New string quartets

I have added the scores of two new string quartets to the 'Chamber Music' page of my website.
There are also lousy computer-generated mp3 files that may give you some idea of how the music might sound.

The first quartet is in four movements and lasts about 30 minutes.  The first movement is a diverse mixture of slow and fast music; the next two movements are titled 'scherzo', and the finale is a 
moderate-tempo piece that draws on shaped-note music and bluegrass fiddling, to some degree.

The second quartet was designed to be quite different from the first.  The movements are shorter, and the harmonic and gestural language is much more high-modernist. The whole thing lasts about 12 minutes or so.  The movements have impressionistic titles (Clouds, Stones, Creatures, Human); I don't take these very seriously.

I hope to get better recordings of these some day soon.

Enjoy...

Irony?

Irony: what does it do for us? Why should we like it?

Why do the wicked prosper? as the Bible often asks.

We try to do something, and our efforts produce the opposite result.

We think we understand something, but we are grossly mistaken.

'Delicious irony' is a phrase that one sometimes hears. I suppose the irony is delicious when someone else is the victim of it, especially someone that we do not care for.

It seems that enjoyment of irony is part of a world-view that says that everything good is alloyed with bad, that there is nothing in life that is purely good or bad.

But this world-view does not necessarily explain the pleasure that people get from irony. Maybe that pleasure comes from the feeling of superiority we get as observers. Those who do not participate in the action get a compensatory ego-boost. Bully for them.

This might explain the popularity of irony in a world which more and more makes us spectators.

Greetings

greetings from the year 2005
on the campus of friendship
drastic changes make the holidays very different
but glad to be living
all the maintainence taken care of
one grandson
a granddaughter in November
enjoyed the videos
and the ceremony
a whole university of friends
health seems to be my condition