From Boogers to Fjords

I decided that some time in the classroom was a good investment given that I'm still coming back from a pretty spectacular sinus infection that left me with nasal discharge best left undescribed if anyone nearby is eating combined with a piercing earache and a massive headache that jeopardized my proprioception.  Saturday only had a mild dose of nasal discharge and mild sinus pressure after enough antibiotics to decimate the inhabitants of my guts. 

I try to incorporate some sight-reading sessions in my playing when I have enough privacy to do so, as most people seem to NOT enjoy the sound of sight-reading work, especially if it's a bit more challenging and/or filled with enough accidentals to summon litigation-lunatic lawyers. "Es War Einmal", one of many Lyric Pieces by Grieg, passed my test for me to actually want to learn it (can't say the same about the Bach Inventions I keep around for sight reading practice). 

I also decided to experiment with my phone's recording capacity and my own endurance.  It so happens that my German language and AP English teacher inadvertently got me hooked on Edvard Grieg's compositions. I have already been partial towards the Romantic era, but in preparation for the AP exam, I had to read an uncomfortable amount of painfully pathetic literature that didn't involve combat or mayhem and excessive doses of romance and/or politics. One of the better works I had to read was "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen, who also wrote many other plays, including "Ghosts" and "Peer Gynt". I had heard parts of the suites and enjoyed several parts, but reading the play and gaining a better understanding of the pieces I was listening to suddenly made Edvard Grieg a much more exciting composer. Plus there's something appealing about his rustic composing style without the excess frills that made me despise much of the Classical (Mozart and Haydn in particular) and Baroque (Johann Sebastian Bach and Handel in particular) eras.