Moons and restless nights.
I took this photo when I was walking to a friend’’s house last night. There was a really bright moon behind those clouds. I could feel it winking at me.
January 27, 2021
I’m a world class sleeper. Once I hit a bed, I’m asleep until I wake up.
But once in a blue moon, I have a really restless night. Last night, for whatever reason, I could not stay asleep (maybe it was the moon…). So, like I usually do when a restless night happens, I just stayed awake.
Why fight it?
It’s weird being wide awake when the earth is so still. It always fills me with a wee bit of awe. I know parents are feeding babies and people are working night shifts and health and safety workers are still going strong, but most of us are at rest. And like a quiet house when the kids are finally down, the earth (at least on my side of the world), is peaceful.
It’s a sound and a feeling.
Last night while I couldn’t sleep, I started looking at online classes on edX. I’m a big fan of random online learning. Just don’t ask about that time, I signed up for (and PAID for) a Climate Science Class at Harvard. As much as I want to add Climate Scientist to my list of identity adjectives, it’s likely not going to happen.
Well, last night I stumbled on an Introduction to Italian Opera Class taught by a delightful professor at Dartmouth, who at the time the course was first offered was in Venice with nine students studying Early Italian Opera.
Doesn’t that sound romantic?
Well, this very interesting professor was talking about HOW opera was written. A writer would give a composer like Mozart (we’re beginning with Figaro) a manuscript (a libretto). Then the music was set to the words. The role of the composer was to make you feel the drama without seeing it or even knowing the words. You should be able to close your eyes and feel what’s going on.
Again, such a romantic notion.
The professor suggested we look at the musical score as we listened even if we couldn’t read music. Here’s why; Mozart could only imagine how the Opera would sound and look on stage, so for a moment if we look at the score and listen to the music, we could get a fleeting look at the mind of Mozart.
Hmmm.
So that’s what I did when I couldn’t sleep last night. For a fleeting moment, I looked into the mind of Mozart.
By the way, posting online college classes for auditing is a brilliant move in the right direction World. I ‘m really proud of the people who are making that magic happen. And most of it is FREE. Geez, there’s some shiny smart people among us.
