Tradition

Date: 25 April 2011 20:20:08

I've been most traditional these last few days.

In that Saturday was spent spring cleaning the house from top to bottom, today has mostly been spent on a DIY task (which might have made a bit of a mockery of the spring clean, apart from the fact I realised this was going to happen, and only gave the sitting room a quick lick and a promise, so to speak! It will get it's end of term mammoth clean another day this week, when the varnishing is finished.) and listening to the Classic FM annual count down of the nations favourite pieces.

Then, I had a moment of wondering about those pieces... and did a quick analysis.

Can play (on piano, clarinet or organ) 17 of them! In the case of the two organ pieces, I'd need a bit of time to get back into practice again, and I'd not want to play some of them without a bit of notice.. but play them I can or could!

Have sung, as part of a choir, 9 of them.

Have played in the orchestra for 7 of them.

Have played arrangements of parts of an awful lot of them on piano, clarinet and in orchestras. (I lost count at 30.)

Have studied 10 of them for O or A Level or first degree level.

Squinted at 5 of them and thought "Never heard of that one!"

Muttered darkly at the few pieces I dislike. Surprisingly few, even Beethoven's Violin Concerto seems to have grown on me over the years. Though, sadly Mozart's Clarinet Concerto has to be turned off these days if it's the slow movement. not because I hate it, but because it's so overplayed and I don't want to hate it.

Would love to be able to play a good number of the concerti. (If I ever learn another instrument, it would be the cello, for the Dvorak Cello Concerto.)

I was traditional about a few other things since Maundy Thursday as well, but that's for another day.