the rix mix

A lovely early spring afternoon. Some forsythia & budding trees, but it won't be the kind of explosively colorful awakening that occurs after a deep freeze winter. Significantly, I paid off a long-standing personal debt today & he'll be quite surprised. It would have been settled a year ago except a sneaky collector cut into line & grabbed my stash, so I had to start all over. But hardly a day passed when it didn't cross my mind, & the savings represented an accumulation of small things I went without - those "rewards" we give ourselves. So it became more or less automatic. When I realized I'd gone over the goal & another collector was lurking, it was time to pat myself on the back with a Vaughan Williams symphony, & a fat reference work on the ecology of the Jersey Pine Barrens, & go to the bank for a can't-bounce cashier's check.

Who are my personal fav "name" major classical composers? I'm ordinary. Palestrina, Byrd, Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Rimsky, Mahler, Janacek, Ives, Faure, Vaughan Williams, Prokofiev, Ravel, Satie, Poulenc; which brings us to the "modern" era & that's another list. I feel bad not putting Mozart on there, but I'm still sorting out a relationship with him. Except for Charles Ives, none of these composers require an adjustment of one's ears.