Back in mid-November I briefly hijacked the Sexy Friday post because it was my birthday, and a monumental one at that since it was my 30th. (It was also The Maestro’s 29th birthday, which means if he hasn’t done this by the end of the offseason he knows when his is due.) Since it was my 30th birthday, I decided to post 30 songs that were symbolically important in my life. Or I tried to, but due to being busy doing birthday things and gig things I only got through 20 or so.

The good news is that from that Rikki was inspired to come up with a series where some of us will deliver our own life story playlist, 30 songs max. Hell, before all is said and done I might have multiple playlists, due to being a musician. I might have a Classical-only list!

With that, I was supposed to have the honors of starting the series officially, but managed to procrastinate myself out of it, which is why Balls went first. So without more further ado, here is Senor Weaselo’s full 30 for 30 Playlist, with better/more complete commentary than Birthday Weekend. I am going to make a slight change from the original playlist, and that’s that things I wrote won’t officially be on the list, but can be mentioned. Sorry musical hack mildly accomplished composer Senor Weaselo, you’re off the list.

Since this is a musical bio, we start with stuff Padre Weaselo played in the car when I was young, with titles of songs I remember. So honorable mention to Luis Miguel but I don’t know the songs my dad played for me, so no points! He’d probably know what the songs were, if he can remember. In fairness to me, I was very young, and it was in Spanish. In not fairness to me, song number 1 on this list.

1: Gipsy Kings: Volare

I will go on record and say this is the better version. Hell, for a good 10 years or so I didn’t even realize Dean Martin sang it, and that that was the “definitive” version. Hell, just now I learned that the song is supposed to be called “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” from when Domenico Medugno wrote it. Yes, that’s the actual songwriter’s name!

2: Pat Metheny Group: Praise

I don’t know how he got into Gipsy Kings, but either Volare or Bamboleo would suffice as a good opening song. Hell, they’re both still in my Spotify driving playlists. As for Pat Metheny, my dad trained as a jazz musician, and The First Circle is one of the first albums I remember hearing in the car.The title track and this one stuck the most with me, and I actually prefer this one. Later on, I actually went to see a Metheny talk at Cooper Union talking about Orchestrion and everything it took to construct the instruments for that album. Do I remember anything from it? Well, no, it was years ago.

3: Stewart Copeland: Spyro the Dragon

Hands down my favorite video game series. I grew up first on classic Sonic, then on Spyro. (Honorable mention here to Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2 and Flying Battery Zone from Sonic & Knuckles). I remember my dad (who played it first and I watched him) trying to find the last area because he had 96% completion or something, and it was pre-Internet so you couldn’t just check GameFAQs or something. It was Sunny Flight, for those scoring at home. We didn’t realize those stepping stones in the Artisans meant something and weren’t just decorative.

Favorite tracks from the trilogy? I’d say Dark Hollow, Ice Cavern, Night Flight, Dr. Shemp (yes, three from Peace Keepers), Lofty Castle, Gnasty’s Loot, and *shudders thinking about the supercharge ramps* Tree Tops from the first game, Colossus, Magma Cone, Gulp’s Overlook, and the ridiculous opera of Ripto’s Arena from the second, and Buzz’s Dungeon, Fireworks Factory (yes, Spyro actually did get to the fireworks factory in the third game), Bentley’s levels, and Harbor Speedway in the third. Yes, I realize that’s 15 tracks under “favorites,” shut it. These are core games that I can’t wait for Senorita Weaselo to start playing via Reignited after she finishes Horizon (believe it or not, Zero Dawn, not Forbidden West, as she’s like 90% done and wants to polish it off), and maybe Hollow Knight and Persona Strikers (which I will play first at this rate and I’ve been playing the original game sparingly for what, the last 15 months?)

And now it’s on Spotify, so yoink. For those glorious five minutes or so, because it is now grayed out and inaccessible on Spotify. Bastards.

…

It was around this time I started to really cut my teeth and play actual music and not things out of the Suzuki Violin School books. Great books pedagogically, I still use them, but I can imagine Hell is the sound of a bunch of 4-year olds playing “Taka taka stop stop” Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. (I remember the last thing I played was La Folia in Book 6, because after that, you just buy the real copies of music. Book 10 is Mozart D Major, and the fingerings are better in actual editions, hashtag urtext4lyfe.)

4. J.S. Bach: Concerto No. 1 in A minor

I remember playing this in the summer of 2001, arguably the most important musical summer of my life, considering that summer I went to a festival I ended up attending three times (once in college) and meeting my eventual violin teachers in both middle/high school and for my Master’s. I’ve had to teach it once or twice to students, and it’s always like “Wait, what did I do again?” Remembering fingerings (okay, the fingerings my teacher came up with, RIP Mrs. Edson) from over twenty years ago is tough.

5. Fritz Kreisler: Preludium & Allegro

The first major work with the teacher I would study with throughout middle/high school, I ended up playing this at a masterclass with a major well-known violinist which would have been in September 2001, but for obvious reasons got bumped back a few months. Hey, it gave me a couple months to actually learn the piece, which for a 9-10 year old is tricky. Hey, for an adult it’s tricky to get in tune with those double stops.

6. Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor (1st mvmt)

Hey, you play something with an orchestra for the first time, it goes in the playlist. Due to finishing second one year and winning the year after, I got a lot of mileage out of this, playing it essentially for a year and a half. In fairness, I probably could have gone on and played something after the runner-up, but hey, I had unfinished business.

There’s really only one recording for this, and many, many other concertos. You gotta go with the GOAT, Jascha Heifetz. Yes, even if he’s been dead for 35 years, no one’s come close to his virtuosity since. You’ll see him some more on this list, on account of being The Guy.

7. Henryk Wieniawski: Scherzo-Tarentelle

What’s cooler than playing with orchestra? How about the Garden? Twice? And the first one at a Knicks game? Spike was digging it, it’s the source of the Eli Manning story… if only Padre Weaselo didn’t forget to take the lens cap off his camcorder to show the aforementioned Spike digging it. The Liberty game was a fun story too, as I ended up hanging out with one of the girls from School of Rock and the girl who won the first season of America’s Got Talent, because they were the other two contestants. (I hope they’re both well, and the latter, who I still follow on Facebook, apparently sang the anthem recently at the Garden for a boxing card.)

So… the way that the audition worked was “play/sing 90 seconds of a song.” A friend had actually done this competition before me, so his folks referred it to my folks. Might’ve been the same piece too. Anyway, 90 seconds happened to be the first two pages, or first major section of the piece, at the tempo I played at. Which was perfect! The people booking loved it, so I got to play. And because I won that Knicks game competition, they called a week or two before the Liberty game to offer another performance. Hey, for the money they offered, for the amount of playing I did, and hanging in the VIP room in the bowels of the Garden? Absolutely.

I did also play the entire thing for a Halloween concert, where I learned that I had all the fingerings wrong in the middle sections (the not-blistering fast sections) and had to relearn all the fingerings. The day of the concert. It was… a bit touch and go. See, in those middle sections, you’re supposed to go up and down the same string of the instrument, which puts the “scherzo” in the name of the piece, since a scherzo is a musical joke. I just did everything in the same position, which was clean and all, but also entirely wrong.

The performance went about as well as expected.

…It was this time, in or around middle and high school, where I started listening to things other than Classical music! Yes, I know, a shock. Technically some of this is a little bit out of order, but that’s okay because I can subset it.

8. Emerson, Lake, & Palmer: Tarkus

Really the first band I listened to. They were my dad’s favorite band in his teenage days and Keith Emerson was his favorite keyboard player. To the point that I narrowly avoided being named Keith. (My name is, of course, Senor. I mean, duh doy.) When he passed it was a rough day in the Weaselo household.

What hooked me? Well, the odd meter. The first part of the suite (Eruption) is in 5/4, mostly. And not entirely being in 5/4 makes it even more fun in my eyes. (Honorable note to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, also not appearing on this list. You want to hear things going back and forth in terms of meter and beat patterns? Listen to the Sacrificial Dance.) Also, it’s 20 minutes long, so that’s always fun.

9. King Crimson: Epitaph

Again courtesy of Padre Weaselo, backtracking from ELP and exploring prog rock is how I got to King Crimson. Not as much with Asia or The Nice. This song kind of acted as the opposite from the song down below in terms of being in moody teenager mode. Yeah, I had one of thems.

10. Samuel Barber: Violin Concerto (2nd mvmt)

Okay, not all non-Classical. But out of the violin concertos I have not played this is my favorite. I love that second movement, and it got me through some hard times. Yes, there was a girl involved. Damn you, puberty.

By the way, the 2nd movement is a beautiful, soaring slow movement, as opposed to the third movement, which is absolute madness in terms of being the violin equivalent of a perpetual motion device. You can ask Senorita Weaselo, who has played the piece, about it sometime. Her advice would be not to overdo it.

11. Ben Folds: Rockin’ the Suburbs

I watched Over the Hedge because Ben Folds did the music. It was not a very good movie. Especially because I didn’t really read the comic strip.

But the song is good, the album is good, the songwriter is good, and got me into the alt-rock genre that I still listen to today. People I’d go see live: Ben Folds is definitely on that list. Especially because he does do some stuff with orchestras these days. I have a friend in the Louisville Orchestra, and I was definitely a bit envious that Ben Folds had some performances with them.

And fun fact, for Aussie footy fans, he’s a Port Adelaide fan. This means nothing for me as I haven’t been able to watch Aussie footy aside from the AFL Beat, so no, I still currently have no rooting interest.

12. UK: Presto Vivace and Reprise

Similarly continued down the progressive rock rabbit hole. Why? Well, I liked and continue to like mixed-meter or changing meter things (5, 7, multiple meters). This also gets the bonus of being the third song in a three-song combo (like You Never Give Me Your Money technically but it’s unconnected to Golden Slumbers-Carry That Weight-The End), the first two being “In the Dead of Night” and “By The Light of Day.” Somewhere Padre Weaselo has a transcription of that opening solo. Which he didn’t have Eddie Jobson sign when he met him. (Eddie Jobson was the keyboardist/violinist of UK, in addition to Roxy Music and Frank Zappa, and briefly did some things with Tull and Yes. He’s probably Padre Weaselo’s second favorite rock keyboard player behind Keith Emerson. Unlike Keith, he’s actually met Eddie.)

13. Eugene Ysaye: Sonata No. 3, “Ballade”

We now move into the “things I played for college” portion of the list. Well, okay, it’s just one piece from it, but this was my favorite. I first heard it at the Maxim Vengerov masterclass on the Ovation Network (yes, the fine arts channel) and thought “Oh yeah, I have to play this at some point.” I have to with Caprice Basque too, but that’s a bit lower on the list in that I haven’t played it yet.

I did a good job on it I think, and it shaped the first piece I wrote and published and performed. Originally intended for solo violin like the Ysaye Sonatas (he wrote six), “Violinist’s Lament” ended up being for violin and strings, with assorted cut-in cadenzas throughout. It’s also the only piece of mine that I’ve performed more than once. (Once with the same group I played the Scherzo-Tarentelle with; once at my senior recital with my friends on strings; once for the extra year I did, where I reduced it for violin and piano; and once with a conductor in grad school for his recital. My teacher mentioned my reduction skills need some work. Yes, I know, that comes back later too.)

14. J.S. Bach: Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor (2nd mvmt: Fugue)

Onto college!

So my freshman year at college was a little rough. The nice thing was that though I lived in a triple, one roommate basically lived at home in the city, and the other ended up somehow getting adopted by a suite of girls (he was gay, so there was nothing that you’re thinking of there, this wasn’t a Rikki scenario).

But I didn’t really go out, I wasn’t really making a ton of progress playing wise—no, it wasn’t from any, say, extra-curricular activities. Basically, I needed that year to adjust. My classes were fine, that wasn’t the issue.

When my teacher told me that he wanted my friend (and crush at the time) and me to put on a joint recital our sophomore years, I knew this had to be my chance to really show that I was capable. And, more than anything else, this piece did that. Solo Bach is hard, and Bach fugues especially. They’re intricate, you have to make sure that you take the right on and off-ramps, you have to make sure you voice the chords correctly, not adding a voice, not forgetting a voice, and basically keeping track of three parts simultaneously. And I can say I played it well enough that this fugue opened some eyes. My recitals afterwards were well attended (except for that bonus year where my second recital was on Mother’s Day at like noon because that was the only date and time I could get. In case you’re wondering, I did my Bachelor’s but because the violin professor I was going to study with for my Master’s was on sabbatical I did an extra year and got what’s called a Performer’s Certificate.)

15. Sergey Rachmaninoff: Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor

Remember when I mentioned back during the Bach A Minor Fugue that my freshman year was rough? Yes, I was friends with people, but I didn’t really hang out with people on weekends. For one, I mostly went home on weekends because it was either a 45 minute drive getting picked up by Madre Weaselo or a two-hour train ride home. I can’t say it was probably a good thing for my social life. But for another, I started college at 16. My birthday’s in November, and I skipped a grade, which is how I was basically two years younger than everyone else, so I guess there had to be a little bit of a feeling out period for me.

Sophomore year, where I was now 17 going on 18, was a bit better. The early frustrations of not playing violin up to my potential had gone away, especially after that recital, and because of that I got some eyes on me, and the studio composition majors also took notice. (We’ll talk about that next.) But more importantly, I actually hung out with my friends on campus on weekends instead of go home. This is how I learned, among other things, the merits of plastic bottle vodka. And more importantly, the deficiencies of plastic bottle vodka. And also, the merits of a convincing lie. One time, my sophomore year, we came back after going to a concert in the city and hung at my friend’s room with the people who went, and a couple of friends of friends. One of them got sick and went to go throw up, and the RA came by to check and see if everything was okay. And also because you can’t be drinking in freshman dorms, for obvious reasons. My friend said that she’d had some bad egg salad in the dining hall, and that’s why. Which, being a college dining hall, was totally believable, and the RA was cool with it.

Fun fact, we later became friendly with the RA and reminisced on that story. She was a bit skeptical but it was believable, so she bought it. Funner fact, I had a crush on her, which led to the same friend (who became my roommate the two years that followed) quite literally throwing me at her at a party to dance with her a year later. Funner-er fact, I finally asked her out at the end senior year. (Unfortunately for me she already seeing someone.)

Anyway, back to this song, with that friend who was a cellist (not the cellist I’ve mentioned from time to time), and another friend, who was a pianist, we played this piano trio. There was a little bit of planning on the pianist’s end that led to this—at the end of the semester, there was the interdepartmental chamber concert. This would have some wind groups, some brass groups, some string groups, but it was considered the premier concert as the groups would play the whole piece, as opposed to a movement or two. Now, this piano trio is in one movement, so no matter what, we’d have to play the whole thing. So, if we did a good job on it, then hey, maybe we’d get to play the interdepartmental!

Unfortunately we didn’t, but it was good thinking, and more importantly, bonded us. My senior year, the three of us, with another friend, all lived together. And junior year, the three of us, plus the cellist’s brother, who played violin and viola, would get together, get a 12-pack (because the brother was older and thus could make a beer run), and we’d sit, drink, and read piano quartets (usually the Brahms quartets.) Once or twice we added a fifth for a piano quintet (again, Brahms.)

We liked Brahms, okay? There will be more Brahms in this, I promise.

16. Andrew Fox: Disco Institute

17. Mitski: Liquid Smooth

So this is the part where I get to brag about things I’ve done (part 2). The nice thing about playing in music school that isn’t just straight Classical conservatory is that occasionally you can latch on with more popular music people and do things with them. Sure, I played a couple opera albums in college, but these are two of the first albums I played on, and they were in part because of that sophomore recital. It really helped open the door to stuff, like these albums and others. By my count I played on the albums of four different people and I think did a performance with a couple others, plus a Christmas fun album we did every year which was basically “All right, how many tracks can we do in a day?” We actually still do that album, to an extent. I mean, not to the same extent because pandemic, but we still do it. I even sang “I Believe in Father Christmas” one year!

18. Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 9 for Violin and Tape

Yes, violin and tape, you read that right. Which is why this is the most difficult thing I have ever played, and it was on my senior recital.

The thing about playing with real live humans is we like being together, we have natural chamber music instincts. So if you’re a little bit off from each other, there’s some give and take to get the ensemble back together. The previous year, I had played a George Crumb piece for violin and piano. It went pretty well, and the two of us were pretty good ensemble-wise, but since we both had complicated parts, you’d expect some moments of elasticity. You don’t have that with a tape recording, because it is a machine and thus does not contact with the people performing with it. It is rigid; there is no elasticity, no give for ensemble purposes. Also the tempo changes from something easy to think of in your brain (60 BPM) to less easy (not 60 BPM), which you also have to lock onto. Also, the page turns. This isn’t exactly memorizable, and you have plenty of page turns. I actually needed a page turner for this, because when you turn the page, you end up losing your place in the piece.

Was it together? Maybe? Sometimes? Listen, nobody who was there would have known except maybe my teacher and me.

But with that out of the way and Bachelor’s in hand, I… went back for one more year because the teacher I was going to study with for my Master’s was on sabbatical! Hey, I got another piece of paper out of it.

19. Bach: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major (2nd mvmt: Fugue)

And I went whole hog that year. I didn’t have any other classes, so I figured, let’s just play EVERYTHING. And so I did! Beethoven “Kreutzer” Sonata? Sure. Franck Sonata? Yes. Tchaikovsky? Bring it! Two recitals? Absolutely!

But the crown jewel, at least in my brain, was this. Every other violinist will talk to you about the Chaccone. And justifiably so. Countless papers have to have been written on the theme and variations, and about its potential hidden meanings—is it a tombeau meant for his first wife? Is there some sort of numerology involved? It’s taken on an almost mystical quality.

You know what hasn’t had nearly the same kind of prestige? The C Major Fugue, which is 12-15 minutes long, depending on who plays it. I wish I had the audio of my performance to give you a clock-in of how long mine was. Sure, the Chaccone is longer, but combined with a prelude movement beforehand the combined two movements are a solid 17-20 minutes of nonstop playing. Please note that, again, this is all solo violin.

With a fugue being the most complicated of all types of counterpoint-based music, and with this being far and away the largest and most complex of the three fugues, this piece, and the C Major Sonata, became one of my white whales, and I finally got a chance to work on them. And just barely escaped, having slight memory slips of a chord, once in each of the four movements.

I was pissed at myself, because I was busy thinking “Hey, this is going pretty well,” and that is the fucking kiss of death to have some sort of gaffe. Even if I did save it.

20. Kongos: Come With Me Now

Not gonna lie, heard the song on MLB Network and thought it sounded pretty cool. Then listened to the lyrics and it hit a little too well. In terms of social situations, because I overthink situations.

Have I ever told the prom story? My friends love it because it’s a two-parter, but the part 2 portion is that I ended up dancing with a friend of mine, ladies’ choice, putting her head on my shoulder, all that stuff. And that Monday I wanted to talk to her about it, and all I could say was… “You’re fallin’ for me.”

First of all, she was not. Also, the correct pronoun is now he/him, but I’ve always wondered about how that works if it involves a past-tense situation while the person was their birth sex.

But, just the fact I said what I said and it went so, so badly is enough for my friends to eternally give me shit for this. I promise I will not do this if/when I propose.

21. Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor (2nd mvmt)

Yes, it’s another Heifetz sighting.

This is another of my favorites from when I was younger, but I finally got a chance to play it the second year of my Master’s. I had been asking to play it since about sophomore year or so, but no luck. (My pianist friend from undergrad complained about the “thousands upon thousands of notes” so we never ended up playing it. We played (guess what?) a Brahms trio senior year. It didn’t go as well as we liked because we were busy auditioning for grad school.

In this case, I had the piece already figured out, the cellist (who I had become friends with the previous year and played a quartet with, where she was the only one who actually looked at me for cues), and we just needed a pianist. We found one, and I had an enjoyable time playing with this trio, but the cellist and I noted that the pianist was a little bit flaky. Which led to…

22. Beethoven: Triple Concerto (1st mvmt)

This. The next semester, the cellist and I were still looking for another group, whether another pianist or a violinist and violist for a quartet. A pianist came to us and asked if we wanted to play the above piece. So sure, we were down.

(Yeah, unlike my undergrad, chamber music assignments at my grad school were a free-for-all. I nearly got screwed over my first semester because I didn’t know this.)

The three of us became close, the oft-mentioned cellist is one of my best friends, regardless of tWBS telling me “Dude, go for it”—she’s like another sister to me, and has saved my ass and/or my soul multiple times. Best I’ve got is grabbing her off the corner in Shanghai so she didn’t get run over. Also I make fun of her because she occasionally simps over Senorita Weaselo. The pianist is busy doing his thing with his now-wife, his wedding was a blast. He’s doing pretty well. Both of them have cute dogs.

23. Brahms: Violin Concerto (3rd mvmt)

The Triple Concerto also had a second purpose, being that it’s a concerto for piano trio and orchestra. The pianist wanted to win the in-house concerto competition, where you get to play with the orchestra. Even more interesting, there was a second group playing the same thing, where the violinist was taking a sabbatical from his job to study with my teacher for a year, and the pianist was the staff pianist. So there was a little bit of an underdog mentality from us.

It was close, and for a second it sounded like one group would take one concert date, the other would take the other, but at the end, we came up just a bit short.

I also competed as a solo act, however, with the Brahms Violin Concerto. Which is one of the four major violin concertos (along with Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Beethoven). I had played Tchaikovsky the year before, which went eh. I was supposed to learn Sibelius over the pandemic, but didn’t, and Beethoven is hard because of how crystal clear you have to be. Brahms however, I played well. Well enough that afterwards the conductor was considering me double-dipping (as in, had we played the Beethoven, that plus the Brahms, same concert). It would have been a bit grueling for me, but it would be a welcome challenge.

Instead, I got neither. The other group won the Beethoven, as I said, and I acted as the violinist’s cover for rehearsals while he was at his real job playing in a professional orchestra. In Scotland. He came for the last week or so. As for the Brahms, the conductor called me a couple days after the competition, congratulating me for a job well done, and if I had anything shorter than the Brahms in my repertoire because the Brahms might be a bit too much for him at this age. In fairness he was in his 80s, and had leukemia. But I still feel like SOMEONE owes me a Brahms performance at some point, or a concerto of equal or greater value. Which, I mean, it’s Brahms, so there’s not much on the list.

Instead, I ended up playing the 3rd movement with the chamber orchestra in the end-of-year “Hey, who wants to play a concerto movement?” concert. There were like 12 of us. I was concertmaster, and went last with Brahms.

And then we played Schubert 9. There were two intermissions, and it was a 2 1/2 hour concert. I was wiped at the end, but my friends (the pianist and cellist from the Triple) noted “Out of the soloists, it looked like you were the only one excited to be there.”

Yeah, because it is exciting. And especially Brahms when you know what you’re doing. I have not done and am not planning to try cocaine, but that was musical cocaine.

24. Dvorak: Romance in F minor

The good news was I did have something shorter for violin and orchestra in my repertoire.

So, I wasn’t just a moody teenager, but a moody young adult. For the second year of my Master’s, where I had to give a recital, I thought to myself, “Why don’t I give two? I mean, I didn’t have to, but I didn’t give one last year.” So I did. And not only that, but I thought to myself, “Hey, I should give a Valentine’s Day concert! No wait, that’s tacky and clichéd and overdone and doesn’t fit with me. Hey, I should give a not-Valentine’s Day concert!”

So I did. I wrote a sonata too. It would be on this list if not for me deliberately disallowing that because it would be cheap. The whole concert was over 2 hours.

This opened the program, because it’s the one romance for violin that’s in a minor key, as opposed to the Beethoven, or… the other Beethoven. And since it’s for violin and orchestra, and only about 11-12 minutes, it would work.

Except I didn’t even play it with him, I played it with one of the student conductors. Who I, long story, had majorly been crushing on. Aaaaand here we fucking go.

Thus began the most tumultuous spring and summer of my life. I’ve told a bit of the story, but long story short, I ended up getting myself caught in a love tetrahedron with said conductor, while working on the piece. To the point that the week of the concert I thought to myself “There are about three or four different ways I can play this depending on the situation.” I ended up playing one of them, I think. I’ll be honest, I slid into more notes than I probably should have, so I didn’t love my intonation. I’ve definitely noted my hand and wrist have been just a teensy bit off sometimes over the last few years.

Back to the spring and summer, it took me to singing in an opera chorus, going to the beach for the first time in about ten years, and whatever muppet punk is. Honestly, we still don’t know what gives the genre that name.

25. Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem (Dies irae & Libera me)

26. McGuire, Payne, and Welch: Street Requiem (Dies irae)

A tale of two requiems. A tale of two Dies irae. For those of you who don’t know the Requiem Mass, Dies irae is the Day of Wrath, the Last Judgment where souls will be judged by God, the saved delivered to their eternal life in Heaven, the rest cast into Hell. It’s the fire and brimstone bit.

The Verdi Dies irae is the archetype of the fire and brimstone, and considering the tumult of the situation and the fighting that was going on over that time, playing it was catatonic. At the end of us playing the entire requiem, I, assistant principal 2nd, looked at my cellist friend, who was assistant principal cello. We locked eyes, and she, who after I left a party broken-hearted reamed into the conductor for toying with me, understood, and I remember embracing her and crying on her shoulder afterwards as I tried to hold it just long enough to get off-stage.

On the other hand, the Street Requiem was at the end of all this a feeling of, “All right, this has to get sorted out. This situation can’t stay in limbo.” Plus, it was at Carnegie friggin’ Hall. We played a string quartet to start, and I made the bad life choice of starting on an up bow.

Never open a concert at Carnegie Hall with an up-bow.

I had a lot of fun at that concert. I ended up hanging backstage with Liz Calloway. Who’s Liz Calloway? Well, the singing voice of Anastasia. I should have taken a picture with her for my sister, who would have been envious for the rest of forever. Because I got to hear her sing “Journey to the Past,” live.

27. Stravinsky: Le histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale): Triumphal March of the Devil

How, at the end of the summer, did it go? Well, in short, not in my favor. But we already knew that, on account of she’s not Senorita Weaselo. I would say it worked out for all parties involved, considering she married the guy, and I am pretty fond of Senorita Weaselo if you haven’t realized (and more on her later).

But I did play Soldier’s Tale with her conducting. Why? Well, first off, and second off for that matter, it’s a good piece of music that’s always been on my bucket list. Third, it ended up being a good learning experience of how to get over the heartbreak. And by the end of it… I was doing okay. I was ready to keep going.

28. Ishay Ribo: Nafshi

Damn, I’m not in this video. Oh well.

Well, this one falls under things I currently do. These days, and really since I was mid-Master’s, I play a lot of orthodox Jewish events. Weddings, shows, dinners, you name it. I don’t even know half of what we do until we do it. Especially if it’s not a wedding.

I know a few songs by name, so here’s one of them. Do I know what it translates to? No, I still don’t know any Hebrew, or Yiddish. I’m pretty much ass at languages. They specifically told me not to take AP Spanish because my pronunciations were not good.

29. Bruce Saylor: Divertimento for Violin & Strings

For semi-anonymity reasons, no link, on account of I’m the soloist in the only recordings we have, which are conductors’ video recordings. We don’t have the composer’s recording on account of he can’t find it. And to be honest, I ate a run in his copy, so if he records it again I want another shot at it. Hey, I want the first real recording, not just the workshop one.

Fresh off volunteering to read through a piece he wrote for that conductor’s workshop a few years back, I became friends with Bruce Saylor, an American composer who is also a theory and composition professor at where I did my grad work. He’s actually the one who referred me for the Street Requiem concert at Carnegie Hall, and then a couple years later asked me if I’d like to cover for this piece, the Divertimento.

First of all, yes. Second of all, hey, does that mean I can use it as rep for my future doctoral auditions? I will if he reduces it for piano. It fits on account of being a piece written post-2000 (since my workshopping was from 2019).

I ended up not being the cover soloist, but the actual soloist, because the violinist who was supposed to play it for the recordings was nursing a wrist injury, so he had to withdraw. My cellist friend noted that we have a similar style, but I wear it better. I’ll take it.

30. Joe Hisaishi: Mononoke Hime

It seems a little cheap that I only have one song left. There’d be some others, “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd for my sister, “Linus & Lucy” for my mom, Ziguenerweisen also from my sophomore recital. But for song 30 I have to go with looking at the present and the future.

In 2018 my undergrad needed alumni ringers for a concert. It was nice being back, and it was nice being able to tell the current students (of which there were a couple for this concert, held at FIT) stories from the before times, and run into some friends who I hadn’t seen in a bit who were also alumni ringers.

On my way into the dress rehearsal, another alumna, who I didn’t know and so didn’t really get a chance to talk to, asked me which way we were going. I made an educated guess of where the hall was, and she followed me.

We were asked back to play the actual orchestra concert, a week or two later, and wouldn’t you know it, we were stand partners. I enjoyed playing with her, but also she laughed at all my jokes, especially the bad ones, and, like, nobody should laugh at them. I drove her home (because I didn’t realize how far out of the way she’d be), and invited her to see a concert I was playing in, and… somehow, the ball just kept rolling.

It’s over three and a half years later and the ball’s still rolling. For once I was actually right that the girl liked me and yes, she still does. We’ve had multiple weekends away, and I spent almost every weekend with her, though work often gets in the way and it leads to both of us wishing there was more time.

Someday, we hope there will be more time. We’ve discussed the future, and what we want is definitely starting to solidify, even if the timeframe’s still foggy. First up is actually living together, which is complicated by 1, money, 2, me being Grandpa Weaselo’s occasional (when I’m there) live-in aid, and of course, 3, money. Two musicians don’t exactly make bank.

But point is, we have an endgame, even if the timeframe is up for grabs, and this is the part we go into Jets at the Bye Mode. (For all of you who read it, you know what to do.)

I’ve always been set on marrying some day. Who, obviously no idea when you’re, like, 6. But it had always been in my plans. It hadn’t been in Senorita Weaselo’s though, and there’s a host of reasons that I don’t need to get into for her sake. But I know she’s warming to the idea. I know her well enough to know she wouldn’t want some massive party (so sorry everyone, you’re probably not invited). Even when she was tepid to the idea, she’s wondered what she’d even want to walk down to. Younger her would say something to mosh to, but what about an older her, today’s her?

I thought about it on a car ride home one time, and, well, the movie Princess Mononoke has always spoken to her. It’s her favorite Ghibli film, and San, the titular character, has always resonated with her. So it would seem fitting for it to be this, but of course at the end of the day, if ever and whatever day it may be, it would be her call. I’m sure the arranger would have a field day though! (I’m the arranger, that’s the joke.)

…

So, there you have it. What if I told you… I didn’t have plans on stopping anytime soon? You gotta keep going after all. 30 years in, sure, but there’s still much to do. If there were things to tell my younger self I’d certainly get in and talk about them, but that I can keep to myself. This is a music post, not a motivation post. But let it be a reminder to myself and to all of us of how far we’ve come and how far there’s left to go in whatever it is we’re doing.