Mozart, Radio, Hard Times, & the “Jupiter” Symphony

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This is why I love radio.  Radio is random, throwing unexpected and often unfamiliar music at me, and it educates me when radio DJs (who are called “hosts” on Classical stations) give me bits of historical background on composers and compositions. 

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I try to listen to streaming radio whenever possible, and the Classical station from MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) is one of my favorites as background when trying to think, read, and write.  Tonight (my Monday evening) I’m listening to MPR’s Monday morning show from their 7:00AM hour.  I’m 12 hours ahead of them. 

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Are you familiar with Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony (No.41)?  Its first movement has hints of struggles but it cannot help breaking out into rousing triumphal glory.  It makes you want to just stand up and cheer, twist and shout.  Such strength, joy, and optimism! 

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The MPR host introduced the above movement from Mozart’s “Jupiter” by telling us how bleak Mozart’s personal world was at the time he composed it.  Austria was at war with the Ottomans, and no one was attending theaters for any operas or concerts.  Mozart and his wife had just lost a daughter who died before reaching one year of age, and they were too poor to pay the undertaker.  He couldn’t make money composing, and he could barely manage by teaching untalented students, an endeavor that always depressed him.  Hard times. 

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Yet somehow during this depressing period of Mozart’s life, he produced the wonderful “Jupiter” Symphony. 

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-Zenwind.

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Monsoon Turnover

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The rainy monsoon winds from the Indian Ocean are almost ending, and the dry monsoon winds from mainland Asia are beginning.  I felt it today when out walking.  The direct sun was hot, but the air had a different feel – drier. 

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On my walk to the store and back, half of the way was in shade and half in sun.  A truck came by hosing down the streets with water.  The street surfaces had been in the hot sun, and I crossed an intersection immediately after it had been dowsed with water.  The dense humidity that we are normally used to, from the rising steam, hit me with surprise, because the air elsewhere today was much drier.  But after crossing this area of humidity I entered a shady walkway, and the relief was striking.  

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Looking forward to our all-too-brief Cool season. 

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-Zenwind.

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