Die Zeit/Temps Perdu

Recently I've been listening a good deal to a piece of music called Die Zeit, a composition of Alexander Rabinovitch's. It is scored for four amplified instruments: violin, cello, piano and celesta. If one puts aside the rather pretentious ideas that underpin it, the music is fresh, lively and loud, without being abrasive on the ear: not unlike some of Micheal Nyman's music in tone & texture. On first listening, I found myself trying to imagine what a celesta (played on this recording by renowned concert-pianist Martha Argerich), looked like, and felt obliged to look up an image:

Yesterday volumes 4 & 5 of In Search of Lost Time arrived in a parcel from amazon. I've opted this time to try the new Penguin translation, its lukewarm or mixed reviews notwithstanding. I'm fairly confident, at least, of finishing vol. 3, having made rapid progress through second half of part 1 of The Guermantes Way which, to my mind, has been about the most entertaining part of the story-so-far.

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On Sunday we dragged home a handsome nine-foot Christmas tree. On Monday evening it took two hours to string it with four sets of 140 coloured lights, to fairly pleasing overall effect. This was a much less distressing experience than last year, when it took me almost twice as long to put five sets of the same lights on a slightly smaller tree.

Posted by misteraitch at December 18, 2002 04:55 PM