Can’t help but notice the counter wheel spinning away today! Welcome visitors – where are you coming from?

So today must be a day for new music. First, an email from Robert Siegel (of aforementioned All Things Considered on NPR) suggesting that if I am not familiar with it, the Beethoven String Quartet Opus 131 is worthy of attention. And then a comment from my friend Naomi commenting that she enjoys listening to the Beethoven Violin Concerto, as played by Jascha Heifitz. How cool is that? I’m burning the CD as we speak!

The workshop at East Side Quilters went very well on Saturday – The last photo in the series shows just some of the small tops that were made. And that didn’t include the sample one I’d made.

And in a fit of distraction or would-like-to-be-distracted, I made this tonight.

Haunted with the best of them.

On Christmas eve, I pulled over to listen to an NPR piece about Admirers of the Allegretto from Beethoven’s 7th. There were several recordings of variations on that music and interviews with musicians about their reactions and responses to the music. The NPR commentator also had a long history with the piece. It’s one of those pieces of music that is instantly familiar and yes, haunting is a good word. I did some rummaging and found a recording of the Seventh. I had spent a lot of time in the past two years with the Ninth and it was so different feeling. And each movement of the Seventh is different also. Related but different.

Pushed by this new Beethoven focus, I bought a complete set of symphonies plus some piano concerti and overtures. Whoa. My iPod is brimming with Beethoven. But no shuffle or play through in order for me. Oh no. I’m now stuck on the Seventh like I was on the Ninth. And since i have two versions now, I can even switch off and compare performances.

I’m not at all sure what this means, but I can recommend the practice, even if your music is different. Listening to something repeatedly gives you a lot of time to think about how it was written, the different parts, what makes it sound that way.

I confess I spend quite a bit of time thinking about what it must be like to be able to create music like this. I wonder what it was like for Beethoven to have these ideas, what his creative process was like, what it was like for him to begin rehearsals and hear the first performance. What was it like to be a musician for those first performances – or to be in the audience?

Feel good story of the week.

Be sure to read all the way to the end and check out the photos. I felt a little teary-eyed at the end – what a nice thing to be doing what you’re passionate about!