the long Christmas Day is over....

a tough day for me--woke up feeling very tired and with not a lot of energy. That meant I would probably have to stay on the upper west side for the day---not really what I wanted to do. But I obeyed my body, and rested most of the day---I did walk over to Lincoln Center to see the documentary about the choreographer Merce Cunningham---very much like his ballets---kind of cold and beautiful at the same time---a decent way of spending some time, then in the evening, walked over to the George Keenley bar on Amsterdam and 84th--had a beer and watched some basketball, pretty much alone most of the time--I like the place---though it is very "yuppie like" kind of the new self congratulatory upper west side---mostly twenty and thirty somethings, though a smattering of older guys--I guess they were watching the Clipper-Laker game, as I was. Not a bad way of spending some time, though.
  This morning the energy is back---I have two sessions and I am seeing (finally) Oklahoma tonight.
 On Tuesday I went to Carnegie Hall to see a Youth Orchestra conducted by Jaime Laredo in an all Mozart program. I love his music---in my twenties I listened constantly to everything by him---piano concertos, operas, chamber music, that I could experience. One late spring and summer (1967) when my life was "in transition"  and I was trying to find a new meaning for it,  listening to his music gave me a strong sense of identity. Two pieces: the first his fifth violin concerto---very beautifully played, it uses the same style and structure that Mozart was to use in his later piano concertos. The dialogue between violin and orchestra---brilliantly conceived. Last was the Jupiter Symphony, no 41, the last Mozart wrote---very different from his other works---it has a sense of strength and volume that moves away from the later piano concertos and symphonies 35-39. Listening to it I thought that if Mozart had lived and continued to write symphonies, they might have been stronger than Beethoven's early works. Also, the Eroica, Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, seemed to me an extension of the Jupiter---its brutalizing of normal symphonic forms seems to take up where the Jupiter left off. I really lost myself in the music---very glad that I went.
  Once again, tonight Oklahoma, will report soon