Eight Cardinal Virtues composed by plant scientist George Washington Carver (c. 1860—5 January 1943). Here they are.
- Be clean both inside and out.
- Neither look up to the rich, nor down on the poor.
- Lose, if need be, without squealing.
- Win without bragging.
- Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.
- Be too brave to lie.
- Be too generous to cheat.
- Take your share of the world, and let others take theirs.
The relevance to today’s headlines should be painfully obvious.
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