A bunch of random notes again!

- apparently I do not need a permit to busk at Boston Common, especially if it's just an acoustic instrument that's not amplified. Well, the info desk person sounded fairly sure (though not 100%). As long as I don't get arrested...

- I remember seeing posters for Wicked coming to boston in Sept/Oct. I really wanna go!! And well, I will :) I was listening to the original cast recording today, and it's sooooo good. I never ever want to be a broadway musical musician myself (can you imagine performing the same show night after night for months??), but it must be amazing to be in a show like that at some point in your life.

- I finally found a book of Killer Sudokus at Brookline Booksmith!! After my first purchase of it, ever, during 1st year at UVa (and another one-time purchase of it at a B&N in Mville), I literally have not been able to find a book of it at ANY bookstore I've been to. It's a shame because it's so much more fun than the regular sudokus :)

Some wonderful quotes from "The Cello Suites" (by Eric Siblin):

"We find a world of emotions and ideas created with only the simplest of materials." ~Laurence Lesser

Prelude of the Second Suite: Three notes establish a gut-wrenching sadness. There's a slight tremor on the fingerboard, the bow harbinger of difficult news. The cello, wavering at first touch, recovers its equilibrium and reports a painful chronicle. ... The listener is forced to imagine what is going on. There are hints, gaps, half-uttered statements, and fragmented lines in the Cello Suites. This stems from the cello itself, which is a melodic instrument, melodic because no more than two strings can generally be bowed at the same time. ... Harmony was Bach's specialty. So how does Bach accomplish harmony with just one cello? He does it by creating "implied harmony." He hints at it, suggests it, plants the seed of harmony. He removes as many notes as possible to strip the polyphony down to its bare essentials and let the listener fill in the blanks. 

I think this is why the second suite, in particular, is so challenging to play. There aren't very many notes on the page, but there's so much that the performer has to do with the sparse notes in order to fill in the blanks and make the performance convincing. Literally, "music is silence between the notes" (yay Debussy).

There seems to be suggestions linking the Second Cello suite (d minor) and his Second Partita for unaccompanied violin (also d minor) to the death of his wife that he's been married to for 13 years and had 9 kids with. Sad...

I had no idea Felix Mendelssohn had Jewish roots:

As the grandson of the Enlightenment's most famous Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, Felix was an unlikely spark plug for Bach's posthumous glory. Although his family had converted to Christianity, Mendelssohn remarked on the irony that it had taken a Jewish musician to introduce Germany to its most impressive Christian music. In fact, Mendelssohn had Bach in the blood. His great-aunt, Sara Levy, studied with Bach's son C.P.E. and knew his eldest son. Mendelssohn's mother had studied music with one of Bach's most devoted pupils, and Mendelssohn himself was technically a great-grandpupil of Bach.