The eleventh hour, the twelfth hour, the oneth hour – Usually my son and I are up in his room ready for STORIES AND STUDIES by 10 pm, but a few times a year something upsets the schedule
(let’s not go there right now) and we aren’t able to start until maybe 11 pm? Midnight? 1 am? Despite the pitifully late hour, despite the fact that my eyes are one eyelash away from slamming shut, my son is still counts on his STORIES AND STUDIES time. We had such a late-nighter earlier this week.
It was time for THE EXPRESS PLAN:
one chapter from one book – right now we are mesmerized by R.J. Palacio’s blockbuster “Wonder” – not only an outstanding read for us, but the chapters are mostly only two or three pages long.
one poem – something soporific…something like Robert Lewis Stevenson’s wonderfully rhythmic “The Swing” or John Masefield’s “Sea Fever”.
quick math computation problems instead of a story problem – a few nights ago I had my son figure out the age difference between himself and 4 members of the family.
three of our shorter classical music recordings:
May we suggest Chopin’s “Minute Waltz”, more formally known as “Waltz in D-flat major”, composed in 1847. It is only two minutes in length (the “Minute” refers to the “tiny” definition (mine-oot), not the “60 second” definition). Perfect:
followed by a few pieces to induce drowsiness…something like Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy”, the last half of movement 1 (the adagio cantabile) (5 min), composed in 1880:
and wrapping up with Peter Lutkin’s “May the Lord Bless You and Keep You” (2 minutes), written in 1900:
– zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz –
Even when we are on the express plan, this is the best part of my day. – Jane BH
This post is not about the man, Liberace, but about a GLARING ERROR he made before treating the TV audience to his take on the classic Strauss “Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz”. See for yourself:
You saw the problem, right?
Of course, I am referring to the introductory comment: “…I would like to take you back…many hundreds of years ago to that wonderful, romantic night when Johann Strauss first introduced the waltz…”. Here is the GLARING ERROR: Johann Strauss II premiered “The Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz” in 1867, just 86 years (NOT many hundreds of years) prior to Liberace’s 1953 TV show.
I sort of want my son to have a more accurate sense of when important musical compositions were written, so I have put together a simple chart of classical pieces that he is familiar with, and paired them with US Presidential administrations. This will give us both a bit of a sense of what was going on in the world when each piece was written, and remind us that many great compositions are not as old as we think (or Liberace thought)(seriously, I suspect a lot of people think classical music was written 500 years ago, in a galaxy far, far away).
The chart works this way:
USA Presidential Administration – 1 orchestral piece composed or premiered during that time period
George Washington – Haydn’s “Symphony No. 94” (Surprise Symphony), 1791 John Adams – Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 14” (Moonlight Sonata), 1801 Thomas Jefferson – Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5”, 1808 James Madison – Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”, 1816 James Monroe – Schubert’s “Marche Militaire”, 1822 John Quincy Adams – Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”, 1829 Andrew Jackson – Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture”, 1830 Martin Van Buren – Chopin’s “Piano Sonata No. 2” (The Funeral March), 1837 William Henry Harrison – Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman”, 1841 John Tyler – Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”, 1842 James Polk – Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2”, 1847 Zachery Taylor – Schumann’s “Symphony No. 3” (The Rhenish), 1850 Millard Fillmore – Verdi’s “Rigoletto”, 1851 Franklin Pierce – Foster’s “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”, 1854 James Buchanan – Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld” (the Can-Can!), 1858 Abraham Lincoln – Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, 1862 Andrew Johnson – Strauss II’s “Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz”, 1867 Ulysses S. Grant – Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite”, 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes – Gilbert & Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore”, 1878 James Garfield – Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy”, 1881 Chester A. Arthur – Waldteufel’s “The Skater’s Waltz”, 1882 Grover Cleveland – Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals”, 1886 Benjamin Harrison – Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”, 1892 Grover Cleveland – Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, 1897 William McKinley – Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee”, 1900 Teddy Roosevelt – Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance, No. 1”, 1901 William H. Taft – Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”, 1913 Woodrow Wilson – Holst’s “The Planets”, 1916 Warren G. Harding – Berlin’s “What’ll I Do”, 1923 Calvin Coolidge – Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, 1924 Herbert Hoover – Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite”, 1931 Franklin D. Roosevelt – Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”, 1944 Harry S Truman – Anderson’s “The Typewriter”, 1950 Dwight Eisenhower – Bernstein’s “West Side Story”, 1957 John F. Kennedy – Mancini’s “The Pink Panther Theme”, 1963 Lyndon Johnson – The Beatles’ “Yesterday”, 1965 Richard Nixon – Weissberg/Mandell’s “Dueling Banjos”, 1973 Gerald Ford – Williams’ “Theme from Jaws”, 1975 Jimmy Carter – Williams’ “The Imperial March” (Darth Vader’s Theme), 1980 Ronald Reagan – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera”, 1986 George H.W. Bush – George Winston’s “Hummingbird”, 1991 Bill Clinton – Doyle’s “Steam Engine” (from “Sense and Sensibility”), 1995 George W. Bush – Kirkhope’s “Viva Piñata Soundtrack”, 2006 Barack Obama – Williams’ “The Adventures of Tintin”, 2011
(and yes! My son is quite familiar with all of the above pieces.)
BTW, this week we have been ALSO learning about Jacques Cousteau and Otto Von Bismarck.
Jane’s Cool School 