Chaos In Cowtown!

Life has been sort of chaotic for me the last couple of days, hence my MIA status from yesterday.  It all started Wednesday night when a dump truck hit a telephone pole downing a major set of power lines in the area around the store.  Our building lost power a couple of times, but our backups kicked in.  So while everyone else was cloaked in darkness, we were a beacon of light which drew the moths to the flame.  It calmed down when most of the area got their power back on.  

Then came Thursday when I got called in to work a double because the boss hurt his back.  This left no time to put together a post for which I offer my most abject apologies.  That brings us to today which is the first day of the Southwestern Exposition Rodeo and Live Stock Show.  This means for the next 3 weeks, Cowboy chic will all the rage, there will be literally millions of people in the neighborhood around the store, the carneys will see what they can steal, and both traffic and parking will be hideously complicated.  In other words, general chaos will reign and retailers despite it all will rake in money hand over fist.  Such is the annual Cowtown salute to all things Cowboy. 

You Musical Moment for this Friday features the Ludus tonalis, cycle of 25 pieces for piano, written in 1942 by Paul Hindemith.  In Ludus tonalis ("Tonal Games") for solo piano, Hindemith wove together the varied strands of his professional and artistic life up to that point. Hindemith's subtitle for the work, "Studies in Counterpoint, Tonal Organization and Piano Playing," perhaps carries a deceptive connotation of dryness or academicism. But Ludus tonalis ranges well beyond the stated intent of its heading, exploring matters of technique, theory, inspiration, and communication. It is in effect, a veritable catalogue of the composer's mature style, expressed in lively, imaginative, compact vignettes. While a complete performance requires nearly an hour, none of individual parts is longer than four minutes.

Ludus tonalis is ingeniously arranged, its 12 fugues connected by interludes that modulate from the key of one fugue to that of the next. The interludes also serve as a means of thematic modulation; each propagates thematic "cells" that anticipate the material of the succeeding fugue. While the fugues are entirely contrapuntal -- often ingeniously so, as when Hindemith creates the effect of three-part polyphony with just two voices -- the interludes are homophonic, taking harmony and variety of expression as their major concerns. Framing the whole is a Praeludium and a Postludium; in keeping with the playful suggestion of the title, the latter is a retrograde inversion of the former.  Today's performance is a 1985 recording of Sviastislav Richter live at "Fêtes Musicales en Touraine", France.  You may also hear Hindemith's Sonata for Viola and Piano in F major, Op. 11 No. 4, written in 1919 with a performance by Kim Kaskashian (Viola) and Robert Levin (Piano) over on my tumblr. 

Because I was MIA yesterday, I tossed in a couple of extra art works into today's edition of Fantasy Fuel for you.  These guys should all trigger a stray fantasy (or two or three) as you cruise down the page.  Then while I have you all hot and bothered, shoot on over to my tumblr for a Hottie of the Day! who is Red, White and Breathtaking!  Thanks for the visit, check in over the weekend for the Evening Concert to see which great live performance I have up my sleeve this week.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!