The Piano Inside My Brain

“It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.”
— Norman Lear

Norman Lear, TV writer/producer of “All in the Family” was born on July 27, 1922.

“Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”
— Edmund Hillary

Edmund Hillary was born on July 20, 1919.

“I am not the archetypal leading man. This is mainly for one reason: as you may have noticed, I have no hair.”
— Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart was born on July 13, 1940.

“All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.”
— Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama was born on July 6th, 1935. Coincidentally, President George W. Bush was born in 1946 on the same day. Irony has a sense of history, doesn’t it.

Happy Birthday to German composer, Richard Wagner, born in 1813.

Known for his vignette operas such as Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, and Der Ring des Nibelungen (a.k.a. The Ring Cycle).

One of my favorite memories at Eastman School of Music was when my composition teacher, Christopher Rouse, asked me to listen to the entire Ring Cycle (16 hours) over the course of two weeks to discuss as part of my studies.

So with that in mind, grab a nice glass of German Riesling and cuddle up to four hours of Wagner opera tonight.

I’ve been a huge fan of Salvador Dalí for years and his work has influenced my compositions, specifically two of the movements of Five Images.

• The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (5:19, 7.3 MB) — In an earlier piece, Winter Octet, I had based the opening movement on the famous Salvador Dali work, The Persistence of Memory, known for its ant-infested melting clocks. For Five Images, Dali’s painted sequel, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, literally became the emotional sequel for the music. The crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Olympic Park bombing directly affected the composition of this movement. The emotional roots of Five Images come to the forefront in the form of the solo cello.
• Shades of Night Descending (5:01, 6.9 MB) — The fourth movement comes from another desolate painting by Dali, Shades of Night Descending. The quasi-passacaglia motion in this movement allows the continuation of the melodic outpouring of the third movement. However, any optimism that might have remained is lost in the corruption of the dark corners of the Dali painting.

So, happy birthday Salvador. Dig the mustache. You can see a collection of his works at VirtualDali.com.

In the news today, buried under just about every other headline you can image, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer of such hits as Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, celebrated his 168th birthday today. The composer could not be reached for comment.

May 6 marks the anniversary of the 1937 crash of the Hindenburg. It also marks the official birth of the term “Crash and Burn.”

As a way to remember, this is a great day to try something in which you are sure to, well, “Crash and Burn.”