Simple pleasures

Sigh... rough week at work. Colleagues concur. Heard at day's end yesterday: "Time to go home... and drink, very heavily." Amen.

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For some time, I've been itching to uncover the title of the piece my dinky digital piano plays for its demo. I've always assumed from the style that it was Chopin, and I managed to mimic the first dozen measures or so. Finally, on E's brilliant suggestion, I checked the manual. Voila - there it was. Not Chopin, but Liszt, Consolation No. 3. Simple, light, unpretentious, beautiful. After procuring the sheet music, unfortunately, it proved to be a tougher feat than I expected. 4/4 instead of the 6/8 I assumed (so it wasn't just the rubato); like a hemiola, with 2:3 syncopation. (Every time I think of 'hemiola', I always want to say 'hernia'.) Merdre.

Anyway, today I made an equally bizarre discovery - I found Horowitz playing this piece on YouTube. Holy smokes! Horowitz, the man every serious pianist worships, playing a rather obscure piece that I happen to be obsessed about, on the same medium that broadcasts SNL skits and amateur home videos. (I guess anything goes!) I dug up more videos of concerts with Martha Argerich, whom I grew up listening to, and other heavyweights like Sgouros, Yundi Li, and Lang Lang. The close-ups! The action on the keys! There was even one of Sgouros when he was 17 or some obscenely young age, banging out the Rach 3.

YouTube has newfound respect from me. I will be back... again.

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Went to the bookstore today to unwind. I thumbed through Anchee Min's Empress Orchid and ended up reading a fair bit of it. The last time I tried reading two books at once, it was an utter failure - I ended up losing interest in both. We'll see how far I get this time, though The Time Traveler's Wife takes priority. (Must finish!)

Off to read in bed...