Being a perpetual student is fun. I used to be a student not just of science and medicine, but also of music, in particular the piano. I took lessons from age 8 until 23, and I still love to play all kinds of music, largely classical. I also love to listen to classical music, having done so since a very young age, thanks to the influence of my parents and older siblings, who taught me how to say “Brahms” and “Tchaikowsky” when I was about 2 years old.
Perhaps it was the comment from Cheryl on my last post, but I feel inspired to start a year-long set of posts on some noteworthy classical composers, each on their birthday.
Today is the birthday of Alexander Borodin in the year 1833. I unfortunately don’t own any music by him, nor have I ever played any piano piece by him. Why should I blog about him, then, you may ask.
Well, it turns out he was both a composer and a chemist. Being both a musician and a biochemist myself, I thought this was really cool. Apparently he would turn to composing only when he was ill and bed-bound, leading a friend to remark that he wished Borodin became ill more often, so that the world would get more of his beautiful music.
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Cool! Good luck with blogging about music - I was already a fan of your blog, but this solidifies it.
Did you know Dana Sadava, or was she just a bit too young for you? (Ruddock, would have been a frosh when you were a senior.) I just linked back up with her...she got her Tech degree, went off to Oberlin, got another bachelor's in piano, and is now at the SF Conversatory of Music as a conducting grad student! She's also my newist BFF - or at least, my newish "wow, I'm totally indebted to this individual" sort of person. Aside from propping up my frail ego over this entire music schooling process, she loaned me about a foot-tall stack of music reference books (theory and history) I'm tearing through. And she fed me fudge. It was wonderful. :)
Of course I know Dana. That's really awesome about her getting a piano degree and conducting (I'm jealous!). OK, now I'm really thinking seriously about going to music school after residency/fellowship. I'll create a new medical sub-specialty. Healing by classical music! We'll have to see what the wife thinks about this. :P
Ahem, cough cough. :)
Don't you want to be able to afford that 100,000 dollar "ferrari" piano when you hit midlife crisis? This may be more valuable than a music degree, after all you're such a fine pianist already :). So you may want to consider having a real job by the time you hit that midlife crisis. Just a thought :).
Ahhh...Dan, great minds obviously think alike - I've told Eric (repeatedly) that I yearn for nothing of this world...except a really really REALLY good piano. And I fully expect to get that piano at some point - it was part of the "agreeing to marry him" deal.
Else, hell hath no fury like a 40-year-old Cheryl forced to play a crappy piano.
can't argue with that logic! :)
by the way, my last comment was in response to my wife's comment, in case it didn't quite make sense (sorry Cheryl, didn't see you're last comment until after I'd published mine)
I tend to think that my previous comment has a certain bit of unavoidable logic flowing through it as well...:)
definitely.
I first learned about Borodin in Neenan's class. His Second Symphony is pretty cool, very very Russian. The Polovtsian Dances have a very nice melody that you have probably heard before. Best (and most accessible) is probably "In the Steppes of Central Asia", which evokes a caravan (I usually imagine camels) passing you by.
Thanks for the recommendations, Matt. I was hoping you'd read some of the music blog-entries and comment at some point. :) I'm going to have to check some of those pieces out.
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