Prague, and other news

Statue of Franz Kafka in front of the Spanish Synagogue in Prague.

Visited Prague for a few days.  It's only a couple hours from Dresden by train, and there was a group from the Bay Area come to do the Mozart Requiem there.  Since I knew a few people involved, it was a good excuse to get there and see some things.  I had been there twice before in previous trips with the Symphony, each time for under 24 hours.  About time to spend some real time there.

Artist at Music Institute Library in Prague painting an allegory of music on the ceiling.

It's gorgeous.  Pretty like Dresden, but much larger.  Not an ugly building in sight.  Of course, it suffered little damage in the war, so didn't need to be re-built.  Couldn't help whistling Smetana while crossing the bridges over the Moldau, or returning to my hotel near the Vysehrad.  Of professional interest, there is a new book by a Czech musicologist named Kapsa about Baroque music and musicians at the court of Count Morzin.  Morzin was a friend of Vivaldi to whom the composer dedicated one of his many bassoon concerti (and all four of his Seasons).  One of the composers discussed in the book is Reichenauer, who wrote a number of concerti for oboe and/or bassoon.  I'll be doing one of his double concerti in Phoenix this June.  Unfortunately for me, the book is in Czech, with only a brief summary chapter in English.  But it contains catalogs of several of the composers' works, which is very useful.  Bought several copies--for me and some Dresden friends.  Went on a wild goose chase looking for Mr. Kapsa himself, only to determine that he was on vacation.  Finally reached him by email, and we'll get together should I ever go back to Prague.

What's the name of this restaurant?

You can practice your days of the week in Czech.

Praguers do funny things, too.  I noticed this restaurant, and wondered why they didn't include the name of the restaurant on the sign.  I finally found the name on a small paper in the front door (you can barely see it in the above picture).  And I figured out why they didn't put it up in lights:













 In other news, I'm starting to get serious about practicing the bassoon.  Like every day.  And I've learned that the first "wave" of Dresden Baroque music to be published in the project I'm working on will consist of eight volumes.  The first is the bassoon concerto collection, and there are seven others I'm not sure of.  One of them will be a pair of early Baroque "opera-ballets," which contain stylistic elements from Italy, France, and Germany.  I know this because I translated the foreword of the volume into English.  There may also be some sacred cantatas, and I don't know what else.  There is some delay in the technical side of getting this material onto the web and accessible to the public.  Not my department.  The second "wave" of scores to be published will contain a volume of oboe concerti which I am working on, and perhaps a volume of double concerti, since there are many of those in the library.  This wave is even more up in the air. 

answers to "next quiz"

Me in my apartment.

Answers to the previous quiz:  A-2, B-4, C-1.  Or 1-C, 2-A, 4-B, if you will.  There was no prison pictured.

No, the synagogue and the library are not by the same architect, though they look extremely similar.  The synagogue is on the site of the old Semper synagogue, destroyed on 9 November 1938.  No windows to break on its god-awful replacement.

Prize once again goes to Constance, who claims to have used her computer to help solve it.  But this is all on computer, so is that cheating?  Dad also figured out one of them.  Besides the glory, Constance, what would be an appropriate prize?

Haven't thought up another quiz for this time.

Recently spent some time with a German book called "Jewish Wit," or something like that.  First published in 1960 with the express purpose of trying to bring Germans and Jews closer together.  650 pages of humor from (or about) all ages, including the Nazi time:

A Jew goes to the courthouse and asks the clerk if he can get his name changed legally.  "Only in extenuating circumstances," says the clerk.  "What is your name?"

"Adolf Stinkfuss," says the Jew.

"Oh, I see.  And what do you want to change it to?"

"Moritz Stinkfuss."