When It Hurts So Bad / Why's It Feel So Good

Indianapolis has a radio station (WCIR 88.7 to be precise) that features a Concert Band Hour every Saturday morning from 7 to 8 in the AM.
Let me tell you from first-hand experience: it is a little jarring. (Although to be fair, it does wake you up.)

Anyway, my first (and probably only) encounter with Concert Band Hour concluded with a rousing performance of Leopold Mozart's Toy Symphony. The part with the noisemaker had me pretty convinced the car was about to break down. Okay.



With dancers!



Or: mandolin orchestra version of the concert band piece.



And finally: The Remix. Obviously.

I don't know - if any unwanted holiday guests are still lingering around your house, I would play this on repeat for awhile and it just might do the trick!

Sick Muse

I don't know if you're aware of this, but the British Medical Journal publishes a special Christmas issue every year. It's true! Relevant, too, because this year's issue includes "Mozart’s 140 causes of death and 27 mental disorders" by Lucien R. Karhausen. "The plethora of proposed causes of death and mental disorders suggested for Mozart," Karhausen writes, "stems from some obscure need to cut great artists down to size." Read all about it.

[Plus, I do believe paragraph five (detailing the major theories for cause of death) would make a wonderful Gilbert and Sullivan style patter. Ahem ahem:

It could be typhus, typhoid, measles, mycotoxin or staphylococcal /
Tuberculosis, trichinosis, or infection meningococcal /
Endocarditis, scarlatina, septicaemias, (not optimal) /
But let's just pause a tick lest we forget the streptococcal.


RIGHT?]

So Airplane / Airplane / Sorry I'm Late

Stranded on a runway
landed on a plan
what else to do but
impromptu jam?

Mozart-style.



(via consumerist)
(thank you to mburns!)

Today Was A Fairytale

So, given the last post, I thought I would check out the Strings in the Mountain Music Festival - and that led me to:

Mozart's Magical Musical Life: an interactive web fairytale.

It's worth checking out if only for the snark about Nannerl's hairstyle.

Hey Good Lookin' / Whatcha Got Cookin'

Kurt Palm wrote a book called Der Wolfgang ist fett und wohlauf (translated: "Wolfgang is Fat and in Good Health").

Yes.

Quote: "The liver dumplings that Wolfgang preferred to eat were the fried liver dumplings, which are still today on the menus of restaurants in Salzburg. These dumplings are not cooked and put in soups, but deep fried in clarified butter and served with sauerkraut. " — Kurt Palm

For those of you who:
a) like liver dumplings
b) want to be like Mozart
c) have a lot of time on your hands
d) all of the above
you can find a recipe (and more about Palm's book) here.

Inside The Museums / Infinity Goes Up On Trial

A favorite daydream of mine involves camping out in the British Library's Treasure Room Mrs-Basil-E-Frankweiler-style* (underneath the interactive Blake display - I've really thought this out) - but the Library has pre-empted me with the fantastic new Virtual Book Exhibit in its online gallery.

Now you can flip through pages in the manuscripts of William Byrd's My Ladye Nevells Booke, Mozart's diaries, or Handel's Messiah (not to mention the 15th century Sherborne Missal, or a selection of Leonardo da Vinci's sketches) without having to pay for a plane ticket. (I doubt this will stop me from daydreaming about London, though.)



*That book with the kids who live in a museum? At night they gather coins from the fountain so they can buy something to eat from the café, and they are on constant watch for the museum guards who patrol off-hours.