Handel's The Messiah

On Sunday my mother, sister, and I travelled to Kansas City to see Handel's The Messiah preformed by the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra in Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Preforming Arts Centre. Where do I begin!? From the beginning I suppose, the performance was at 2:00pm, and we arrived about an hour prior. Helzburg Hall is beautiful; it's modern in it's architecture, and the design is imaginative and unique. Now, of course, that's my opinion, but see for yourself here and here.

The first thing we did was check our coats into the cloakroom, which I discovered to be very underutilised. Afterwards, we made our way to our seats which were on the highest row of seating to stage left. Visibility was limited, but as the hall was designed, we lacked very little in sound quality.

The first violinist, Conductor Aram Demirjian, Soprano Yulia Van Doren, Mezzo-Soprano Abigail Fischer, Tenor David Portillo, and Bass Liam Moran were applauded onto on stage and the overture began. The tenor has the first recitative in the oratorio singing Comfort Ye My People followed immediately by Every Valley Shall Be Exalted. David Portillo sang it well, and added quite a few flourishes. Then the first choir recitative is sung: And The Glory Of The Lord. There is nothing on earth like being in a concert hall when a choir of over 100 people are singing (125 are listed in the program), the sound is so powerful you can feel it, it sends shivers down my spine, I'll rave about the Hallelujah chorus when I get there. Next up was the Bass singing Thus Saith The Lord Of Hosts and But Who May Abide The Day Of His Coming. He did well also, but I've heard better recordings. After that, the Mezzo-Soprano sang But Who May Abide The Day Of His Coming. Again, she did well, but the piece really does not not suit the mezzo-soprano, the contralto yes, and possibly the alto, but in my opinion, not the mezzo, besides the fact that I prefer this recitative to be sung an octave lower by the bass. Carrying on, after a chorus recitative, another alto, alto/chorus, and two Bass, is the first Soprano recitative, is There Were Shepherds Abiding In The Fields, and Yulia Van Doren was spectacular, she was one of the highlights of the evening for me! The Intermission was taken between the first and second parts of the oratorio, which is after the twenty first "part": His Yoke Is Easy, And His Burden Is Light. Some of the recitatives were changed either by omission or by being sung an octave higher or lower by a different singer, none in the the first part The Advent Of The Messiah were omitted or changed. Of the second part The Passion Of Christ the tenor recitative But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell was sung by the Soprano (a change which I thoroughly enjoyed), parts 2/12-2/15 (34-37) which are traditionally omitted were in this performance, as well as the chorus recitatives There Sound Is Gone Out and Let Us Break Their Bonds. From the third part, Resurrection; Then Shall Be Brought To Pass, O Death! Where Is Thy Sting?, But Thanks Be to God, and If God Be for Us were omitted (which was too bad because I would have loved to hear Yulia Van Doren sing If God Be For Us). Other Notes: I have never heard Handel's Messiah played and sung so fast, I guess it was to keep the performance time reasonable, along with the omissions. The conductor was amusing to watch, he even left the ground at times. He apparently preferred the choir to be somewhat staccato, which was perhaps for clarity, I wouldn't know, in fact I don't think I can even give an educated opinion on him so I shan't. We all had a marvellous time. But truly, the best part was the Hallelujah chorus. Most of the audience immediately rose when it began, everyone else got the memo very quickly. The sound of over one hundred voices (including some of the audience) blended with the large pipe organ, almost drowning out the orchestra, the timpani boomed, and the trumpet's sound rose over it all. It was electrifying and absolutely magnificent!

An Evening At The Symphony

On Saturday evening I, along with my mother and sister, went to the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and it was perfectly delightful! Upon entry to the foyer of the theatre we were greeted by the sound of strings, and the murmur of people bustling about. Ah! Culture. The pre-concert music at that time was a children's Suzuki violin class. I heard the first "Twinkle" variation, Go Tell Aunt Rody, Long, Long Ago, and other pieces from violin Suzuki book 1. They did very well. There was a very wide range of dress: from tuxedos and cocktail dresses to (the horror) shorts and casual dress. I even saw a man in a kilt! I'm serious, see, I took a picture:

Here is a picture of me, my mother, and my sister dressed up for the theatre.

After the Suzuki class finished playing, a young quintet took over. Here is a picture of them from the top floor.

Coincidentally, they fist played one of my favourite pieces: Dvorák’s Humoresque No.7 Op.101, then one of Kari's favourites: the first movement of Strauss' On the Beautiful Blue Danube waltz, and one other piece that I've heard before but cannot remember what it is called, nor who composed it, and it's bothering me... it's mysterious, haunting minor strains play over and over in my mind, but alas, I cannot identify them.{Update: I've found out what it is! It's the first movement of Karl Jenkins' Palladio}

We sat in the "Petite Balcony" (i.e. where the cheapest seats are) *ahem*, and being so far from the stage makes me very thankful for my pretty mother-of-pearl opera glasses. Here is a picture of the orchestra from our seats.

The first piece of the evening was Paul Dukas' Fanfare to the Ballet La Peri, which, to be quite honest, was not thrilling. I am embarrassed to say I thought the brass section was merely warming up, until just about the end of the short piece. Afterwards, violinist Chee-Yun was welcomed on stage to preform the solo violin in Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.2 in G minor Op. 63. It was amazing! I highly recommend the piece if you've never heard it before. It was interesting to me to compare it to the Shostakovich String Quartet pieces I've been listening to recently. Chee-Yun did very well, and afterwards preformed an encore of Fritz Kreisler's Recitato and Schezo. After the Intermission, the Orchestra played Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Intermezzo from Pagliacci followed by the lovely Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni. The final piece of the evening was Ottorino Respighi's The Pines of Rome, which comprises four movements, played without stopping, that guide the listener on a nocturnal tour of Rome starting at twilight near a villa where children are playing, then trough the catacombs where one can hear the echoes of an evening chant from a distant monastery, upon emerging from the catacombs one is greeted by the brilliant moon and a nightingale singing in the distance, and finally to Appian way where the sound of the sunrise mimics the sound of an army marching, starting far away and getting closer, closer, then it's here in it's full glory. I'm thankful I have a program to remind me what each movement is supposed to be about. My personal thoughts on the piece are less grand: I liked the second movement best, and I thought it was really neat that they used a big gong on stage. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

A Birthday Special

Today is the birthday of a special musician and friend of mine and to mark the occasion I am posting a list of several famous composer's birth dates (and a picture of a neat cake). Have a blessed day!

1. 21 March, 1685 - Johann Sebastian Bach
2. 27 January, 1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
3. 16 December, 1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven
4. 23 Febuary, 1685 - George Frideric Handel
5. 4 March, 1678 - Antinio Vivaldi
6. 7 May, 1833 - Johannes Brahms
7. 7 May, 1840 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
8. 31 January, 1797 - Franz Schubert
9. 1 March, 1810 - Frédréic Chopin
10. 1 April, 1873 - Sergei Rachmaninoff
11. 8 June, 1810 - Robert Schumann
12. 22 August, 1862 - Claude Debussey
13. 22 May, 1813 - Richard Wagner
14. 26 September, 1898 - George Gershwin
15. 8 Febuary, 1932 - John Williams
16. 14 March, 1681 - Georg Philipp Telemann
17. 6 November, 1854 - Joseph Sousa
18. 25 March, 1927 - Béla Bartók

On another note (pun intended)... Ma Sœur has refreshed her blog Riding Down the Lane and has begun posting on things she enjoys, such as herbs, wild edibles, cooking, and knitting. Click here to go to her blog

Picture Reference (link)

Fountain Pen Ink Review: Noodler's Dark Matter

I enjoy nice writing instruments, especially fountain pens. Over the last year I have "gotten into" fountain pens. It is a very enjoyable "hobby" if I may even call it that, for fountain pens to me are not merely something fun to use (though they are), but practical tools I use daily. Today I would like to present my first fountain pen ink:

Black and blue inks are obvious staples, and for my first ink, I was practically inclined to purchase one of the two afore mentioned colours. I prefer black over blue for most things, so I went on a hunt for the black ink I wanted to use for a long time (because one does not use up a bottle of ink very quickly). First off, I don't require a super black black ink, so that was not one of the factors in my choice. Dark Matter could be discribed as a very dark grey on some paper, but for all my intents and purposes, it is black. In the end, what really sold on this particular ink verses all the others was that the story behind this ink is science related, and it's got a cool name: Dark Matter. I had also heard many good things about Noodler's Ink and thought that it would be a wise choice to purchase one of their inks.

So without further ado, here is my sample:

Yeah, I know, a Varsity is not very impressive, but that is the only pen I have Dark Matter in right now. But Varsitys write really well, can be refilled, and only cost a few dollars.

Being a novice to ink, this review is mainly for apearence/colour reference, and not for specifics like flow or lubrication.

Picture reference as well as where one may purchase this ink: Goulet Pen Co.

The story of this ink can be found here at Noodler's website.

Polybius Checkerboard Cypher

The Polybius Checkerboard (otherwise known as the Greek square) was named for the ancient Greek historian to whom its invention is due. The original set up is quite simple, but variations on it can be quite hard to break. One variation was used by a spy in the American Civil War, and it was never broken by the enemy.

Below is the basic version.

	1	2	3	4	5
1	a	b	c	d	e
2	f	g	h	ij	k
3	l	m	n	o	p
4	q	r	s	t	u
5	v	w	x	y	z

Yes, I did write out all of the html for that table, feel free to use it if you wish.

To use this cypher one substitutes the row number and the column number, for the letter. For example:

"A Study in Purple" becomes

11 43 44 45 14 54 24 33 35 45 42 35 31 15 or

1143444514542433354542353115 or

11434 44514 54243 33545 42353 11500 or even

1 1434 445 14 5424 333 5454 23531 15

So obviously one of the variations of the Polybius Checkerboard is spacing. Other variations include: scrambling the letters and/or numbers of the square and using different alphabets (this is called a "Greek Square" because it was originally used the Greek alphabet). I thought it would be neat for short messages to also be encoded mathematically, for example:

Take the square root of 1,143,444,514,542,433,354,542,353,115 then divide it by 999,999,999, then subtract 330,000 from it, and the number becomes 8,148.564434 (much more portable in my opinion). It would be impossible to crack without knowing what steps to take to reverse the function. One could even take 8,148.564434, divide it by as many people as one wants to give the code to, and have them only be able to come up with the right message when all of the individuals add their values. The variation possibilities are endless! Here is an exercise in breaking a Polybius Checkerboard, use the square above, I only used a spacing variation.

...213442-442315-243454-3421-54235123-2443-54344542-4344421533224423.

The Modern Wild (Edible) Frountier of North America

Early this month my family and I went to Baker Creek's Spring Planting Festival. While there I listened to an interesting lecture given by Joseph Simcox, a "botanical explorer and world food plant ecologist", on North American wild edibles. The summary of the lecture was: Why haven't many people domesticated more plants native to North America? Throughout the lecture Mr. Simcox explained why most of the commercial agriculture in this country are foreign plants and that we have a huge natural resource of non-domesticated plants the can be domesticated, bred, and then used commercially.

The first question "Why are most plants grown in the U.S. foreign?" The answer is two-fold: first, the Native Americans who knew this land and how to live off of it were primarily nomadic, and for the most part did not domesticate plants. Second, when settlers came from Europe, many of them brought seeds from Europe and didn't bother domesticating the unfamiliar plants they found in their new country.

Mr. Simcox highlighted some amazing plants some that have been domesticated such as the Honey-berry and Persimmon, and some that he believes have potential to be successfully grown commercially such as the Aronia berry and the Stargazer plant (a member of the sesame family). America has many diverse climates from mountains, to praries, and deserts. Some of the plants that grown in these places are incredibly hardy withstanding drought, high altitudes, extreme cold, and more. Lonicera caerulea var. cauriana. known as the honey-berry, for example, a native to the north western U.S. is now being bred by Russia because of its hardiness in sub-arctic conditions and need for a very short growing season. I find it remarkable how Native Americans could live entirely off of the land in desert climates. They knew what to eat and when to eat it, and miraculously it grew where they needed it. Mr. Simcox suggested that some of these hardy North American plants could be domesticated and grown in places where there poor growing conditions and food is scarce.

In conclusion Mr. Simcox encouraged his audience to domesticate wild plants, and encourage any home gardener to do likewise. He explained that one doesn't need to be a botanist to domesticate, and that most of the North American plants being bred now are being done by home gardeners who make one select plant their passion.

I hope that all made cognitive sense. I've had a difficult time organising my thoughts. 

Recipes for פסח

Pesach is almost here! Below are some of my family's favourite recipes for Passover and Unleavened bread.

Unleavened Bread

• 3 c. flour
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c. warm water
• 1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 450° F. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Slowly add the wet ingredients into the dry mixture, mix well to form a dough. Divide the dough into golf ball size pieces, and roll into flat circles. Poke holes in the circles with either a fork (or a hairbrush ;) ). Bake on cookie sheets for 15-20 mins.

Tofee Matzah

• Matzah
• Butter
• Sugar
• Chocolate Chips
• Chopped Nuts (Almonds and/or Pecans are our favourite.)

Melt butter on low heat. Add sugar to the butter and cook on med. heat until the mixture turns golden brown, then remove from heat. Lay out matzah on cookie sheets then spread the butter/sugar mixture on the matzah. Generously sprinkle the chocolate chips and nuts on the matzah. Bake at 375 for 10 mins. Sorry for the imprecise instructions!

Have a very blessed Passover and Unleavened Bread!

Cæsar

Nhhs wkh vfdui.

The Transit of Venus

I found this post while going through old drafts. Enjoy!

This picture below was taken my me on the 6th of June, 2012 of the Transit of Venus. We set up our telescope and since we could not actually view the sun, we set up a projetion onto a piece of white paper. Venus is that little dot on the top left side of the sun.

HTML Trial

This is my first post that I've written all of the html myself, rather than having Blogger do it all for me.

I've been playing around with computers a lot lately, and it's about time that I learned how to edit HTML on my blog.

I've been fixing my old laptop, Adagio, the last few weeks. I replaced Windows XP with Elementary OS (a distro of Linux) in an attempt to reinvigorate this almost-a-decade-old laptop. I have indeed succeeded in my venture and my laptop now works reasonably well and is nicely suited for the tasks I wish to put to it, namely at present, writing, blogging (which includes learning html) and Python coding.