For Ralph

[Blip]

Looking at the Monadnock (NH) Festival schedule for the summer, and found this listing. Ralph should buy his tickets now:

Sunday, July 30, 4pm
Peterborough Town House

Joseph Haydn: Quartet in D, Op. 20, # 4
Karl Dittersdorf: Quintet # 6 with 2 cellos, K. 190
Johann Wanhal: Quartet, Op. 33
W.A. Mozart: Quartet in A, K. 464

One evening in 1785, four composers met in Vienna to read the latest string quartets by a young Wolfgang Mozart, then 19. The four were Mozart himself (viola), Franz Josef Haydn (violin), Karl Dittersdorf (violin), and Johann Wanhal (cello). The four were changed by the experience of playing the young Mozart’s great works; each went home a different man. That impromptu recital highlights the power of the string quartet to embody a composer's deepest musical expression. Celebrating that unique moment, the Ciompi Quartet presents works by each of the four, a fascinating snapshot of the state of music in Vienna at the time through four of its most illustrious personalities.

The festival will also include the premiere of Elliott Carter's new Quartet for Saxophone and Strings. I wish I had a lot more money to travel.

[Ralph]

Sounds like it will be a great concert, thanks. But New Hampshire is too far away from Gotham.

[jbuck919]

Sounds like it will be a great concert, thanks. But New Hampshire is too far away from Gotham.

Even if I agreed to meet you there?

[Ralph]

Sounds like it will be a great concert, thanks. But New Hampshire is too far away from Gotham.

Even if I agreed to meet you there?

*****

Probably still too far. As I age I find it harder and harder to go anywhere outside the city and immediate suburbs and as for the latter only when necessary, never for music.

[jbuck919]

Actually it's 160 miles from Stony Creek, too, but Blip's post did remind me that there are a couple of festivals right in my neck of the woods.

[Corlyss_D]

Sounds like it will be a great concert, thanks. But New Hampshire is too far away from Gotham.

Even if I agreed to meet you there?

Ralph is a child of asphalt. He starts to panic if there's more than a half acre of greenery around.

[jbuck919]

Ralph is a child of asphalt. He starts to panic if there's more than a half acre of greenery around.

He has a standing invitation to Stony Creek for desensitization therapy. We could go to the Lake Luzerne Music Festival, a music camp and chamber festival operated by members of the Philadelphia Orchestra (it is literally the next town over). Not to mention Saratoga.

Seriously, if I were in Ralph's position I would also not want to go anywhere else unless absolutely necessary. When you've learned how to make a city like New York your oyster, why should it not be like Athens to Socrates? Pity the poor man for even having to deal with Westchester.

[Ralph]

Sounds like it will be a great concert, thanks. But New Hampshire is too far away from Gotham.

Even if I agreed to meet you there?

Ralph is a child of asphalt. He starts to panic if there's more than a half acre of greenery around.

*****

Rubbish. I can't begin to count the number of hours I spend every week in Central Park or Riverside Park. Even in the winter.

[srappoport]

One evening in 1785, four composers met in Vienna to read the latest string quartets by a young Wolfgang Mozart, then 19.

He was born in 1756, making him 29.

[Corlyss_D]

Rubbish. I can't begin to count the number of hours I spend every week in Central Park or Riverside Park. Even in the winter.

Oh, so the phobia treatment is working?

[Ralph]

Rubbish. I can't begin to count the number of hours I spend every week in Central Park or Riverside Park. Even in the winter.

Oh, so the phobia treatment is working?

*****

Give me the Sheep Meadow on a warm, sunny day. Relaxed, happy people sprawled out on the grass with many younbg women in delectably skimpy outfits. And hot dogs and sodas a few hundred paces away.

[Ralph]

And soon I'll be able to surf the web and post here from the Sheep Meadow.

From The New York Times:

May 16, 2006
Deadline Set for Wireless Internet in Parks
By SEWELL CHAN

New York City officials set a July deadline yesterday for a city contractor to have a wireless network up and running in Central Park, in what would be a major expansion of free Internet access that the city plans to replicate across its vast ribbons of parkland during the next several years.

The effort is part of a larger initiative that would also set up wireless networks by summer's end in parts of three more large parks: Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.

All told, the commitment by the Department of Parks and Recreation, which announced the timetable at a City Council hearing, represents a major leap forward for a three-year-old project that has been hobbled by technical difficulties and a lack of interest by major Internet providers. However, it remained far from clear yesterday whether the deadlines could be met.

In pushing ahead, New York is, perhaps, trying to catch up with other cities, including Philadelphia and San Francisco, which have vowed to create citywide wireless networks and to treat Internet access as a broadly available public utility.

While New York's effort is limited to its parks, it is expected to have a huge impact, given the number of parks across the five boroughs and the density of the neighborhoods surrounding them. In many instances, residents and businesses near city parks are likely to be able to tap into the services.

The city is following an example set by private groups like the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, which activated a network in Bryant Park in June 2002, and the Alliance for Downtown New York, which did the same in eight Lower Manhattan sites from 2003 to 2005, including City Hall Park, Bowling Green and the new Wall Street Park.

NYC Wireless, a nonprofit group that did the technical work for those projects, has also set up networks at Union Square, Tompkins Square and Stuyvesant Cove Parks, and is building a network at Brooklyn Bridge Park this year.

So far, the city's own efforts have paled compared with those achievements by private groups.

In June 2003, the Parks Department sought bidders willing to design, build, operate and maintain Wi-Fi networks in all or part of Battery, Central, Flushing Meadows-Corona, Pelham Bay, Prospect, Riverside, Union Square, Van Cortlandt and Washington Square Parks, as well as Orchard Beach in the Bronx.

Three companies responded — Verizon Communications and two tiny start-up companies. Verizon was selected in April 2004, but a month later it backed out of the deal.

The contract was then awarded that October to one of the two smaller companies, Wi-Fi Salon, which is based on the Upper East Side. While the company installed a network last summer at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, it missed a deadline last fall to finish the work at the other parks.

At the City Council hearing, Robert L. Garafola, the department's deputy commissioner for management and budget, said that the city had extended the deadline to August.

"We expect Central Park to be launched in July, and the rest of the parks in the late summer," he said.

After the hearing, however, doubts began to emerge. Asked about the deadlines, Marshall W. Brown, the owner of Wi-Fi Salon, said: "That's the timetable set forth by Parks. Let's see if that's attainable." Later he added, "It's obviously going to be tight, but I'm confident we'll be able to pull it off."

The parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said his department would probably have to pick another contractor if Mr. Brown could not meet the new deadline.

"All of us want to see it happen," Mr. Benepe said in a telephone interview. "We'll have to make an honest assessment to see, if we can't get it done with this operator, if there's another operator who can and wants to. The technology exists; the willingness to invest in that technology up front may or may not exist."

Mr. Benepe defended the decision to rely on the private sector for the project. "We're not paying for this service and the city is not investing any money in it, so we expect the operator to pay for it."

A wireless network involves a complex system of cables, radios, antennas and nodes that allow users to tap into the Internet without a cable. Mr. Brown said he hoped to make money by partnering with a big communications company that would promote its products and also through limited advertising that park visitors would have to read before being able to browse the Web.

Under the agreement, Mr. Brown promised to pay the city the greater of $30,000 a year for three years or 10 percent of gross receipts from the park-based networks.

But since reaching the deal with Mr. Brown, the city has all but abandoned that model for future wireless contracts. In a new request for proposals in February, the city asked for bids to create wireless networks in additional parks — with almost no revenue for the city.

For instance, it has selected a partnership of the Friends of Dag Hammarskjold Plaza and NYC Wireless to create a network in the plaza, which is near the United Nations. The partnership will pay the city $1 a year.

Expert Communications/TravelNet Technologies, a Long Island company, has been chosen to build networks at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and at Columbus Park in Downtown Brooklyn. The city expects to receive just $700 a year for each site.

Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan suggested that the city was finally realizing that to put wireless systems in place, it could not expect to make money from the effort.

"I don't mean to say 'I told you so,' but we did have this conversation," Ms. Brewer told Mr. Garafola at the hearing.

Other parks to be covered under the new plan are Carroll, Fort Greene and Cobble Hill Parks, all in Brooklyn.

At one point during yesterday's hearing, Councilman Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. of Queens asked whether wireless service could be established at beaches and pools some day. (He did not get a clear answer.) In any case, Councilwoman Helen D. Foster of the Bronx said she did not look forward to such a day. "I would hope I would never have to have my laptop at the beach," she said.

[Agnes Selby]

Ralph is a child of asphalt. He starts to panic if there's more than a half acre of greenery around.

He has a standing invitation to Stony Creek for desensitization therapy. We could go to the Lake Luzerne Music Festival, a music camp and chamber festival operated by members of the Philadelphia Orchestra (it is literally the next town over). Not to mention Saratoga.

Seriously, if I were in Ralph's position I would also not want to go anywhere else unless absolutely necessary. When you've learned how to make a city like New York your oyster, why should it not be like Athens to Socrates? Pity the poor man for even having to deal with Westchester.

---------------

The chamber group operated by members of the Philadelphia Orchestra
was started by the DePasquale brothers who occupied
the first chairs in the Philadelphia Orchestra in the late 1980s. It was
called the DePasquale Quartet. I am proud to say
that my daughter, Kathryn Selby was the pianist in this
group until her departure to Australia.

Regards,
Agnes.
----------------

[SamLowry]

I was walking around at lunch today with my MP3 player listening to Opus 20, #4, then I find this thread. I believe I can thank someone on CMG for recommending that purchase to me, by the Tatrai. Liner notes say "practically each of its movements is an extraordinary masterpiece."

I'm relatively new to string quartet music, but this is the album I like the most (I only own Haydn SQs so far). I now think it makes a difference what you listen to when growing up. At first I simply had to get acquainted with the sound of a SQ and learn to enjoy it.

When I was younger I remember reading pretty much that Bach = Fugue. Fugue = Bach. End of story. Classical era fugues were a poor imitation (pun?). It was a bit of a revelation to in recent months come across all these SQ fugues, and read what an innovator Haydn was. In a way innovating by looking back. I find it easier with SQ fugues to follow the different voices, compared to one played on a keyboard, typically.

I'm reminded of how some people on here have stated they like Katsaris playing Beethoven symphonies because they hear the parts easier. And how many years ago I listened over and over to Carlos' Brandenburg concerti, for the same reason.

One thing I'm a little puzzled by: I see that Haydn labeled some last movements in Opus 20 as, for instance, "Fuga a 2 soggetti." The liner notes state this was his way of placing them in "systematic order." Two other movements are, respectively, "4" & "3" instead of "2." But how is that "systematic order"? Maybe if I knew what "soggetti" meant.

[Corlyss_D]

One thing I'm a little puzzled by: I see that Haydn labeled some last movements in Opus 20 as, for instance, "Fuga a 2 soggetti." The liner notes state this was his way of placing them in "systematic order." Two other movements are, respectively, "4" & "3" instead of "2." But how is that "systematic order"? Maybe if I knew what "soggetti" meant.

Soggeto = subject. Soggeti = plural

According to Groves: As originally used by Zarlino, the whole of the material imitated by the voices in a canon or strict fugure. 'Soggetto' later came to mean a fugue subject of the oldest, 'reciercare' type, which usually consists of a single melodic phrase in motet style.