Day 195: Gourmet Beethoven
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 195 — Gourmet Beethoven
13-February-1972
(Sonntag–Sun.)
TRANSCRIPT
Spending most of the
day—somewhat relaxing—by finishing up written work.
My application for Fontainebleau. I have made myself
a typical Sunday meal, which I’m getting to be an
expert at: instant soup, hot dogs, eggs, and hot
chocolate. Of course, with plenty of fruit around to
supplement it.
Tonight, plan to see Fidelio.
Supposed to be a great cast.
Saw an unbelievable performance of Beethoven’s
Fidelio.
The reason—the leads were all excellent singers. I
also never heard such a good job on the “Lenore”
overture (to 3rd Act). Fast strings. Horns did a good
job.
REFLECTIONS
Gourmet.
Clever
title, huh? “Gourmet cook, are you?” said Yoda. What
kind of meals am I eating? ??? Instant soup, hot
dogs, eggs, fruit, and hot chocolate—basically, I
know how to
boil water. As I got
older, and as a single guy, I usually went for the
simple meals. I did get better.
Beethoven. Finally, I
am back to some music. After all, that’s why I’m in
Vienna. Opera tonight. Beethoven’s
Fidelio, a lot of
great music, great horn parts, great gourmet
Beethoven. I enjoyed the performance and the singing.
The
wonder of YouTube. The
Internet(s) is amazing. [I like to use the newer
plural term for the Internet—not sure why.] If you
search on a title/topic you can usually find some
nice musical performance. A search on “Beethoven
Fidelio” gave this
YouTube link to the
opening Fidelio Overture (7:23) by Nikolas
Harnoncourt and the Orchestre de L’Operade de Zürich.
Great performance. It’s a great way for students to
search, hear, and see a lot of music.
Fidelio Links:
YouTube Fidelio
Overture
Wikipedia
Fidelio
Wikipedia
Beethoven
Music with Ease
synopsis
Historical
background
The opening picture is from Wikipedia Commons: “A
portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820”
John
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