Knowledge is priceless, but for about a buck fifty -- the price of a bottled lime green tea -- you could learn that the most used letters in the English language are E, T, A, O, I and N or that the average human eats 8 spiders in his/her lifetime while sleeping. Hey, don't scoff; you never know when this kind of trivia might come in handy. Game show and board game producers have made fortunes on such seemingly insignificant information. For my money, though knowledge that comes in multiple languages wrapping Italian chocolate covered hazlenut can truly inspire. Did you know, for instance, that when you really want love, you find what is waiting for you? Or that kisses easily stolen are soon forgotten? And how 'bout this: Love can never say enough of itself. Still not deep enough for you?
OK then, try Keyboard Conversations with Jeffrey Siegel next Monday evening in Perelman Theater. Not only will you get to hear a world class pianist perform amazing music, but after the concert, you'll be able to impress your friends and neighbors when you give them the 411 on Für Elise and why Beethoven immortalized her in song (personally, I've always wanted to be immortalized in song...but that's another posting). You'll also be able to provide insight into the composer's revolutionary impulses and his emotional state as he lost what he called his "noblest faculty" in an 1801 letter to a confidant. You are bound to emerge inspired to create your own Sonata Opus -- or at least tell somebody what you learned.
See you there.
From someone who has heard Kool & The Gang's "Joanna" sung at her by way of greeting more than a few times, let me tell you, being immortalized in a song is overrated. Maybe it isn't really fair to compare Beethoven's compositional skills with Kool & The Gang's.
Yes! I SO TOTALLY agree with her! My old high school teachers used to greet me (practically each morning) by singing kool & the gang's "Joanna" to me. Just at work the other day, they played the song and I was mortified. But then I guess it's different when they sing your name as opposed to naming an instrumental song after you.