Year of Wonder April/May Check-in

Due to life, things happened and I was a bit lax about my listening. Basically, instead of a very intense, active listening session, I started listening in the background while doing other things. Or sometimes even not listening at all until there was a backlog and then listening to everything at once!

The music is still beautiful.

April brought a ton music that was just incredible. I thought about listing my favorites, but that would be listing basically every piece! It was that good of a month. Some to take note of:

1. Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland - The first time I heard this, I thought for sure it was the opening to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It's not, but the two are quite similar. 
2. Overture from Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner - His music speaks to me in a way not all music does. 
3. April 27 - Prelude in G flat major, Op. 11 no. 13 by Alexander Scriabin - noting this because I know for a fact that I played this piece in the summer between high school and college.
4. April 29 - String Quartet with Didjeridu, no. 14 by Peter Sculthorpe - A didgeridoo is an Australian instrument. This was a really cool piece because the composer brought in traditional Indiginous Australian music into his composition. It was such an interesting sound that I'd never heard in classical music!

Honestly, I wanted to list all of April. This was such amazing music!

Onto May. May opened up with a movement from Debussy's Children's Corner Suite. The first movement is called Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum. I switched piano teachers my freshman year of high school. My new teacher assigned Dr. Gradus to me. Three and a half years later, I used that piece as part of my college auditions. Five years after that, my high school piano teacher played Dr. Gradus as my husband and I recessed down the aisle from our wedding. This piece is one of those bits of music that is just part of my identity and belongs on my life's soundtrack! 

The rest of May has been just as wonderful. There's another piano piece I played, this time Notturno by Grieg. There's a fair number of women composers for the month of May which was really lovely to listen to. Again, just stunning music. I'd list my favorites but it'd be 95% of the songs I listened to this month.