in festo ss. trinitatis, ad assumptionemDear Lettye,
Ah, that Rhapsody. In D-flat major, cognate key to the one Bach himself couldn’t compose in, indeed I wonder if he could even play it; I can think of a total of a baker’s dozen of measures that Couperin, Mozart, and Haydn cursed with all those sharps, and boy did they ever strip down the textures for safety’s sake. But Piers just glides through, even more slickly than the first time I heard him play it. Midway through there’s a registration, during the buildup, that “splits”, one can hear the octave magadising with the foundation, probably unavoidable. The conclusion grand enough for a basilica.
Bastien is lost in wonder and contemplation.
No, Bastien is simply lost en route to Mass this morning. I used to think he avoided Andrew’s voluntaries, and gave him full credit for his loyalty. But no--though perhaps he’s heard it rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed.
At least he’d have the decency not to mention those couple of measures of magadising.
I wonder if it is nervewracking to know that someone is listening so attentively, even if always listening only for confirmation of the player’s prowess?
Bastien is lost in wonder and contemplation.
No, Bastien is simply lost en route to Mass this morning. I used to think he avoided Andrew’s voluntaries, and gave him full credit for his loyalty. But no--though perhaps he’s heard it rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed.
At least he’d have the decency not to mention those couple of measures of magadising.
I wonder if it is nervewracking to know that someone is listening so attentively, even if always listening only for confirmation of the player’s prowess?
“Reach me down that there box of shells, Aunt Tacky, the rhinoceros are loose in the back room!”
But it was no such thing. A surreptitious glance at the new stoplist confirms that when Piers swooped down on that HolyHolyHoly phrase so commandingly that first time, ‘twas not the Aeolian-Skinner Rinoceronte en chamade he employed, but rather the new digital 16foot Hippoposthumos straziato. So that the alarm one naturally felt at first hearing was translated into tender compassion for the suffering of the Attislike, callow steer.
During the Sequence I observe that Piers makes an error of taste. Just at the moment when the text turns Incarnationy, redolent with shepherds’ bagpipes and drones, he underlines the phrase with one of the multiple trumpets currently at his disposal.
Though perhaps it would have been a little tedious to reduce all the verse so that the new digital 8foot Corno di Copia could whine plaintively during the Xmasy phrase.
And it was the only quibble I had with his entire serviceplaying that Sunday, so perhaps it wasn’t up to much, as quibbles go.
Love, Giac.
((Excerpt from Piers trinitatis i, "Smudging"))
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