June 4, 2005

  • [wiping eyes]  Well, I'm a mess after that.  Oh dear!

    Just listened to Roberto Plano of Italy play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2  in the Van Cliburn finals, and by the time he was finished I was a weeping, blubbing wreck.

    Boy, that was fun! 

    OTOH I was regretting not having headed down to the Bass Hall to
    hopefully hear it in person, but considering how ravaged I was by
    hearing it on a boom box in my bedroom, had I been physically present
    I'd probably have had to be carried out by paramedics.  What is
    more, I'm impatiently waiting for the last competitor of the evening to
    play, Alexander Kobrin of Russia, who is to play Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Pagnini, Opus 43, which happens to be one of my favorite pieces of music in the world.

    I adore Rachmaninoff. Along with Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and another
    Russian composer or two or three.  Their literature tends to leave
    me cold, but when it comes to music there is no one to touch the Russians.  No one. 

    Now a Russian pianist is about to perform Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Pagnini . . . is it awful that while I still hope that Christ returns tonight, He waits till after the performance? 

    It's about to start!  Later....

Comments (4)

  • I promise you, there's much, MUCH better music in Heaven.  But seriously, I know what you mean. I tend to listen to the radio and CDs while cooking, and I get rather-- well, not puddled up, but I tend to get a little wild.  I boogey.

  • How the heck does one boogey to Rachmaninoff?

  • I don't boogey to Rachmanninoff, silly. I do boogey to Bach on occasion though. Perhaps a better word would be "caper". And if that stirs up some hilarity deep inside you, now you know why I do it ALONE.

  • Take comfort, Anne, there'll be music in Heaven. And if Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky and PLEASE don't forget Rimsky-Korsakov (and I confess, I even like Stravinsky) are not there in person to share theirs with us (though I suspect at least some of them will be represented), we will not miss anything.

    An idea I've just recently grasped is that every pleasure here on earth will be experienced in Heaven, in some form. If there's no Russian music (though I've got no reason to think it specifically will be absent), there will be something that will in some form provide us all the same degree and types of pleasure. PLUS Jesus, which will make all that other stuff seem secondary -- but that doesn't mean we won't still enjoy it, just like now.

    We've got to get this idea out of our heads that there's stuff here on earth that we'll miss. We won't not miss it because we won't care anymore, or because it's not worth appreciating, but because "at His right hand are pleasures forevermore."

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