2011 National Cherry Blossom Festival

A YouTube for the National Cherry Blossom Festival Week (or Two) at Washington DC:

Emile Pandolfi, piano (2005)
Adagio by Tomaso Albinoni
Click here to view this L'Envoi YouTube.

The Month of March 2011

"Winter is long in this climate
and spring—a matter of a few days
only,—a flower or two picked
from mud or from among wet leaves
or at best against treacherous
bitterness of wind, and sky shining
teasingly, then closing in black
and sudden, with fierce jaws.
...
March,
you are like a band of
young poets that have not learned
the blessedness of warmth
(or have forgotten it)."

-- William Carlos Williams
Excerpts from the poem, 'March' (1921)

Google Eyes

"What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?
He sang, very slowly, while he and the child looked at each other...
What in the world you doin, Google Eyes?...
His eyes slowly closed, sprang, open, almost in alarm, closed again.
Where did you get them great big Google eyes?
You're the best there is and I need you in my biz,
Where in the world did you get them Google Eyes?"

-- James Agee, "A Death in the Family" (1938)

With the completion of two major landscaping projects, the lawn and garden are ready to welcome spring. The only thing left to do now is acquiring new lawn and patio furniture. That could wait. In the meantime, I have my google eyes on some books.

In-progress (possible book review candidates):

1. Elvi Rhodes - A House by the Sea
2. John C. Wright - The Golden Age
3. James Agee - A Death in the Family
4. Dorothy Dunnett - Queen's Play

Bolero at Tiffany's

Joseph Maurice Ravel
French Neo-classical composer
(7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937)
"Bolero," Ravel once said, "is seventeeen minutes of orchestra without music." After all, he further qualified, this piece was "an experiment in a very special and limited direction." To the contrary, the musical society and public have deemed it a great favorite piece of all time.

Tomorrow, 7 March, is Ravel's 136 birthday anniversary. For this occasion, I thought you might enjoy listening to a three-minute jazz version of "Bolero" interlaced with Henry Mancini "Moon River".

The MP3 below expired on 04-11-2011.
Click here to play the current selection.

The Opera Swing Quartet and the Philharmonie Merck (2008)
- Bolero at Tiffany's (after Ravel and Mancini)

Léo Delibes' 175 Birthday Anniversary

Léo Delibes
French composer
Ballets, Operas, and Stage
(21 Feb 1836 - 16 Jan 1891)
Maurice Abravanel, The Vienna State Opera Orchestra (1970)
Delibes' Valse Lente from the Ballet Coppélia
Click here to view this L'Envoi YouTube.

Ronald Reagan 100th Birthday Anniversary

Ronald Wilson Reagan
40th President of the United States
(6 February 1911 – 5 June 2004)

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

-- Ronald Reagan

Chinese New Year 2011

3 February 2011, Year of the Rabbit

Mozart for the Ages...

...even New Age. Music, that is.

Mozart's Birthplace, Salzburg, Austria, Christmas 2010
On This Mozart's Birthday Anniversary
(27 January 1756 - 5 December 1791)
The MP3 below expired on 03-06-2011.
Click here to play the current selection.

Keiko Matsui, piano (1997)
- Into the Forest
(after Mozart, arr. Kazu Matzui)
For the Mozart fans, here is a quiz. Name the original Mozart score for this Matsui arrangement.

If you can provide the right answer, I will send you a classical recording (MP3)by a renown artist of this Mozart composition. This contest expires upon the installation of a new tune.

One of Those Things

Hubert Giraud wrote this tune, 'Sous le ciel de Paris' (Under Paris Skies) in 1951. My making this YouTube was just one of those things, as Cole Porter would say.

Maurice Larcange, accordion
Under Paris Skies (Sous le ciel de Paris) 1962
Click here to view this L'Envoi YouTube.

Christmas 2010 Travel Panoramas

Panoramic View of the Christkindl Village
Styr, Austria, Christmas 2010

                        Panoramic View from the Nuremburg Castle
                        Nürnberg, Germany, Christmas 2010

            Panoramic View of Regensburg and the Danube River
            Regensburg, Germany, Christmas 2010

Panoramic View from the Melk Abbey
Melk, Austria, Christmas 2010