Lux Apollo

Some harpsichord music by a man tempermental enough to insult the king.

It's a fun little recording, but sorry AC, that's not a clavichord. It is a square piano after all. If you look closely at the action you can see the hammers and dampers. The action of the clavichord isn't nearly so complex the dead giveaway is the fact that the hammers drop back down after striking, even while the key is held. On a clavichord, the tangent remains pressed against up to the string as long as the key is held.

I love it!

Such a delightful piece, and a wonderful performance.

Thanks for reading, gentlemen. All will be revealed in time. 🙂

Thanks for reading, gentlemen. All will be revealed in time. 🙂

I've always loved Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in e minor, especially the slow movement!

Pires and Mozart - a match made in heaven! Also, Mozart in a minor key - always a treat. He so rarely wrote in the minor, but when he does he really makes it matter!

May 14, 2022 They let Quentin out of the brig yesterday. Can’t say that I feel completely comfortable with that. Not on your life. He won’t be in my class for the rest of the year, no, he’s going to be getting independent tutoring for a while to try and monitor his behaviour and see if the work they have been doing on rehabilitating him has had a measurable effect. They are giving him the weekend to get reacquainted with life upstairs before classroom life resumes.

Thanks, and thanks for reading. I struggled a bit putting this one together. I knew I needed to mix in some denouement from the last couple chapters with a bit of build into the next... I guess John is reaching a stage where he is seeing himself for who he truly is, knows what he needs to work on, and knows what he wants going forward. It isn't just about surviving anymore.

May 10, 2022 Christ, I can’t go away for one goddamned weekend to reunite with my father and have a happy family moment for once in my life, already more shit’s gone down. I mean, fuck, what would my life be without drama, right? But it would have been fucking nice to be able to come back home to the School and just fucking relax into work for a week, or something. Fuck. Waking up at my father’s house in Bobby’s arms was nice. Too nice. I felt so refreshed

Yeah, I thought about that, whether their might be some friction there, but in the end I came down to wanting to focus in particular on the conversation with Uncle Mike in this chapter. Friction with Bobby might have detracted from the importance of that. The rest of the chapter is mostly fluff, ha ha ha. Of course, Isaac would be on his best behaviour for this meeting - unlike Bobby's parents who feel (perhaps misguidedly) secure in their relationship with their son, Isaac is grasping at something that could very quickly and very easily slip between his fingers. I also came to the conclusion that St. John gravitated more towards his father when he was younger, so it would be more meaningful and helpful for him on his journey to recovery as a human if this went well. That's not to say there will be no challenges in the future, but I'm not sure if his father will be one of them.

Me too. I'm glad the way the past two chapters panned out changed from my original intention. I don't think you would have liked the alternate universe encounter with his father.

Oh, believe me I love me some Cavalli. He took what Monteverdi taught him and ran with it, and arguably did so much more for opera than his teacher. We put on a performance of Egisto with the opera program at Laurier when I was in the Baroque Ensemble back in my first year of undergrad; it was a big challenge to learn figured bass and continuo practice in the short timeframe we had, but it was so much fun!

Welp... I'm not sure why it's displaying that last video as blocked... but regardless, you can just click through to watch on YouTube.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was one of the most important musical figures of the transition from the Renaissance into the Baroque in Italy. Across his lifetime, he wrote much sacred and secular music, and is perhaps most famous for his successes as a composer of the newly developing genre of opera. His madrigals were published in eight volumes during his lifetime and a ninth was published posthumously. The madrigals show growth and change in style across this transition, from the old-fashioned musica reservata style he learned from his tutor Ingegneri to much more modern Baroque expressions in later volumes. Please enjoy this wonderful live performance of "Hor che'l ciel e la terra" from the 8th volume:

May 8, 2022 I woke up this morning curled up against Bobby, feeling refreshed and relaxed. Completely the opposite of my wakeup yesterday. I guess that is to be expected - my meeting with my father was a success, though I still find myself troubled that he’s still drinking. He didn’t have more than that one beer with me while he cooked our dinner, though, so maybe he wasn’t lying when he told me his drinking was under control. Even though it worries me, I am willing to give

Lol, my thoughts exactly. But at least he knows she cares.

Jacques Duphly (1715-1789) is a very underrated harpsichordist and composer from the late Baroque and early Classical periods. He published four volumes of harpsichord pieces, and his music evolved with the times, graduating from remarkable expressions of the Baroque French harpsichord school to works incorporating innovations like the Alberti bass and other devices of the Classical period. He went from being one of the most famous and appreciated harpsichord performers and teachers to a complete mystery in his later years after his last publication, missing from public life for twenty years. He died alone surrounded by his library and without even a harpsichord in his possession, the day after the storming of the Bastille. I hope you will enjoy this excellent recording by my friend Pieter-Jan Belder.

It mystifies me that Mozart disliked what he heard in Paris when he visited as a youngster. Between Rameau, Gossec, Leclair, Boismortier, Armand-Louis Couperin, Balbastre and some of the other characters, there was a lot of interesting music happening there... But the Italianate style his father instructed him in and his travels to Italy left the greatest mark, I guess. His favoured Gluck didn't come to Paris until the 1770s, either.

Thanks for reading gentlemen. I am glad you liked it.

May 7, 2022 I’m going to record this as best as I remember it. We left the School after dinner last night, Bobby, Liam and I, heading for Detroit. We told Liam that we were taking a trip so he could see where I grew up as a kid, not that I was going to try and see my parents. I was going to see them on my own first. If things went well he and Bobby could visit the next day. We didn’t want to disappoint Liam if things didn’t go well. We drove cross-country on I80 for abo

Let's have a 1500's Dance Party! Susato in the house!

Thanks for reading, good sir. Yeah, we can't have all doom and gloom. Especially when it comes to aging! Thanks for reading, JACC! Glad you liked it. Cheers!

May 2, 2022 We had another incident with a student today. This time it was with one of the seniors, Callie Betto, otherwise known as Dryad. She was outside, just like Gerard was, and she had a complete breakdown. She was a little more responsive than Gerard, begging and pleading with us to make the voices stop. We asked her what the voices were, what they were saying, but she couldn’t really tell us, just told us there were too many, they were too loud, that she couldn’t thi