Entertainment yesterday evening

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes,
And oh, my friends,
It gives a lovely light.
~ Edna St. Vincent Mallay

I'm tired. This is another random piece of poetry floating around in my head. I've been burning the candle at both ends, so to speak.

Last night I ushered for artist series. The State Symphony of Mexico was performing. It was not a great concert. The piccolo was so flat even I could tell something was wrong! In spite of that it was generally enjoyable. The conductor considered it a great triumph and graced us with three encores. But the encores were better than the rest of the program. The orchestra really came alive as they played Mexican music. It was impossible to keep from moving with the music.

The greatest entertainment of the evening, however, came from reading the program notes. They were the worst translation from Spanish into English that I have ever seen. I went to the Stupe after the concert with a bunch of conservies; they were almost in stitches. Here are some of the most amusing bits:

As in the case of the first performances of Stravinsky's ballets, The Three-cornered Hat [Suite] was presented by a true constellation of stars.

This labor of recreation is extraordinarily intelligent, because Rodrigo knew how to treat and develop the base material through a dialogue that sometimes is accompanied by a reduced-sized orchestra, but large enough to sprinkle about this work of sweet and sour harmonies, just like the strong spices that were so much to the liking of the taste buds of that time.

[Brahms] had gone into retirement, in order to peacefully create in Murzzuschlag, an Austrian village at the foot of the mountains and in a valley that, in spite of its green surroundings, lacks the charm and loveliness, which the lakes had offered to the composer during earlier summers. . . .

The last movement is a complicated polyphonic web, which always requires a perfect orchestra and an excellent conductor. It shows great human maturity, great personality and superior cultures.

Broad and noble is the first motif, yet, what so ever simple is its germ, its cell is nothing more than a third class interval, from which the sixth is gained by inversion, the rest is transposing and finding sequences that confer beautiful spaciousness to this movement. Very different is the second movement with its broad, solemn motif that reminds of ancient melodies, in medieval ways.

On his color palette he also has the color of pleasant joyfulness and it is not precisely one of his brightest colors. It fulfills its purpose, but amidst timbales and triangles let loose, we something get the impression of a man, who wishes to hide his melancholy by sticking to a carnival group type music.

And, finally, my personal favorite:

The problem of the musical nationalism in its first expression, in its folkloristic or arrandement phase. has been always the how using the popular themes with the big forms and with tose big musical groups. In general in this phase those composers accepted as elaborates a kind of salad in which.