Author: whskyjack

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A major, K 622

Either back in Jr high or early high school I decided to become a musician and play an instrument. As the only one available was a clarinet my parents got for my older sister, it was what I tried to learn to play. I quickly gave up on the idea and as far as I know that clarinet is still in our old farm house that has since collapse in on itself.

I have always loved listening to the clarinet and this piece is no exception but what I love here is the performance of Arngunnur Árnadóttir, the lady soloing on the clarinet. She just keeps playing and keeps playing, what amazing stamina.

This piece was published after Mozarts death. and has an interesting back story

From wiki

“As there is no autograph for this concerto and as it was published posthumously, it is difficult to understand all of Mozart’s intentions.[citation needed] The only relic of this concerto written in Mozart’s hand is an excerpt of an earlier rendition of the concerto written for basset horn in G (K. 584b/621b).[citation needed] This excerpt is nearly identical to the corresponding section in the published version for A clarinet.[citation needed]
Mozart originally intended the piece to be written for basset horn, as Anton Stadler was also a virtuoso basset horn player, but eventually was convinced the piece would be more effective for clarinet.[citation needed] However, several notes throughout the piece go beyond the conventional range of the A clarinet; Mozart may have intended the piece to be played on the basset clarinet, a special clarinet championed by Stadler that had a range down to low (written) C, instead of stopping at (written) E as standard clarinets do.[1]
Even in Mozart’s day, the basset clarinet was a rare, custom-made instrument, so when the piece was published posthumously, a new version was arranged with the low notes transposed to regular range.”

Enjoy, Jack

Exsultate Jubilate by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at age 17.

Enjoy, Jack

For a person who enjoys good music as I do, there is so much good music out there. With the impeachment hearings going on I decided to see what the founding fathers might have been listening to if they had their streaming service. I typed in the wrong date, 1790 instead of 1787 and found this marvelous piece. I could have gone with traditional, the up start Mozart or the always in fashion Johann S Bach. Instead I clicked on this Italian composer I had never heard of before and found a wonderful piece of music.

We live in blessed times

What I have learned by doing this weekly music post is that there is so much good music. An orchestra could play every night all year long and never repeat themselves and never play an inferior piece They don’t. They repeat the same “important” composers in the same boring top 40’s style play list.

For something different as in “I never heard of this guy”

Enjoy, Jack

Bartolomeo Campagnoli, His Wiki

On this veterans day week there are a few things we rarely discuss. One is the separation of the military from civil governance. We are lucky as a nation, for the most part the military stays out of politics. While Trump has made that difficult and I will always respect those who err on the side of caution. It is a serious decision.

From , The Atlantic

The Slow-Boil Revolt
Retired senior military officers are growing more concerned that the Trump administration doesn’t want their advice—and they’re struggling with how much they can say publicly.
Say nothing as norms shatter around you, and you’re implicitly enabling a president who some of your former colleagues believe is threatening national security. Speak up, and you risk destroying the balance of power that protects American democracy.
“For the U.S. military, being apolitical is a critical element of civilian control of the military—an absolute in a democracy,” the retired four-star general Joseph Dunford told us in his first extensive comments since leaving active duty. “The alternative is a military dictatorship.”

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The dilemma for retired senior officers now is whether the oath they took to the Constitution in military life requires deference to the sitting president—as, for example, Mattis has argued—or whether the president himself is such a danger to the Constitution that upholding the oath actually demands discarding the apolitical norm, as McRaven and Hayden have done. Brooks said that commenting on any politician in an ad hominem way represents the crossing of a Rubicon, and that he didn’t know what might force him to do so.
But, he said, “silence itself, like being overly aggressive, can undermine the Constitution.”

Kathy Gilsinan and Leah Feiger