Had a very interesting day yesterday. The minute I finished typing in yesterday's entry, right as I was about to go outside to work in the garden, Dan and Steven came home from the wrestling tournament. This was Steven's last wrestling of the year, and he took a first place. So his last two tournaments (ours and the one in Clinton) he took firsts. They wanted to head down to Adrian to see if they could Steven down to his travel soccer team in time to play for part of their game. So I went along with them.
The drive down to Adrian was gorgeous. The Michigan countryside was lovely on a spring afternoon. Because of the rain we've been having, all of the streams were full. The flowering tress were in bloom, as well as people's bulb gardens. And whenever we would drive by a patch of woods, you could see trilliums blooming. 
We did not get to Adrian in time for Steven to play, but the drive was beautiful, and we stopped off and got ice cream in Clinton on the way home. 
When we got home, I planted the snow pea seeds. I also trimmed back the raspberry bushes, and started to trim back some of the other bushes in the yard. I got a good couple of hours of work down.
Then came the concert, and we had a lot of fun. 
Dan and I went to a really fun classical concert last night, given by the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arie Lipsky. 
The first piece they did was by composer Paul Fetler. It was called Three Poems by Walt Whitman and it was a really good piece of music. There were three songs, one for each bit of poetry 
The poems:
Quote:
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;
I call to the earth and sea, half-heldby the night.
Press close, bare-bosom’d night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night!
Night of south winds! night of the large few stars!
Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night.
Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees;
Earth of departed sunset! earth of the mountains, misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth! rich, apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes!
Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable, passionate love!
The middle song was one of Whitman's Civil War poems:
Quote:
1
BEAT! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
2
Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds;
No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—Would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
3
Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
The third song was of a poem about a child who hears music in everything:
Quote:
Ah, from a little child,
Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music;
My mother’s voice, in lullaby or hymn;
(The voice—O tender voices—memory’s loving voices!
Last miracle of all—O dearest mother’s, sister’s, voices;)
The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav’d corn,
The measur’d sea-surf, beating on the sand,
The twittering bird, the hawk’s sharp scream,
The wild-fowl’s notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or south,
The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting,
The fiddler in the tavern—the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,
The lowing cattle, bleating sheep—the crowing cock at dawn.
Anyway, that was a really good piece of music; if that is an example of Fetler's work than it is a true shame his stuff is not better known. 
The second and third pieces of music for the evening were ones that featured the clarinet. The first was Debussy's Premiere Rhapsodie for Orchestra and Clarinet and the second was Carl Maria von Weber's Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra, opus 26. They both featured a guest artist named Eli Eban on the clarinet. If we had a place for for clarinet gods, I would nominate him. 
The second half of the concert was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. 
I got happy shivers when the orchestra let rip in the third movement. 
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Fetler, who is retired and living in Florida, flew up to attend the concert and to help give a preconcert lecture to ticket holders. I thought that was really cool.
After the concert, Dan and I dashed across the street to the big bookstore. We got a few books, and drank hot tea (me) and hot cider (him) at the little cafe. On the way home, it started to storm like crazy again.
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