PEACE FOR YOU ON SATURDAY

“If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.” - Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai

I was invited by the University of Melbourne to give a guest lecture in a postgraduate program this morning. It all went well and the group of 30 or so students were alert, engaged, eager, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed – and they all laughed at the right spots too! It does make an academic’s job a pleasure to lecture to a group like that. It was so wonderful to be back at the University, this time not a student, but once again as an academic. It reminded of how fast the years are going by. It seems only yesterday I was on campus as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young thing myself…

At 1:00 pm we went to Cinema Nova in Carlton where we had tickets to the Leonardo Live program direct from the National Gallery in London. That was quite a magnificent production and we enjoyed it very much. But more of that tomorrow on Art Sunday on this blog!

For a little Saturday Serenity, here is the second movement ‘Adagio cantabile’ of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Septet in E flat, opus 20 performed by The Gaudier Ensemble. The Septet was first performed in 1800 and published in 1802. It is scored for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and contrabass. It is in six movements:

1. Adagio; Allegro con brio

2. Adagio cantabile

3. Tempo di minuetto

4. Tema con variazioni: Andante

5. Scherzo: Allegro molto e vivace

6. Andante con moto alla marcia; Presto

The overall layout resembles a serenade but Beethoven expands the form by the addition of substantial introductions to the first and last movements. The main theme of the third movement had already been used in Beethoven's Piano Sonata, (Op. 49 No. 2), which was an earlier work despite its higher opus number. The finale features a violin cadenza. The Septet was one of Beethoven’s most successful and popular works and circulated in many editions and arrangements for different forces. In about 1803 Beethoven himself arranged the work as a Trio for clarinet (or violin), cello and piano, and this version was published as his op. 38 in 1805.

The photo is taken from our back garden, last winter. This post is part of the Saturday Sareenity meme.