More of the same

Sometimes one blog picks up where the other one left off. I mentioned Palestrina in the last one. He's widely studied in music schools throughout the country, considered universally to be the Father of Modern Counterpoint.

All well and good. It's decent stuff, Palestrina's tunes. But for my money, the cat from that time(17th century) was Orlando di Lasso. More imaginative, more soulful. At least that's how I remember it.

It's been now 30 years since I was a music student. My education took place in, as it turns out, the last century. I like to think it's still of some value. Two significant experiences come readily to mind when I think back on that period, from '73 to '80(okay, I bounced around a little). One of them is what I just wrote about in the previous blog. Don't remember the year.

The other one I do happen to remember and it was in '75. Studying Music History. I was reading Grout's History of Western Music, then pretty much the standard text. Reading about a composer, a Russian composer named Modest Mussourgsky. He wrote a wonderful piece, initially for two pianos and later orchestrated by Ravel, called Pictures at an Exhibition, and an Opera called-- Boris Godenov.

Reading this title, a light went off in my head, and I hurled the book across the room. As a longtime Bullwinkle fan, I now knew where they got Boris Badenov.

And now, some 35 years later, I share it with you. Ah, the joys of a college education.