23 March 2014: Sunday ... Big Music Sunday at UUSMC (an annual event, mc'ed by Andy Levin) ... Erica's (via Kim) visit to mom tonight helps A LOT ...

It's nice to feel the flutter of your heart, whatever that means, the weakness in your knees, the breath becoming more aware as all your senses do when an individual, who I still do not know well, sat two chairs down from me against the wall (an unusual place for me) and I became very aware of my actions. She is lovely but I don't know whether she's married or not. A middle-aged man, member of the church, is by her side, at times, but I just don't know. He seems so much older and she is not young but quite toothsome in my eye. Well, we exchanged some glances in praise of the performances, which were wonderful, but really no words, not even after the service when she was close to me. I did praise the piano play of Pam Allenstein, who was speaking to her at the coat rack after the service and during the coffee/snacks/conversation time post-service. The mystery goes on and continues to intrigue. Now to the individual acts of musical inspiration/epiphany for members:

1. Joey Tosh-Morelli, violin ... good violin bow technique on Twinkle,Twinkle Little Star but tone has a long way to go as is to be expected when playing such a difficult instrument. Kristin was glad that she got her son to perform.
2. Kristin Tosh-Morelli, trumpet ... her playing was precise and very good as she was accompanied by Pam. Loved her articulation. Nice work -- she is quite talented. 
3. Will Doty, piano ... simple but promising playing of the notes with one hand of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nactmusik.
4. Kate Nolan, voice ... lovely voice and wonderful combination with the music track, a beautiful melody and lyrics, spoken clearly and intelligently. 
5. Lauren Nolan, piano ... beautiful melody played skillfully. She is full of potential.
6. Jeanne Hanson, violin; Heather Doty, cello; and Matt Doty, string bass ... the string trio played Amazing Grace/Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, arranged by Brian Hanson. Lots of intonation issues but Matt did a good job keeping the group together with strong string bass play. It was not unpleasant and full of passion.
7. Karl Stomberg, piano ... wonderful start to the Adagio sostenuto movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", the pace and notes were all there but he lost his feel for the piece and it ended too soon and too abruptly ... but he has a beautiful feel for the keyboard.
8. Jamie Kegerise, voice ... a highlight of the morning's performances as Jamie sang the theme songs to '60s TV series The Patty Duke Show/The Farmer's Daughter/ and That Girl, not an easy task a capella but he did it abundantly well and with such humor and diction. Just loved it. 
9. Andy Levin, guitar & voice ... so talented on the guitar and a fine singer, Andy stepped away from MC'ing the service to perform a song by George Harrison entitled Run of the Mill, composed at the bitter break-up time of the Beatles. In Andy's words, the group was run by McCartney and Lennon and Harrison's input was rarely looked upon and that caused the rift, among other reasons, one being financial.
10. Carol Nicastro, fife ... very difficult instrument played with great aplomb by Carol, who was new to me. She plays in a Fife & Drum Group, I believe. 
11. Lucille Avakian Karnik, piano (and composer), with Laurie Taylor Jackson, voice ... they performed Lucille's song, Gone Away, one of the few she has composed with words, in honor of her best friend, who committed suicide in the late 80s, and her ex-husband who overdosed in 2004. It was lovely piano with the beautiful voice of Laurie blending superbly (after the service had a surprising interchange with her feisty daughter as we talked and she handed me a plaque with the song's lyrics and photos of her friend and her and a pet dog and her husband). 
12. Gordon Roth, Tom Hartline, Rachael VerNooy, and Brian Hanson ... barbershop quartet performed In The Good Old Summertime. All were clad in bow ties with Rachael's particularly affecting with her dress shirt outside her jeans.
13. Kathe Erickson, voice, and Pam Allenstein, piano ... Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, just 3 or so verses of the over 60, Kathe said, that Cohen wrote for this song. She has a beautiful voice and Pam accompanies singers so well. Just lovely. She came back to her seat, just across from mine and I got to congratulate her. 
14. Amanda Ostrusky and Kristen Tosh-Morelli, voice, with Pam Allenstein, piano ... difficult balance of voices but they pulled it off. Amanda is so strong as a soprano and Kristen comes in with her strong contralto and together they pulled off this Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem. 
15. Jennifer Stomberg, cello ... the professional player last was exquisite, a piece by the famed cellist from the turn of the century, Gaspar Cassado, Introduzione Fantasia, one movement. It really did cover many of the moods and sounds of the cello and started to bring me to tears with its heartrending melody. Beautifully played by Jennifer. 

Wonderful PRN Nurse for Delaware Hospice, Erica, on call this Sunday, came
to visit mom not long after I spoke to Kim, the nurse that pronounced dad and
saw him early on the morning of his death, 8 December 2013, who returned my
phone call to DH this early evening. Erica was meeting Dancer for the first time.
She's never had dogs and would prefer a cat for her two children, a boy 8 and
a girl 5. Unfortunately, she is a single mom but gets help from her mom and her
ex- in the care of their kids so she can work. The children were with their
grandmother tonight. She's amazingly connected to her work and really spends
special time with mom and made her feel a lot better after her fearful bout of chest
and stomach/intestinal pain this afternoon which resulted in her calling me as I walked
Dancer at Delcastle Recreational Park. 

24 February 2014: Monday ... brilliant sunrise, reflections on blinds in the addition ... Alice Herz-Sommer, 110, has died (extraordinary life) ... Helena from Brighton, England leads BodyPump ... Yaina (Chee-ya-nah), Hospice CNA, has come to care for mom as Skeesha is out ...

      

Alice Herz-Sommer: pianist and oldest known Holocaust survivor
dies aged 110
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/alice-herz-sommer-holocaust-survivor-dies

Life moves forward. Had a great BodyPump with an excellent fitness instructor, Helena (Hah-LAY-nah), who I didn't feel was from Australia with her accent but was unsure. Asked at the conclusion of the workout and she answered English from the south, along the shore, Brighton, where the famed Brighton Beach is located. 

2 February 2014: Sunday ... Groundhog Day ... First service of our new minister at UUSMC ... choir practice ... Super Bowl Sunday ... insightful interview on loe.org of Pete Seeger ...

Groundhog day 2014 has arrived.  Will Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow or won’t he?  He did not and thus, according to the legend, totally non-meteorological, we will have six more weeks of winter. As if on cue, today, as I type this note, a Monday, the 3rd day of February, it is snowing and we are projected to get five inches of slushy snow with it getting down to 20 tonight and icing up the roads tomorrow. The YMCA closed early today and they cancelled group exercise classes as I'd planned to do my 2nd Les Mills Bosy Pump Workout. Instead, I spent 20 minutes on the treadmill going about 4.0 mph and did a little over a mile. 

Iconic musician and activist Pete Seeger has died at the age of 94. Living on Earth spent an afternoon with the folk music legend in 1998. Seeger told host Steve Curwood that Rachel Carson's book “Silent Spring” inspired him to environmental activism. One of Seeger’s goals was to clean up New York’s Hudson River and he helped get the sloop “Clearwater” built to spread the message about pollution. Steve Curwood met Pete Seeger at the Sloop Club on the banks of the Hudson in Beacon, New York and has this profile.http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=14-P13-00005&segmentID=3

Welcome Gregory S. Pelley at UUSMC! Great introductory service from Greg, not a Reverend, yet ... "Call me Greg", he intoned during the morning. It was well-attended and afterward, we had a full potluck well organized and stocked with lots of good food, including Randy's signature soup.

18 December 2013: Wednesday ... writing Thank Yous and listening to Beethoven by the Orford on CD (the first 5 of them) ...

It beats changing the record each time, even though they do sound sonically better, but putting in five CDs of the Orford String Quartet, who I just found out are Canadian, a favorite of my father and being able to listen for hours is a delight, especially when I am composing thank yous to the cards and then to the visitors (?) to the visitation.
 

Have moved on and am playing at this time (11:22 a.m.) the Brahms' Symphonies, the First is sounding right now, after the British National Anthem and the Tragic Overture, I was a little confused and thought this first movement of Beethoven's so-called "10th", also an overture. Go figure. These recordings were made in 1952 by Toscanini with the 6-year-old Philharmonia Orchestra. 

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/HallofFame/Toscanini/Review/Brahms

Just solved a minor dilemma about the initials of a name, D. A. Ramsey, on a address label for a condolence card. It is David A., who is the husband of Kaye, a nurse who worked for years with dad in the Employee Health Clinic at the Memorial Hospital and then the Christiana Hospital. They live fairly close by at 5426 Pinehurst Drive; Wilmington; 19808-2619. I will have to write them a Xmas card because she also came to the visitation. 

While Joe Brennan was talking to mom. He stopped by to wish his condolences as he'd learned of dad's passing from a search on the Web that brought him to his obituary. He spend some of his military service at Fort Gordon, head of the Army's signal corps, but he was in security, I think. Served 3 years. Showed him some photos of dad from years gone by and which were on display at the visitation. One that was not had dad as a baby in the arms of his mother. I iPhoned it and sent it to Facebook as Joe spoke with mom, who enjoyed his visit.

 
I am so amazed at the quality of reproduction for a tiny photo
in a weather-beaten frame from years past. The caption read:Rudolph Nijhoff held in the arms of his mother Hendrika circa 1928, Holland.

Dr. Maged called and the INR is whopping 5.9. He said to stop the Coumadin for three days and renew it at 2.5 mg per day, so that will be simpler. We also discussed her lethargy and her declining physical state. He said that she needs to move more and in the future, he mentioned tapering her off the high level of the opiates. I was honest with mom and told her the situation and I think she agrees that she needs to move more but is hesitant, make that resistant, to decreasing the level of her pain meds. "I need them," she says. And yes, she does but maybe not at the level she is currently at. I told her it was all in her head and she could have some measure of control over what she thought. We shall see.

Finally figured out how to post an album of photos on Facebook and now have 8 photos from the visitation up at this url, I think:

https://www.facebook.com/rnnyhoff/media_set?set=a.10152438069992656.1073741827.500927655&type=1&notif_t=like

   

        

   

Just sent link to the visitation album to Art Steele and he responded posthaste with a thank you. I could not post the album on his Timeline because he does not allow it in his preferences, but I just requested his cell and snail mail address and have not heard back from him in the last two minutes.

I got an e-mail from Susan about the Merry Christmas card, sent to me by Gerrit Stam, which I forwarded to her, and she mentioned the flights for the kids that Doug promised to pay for and whether I'd mentioned it to him and the book that she sent about the prodigal son and of course, the Time Share, and how we were doing in "the aftermath" and that she would be praying daily for us. I responded with a wry return and wrote short, pithy sentences. I don't know how to respond to her these days. (I need to message her with the link to the Visitation Album, which I will do, posthaste.)

21 October 2013: Beautiful Monday morning listening to Benny Goodman and am just lovin' it ... dad is sleeping now as I type this subject header at 8:10 a.m. ...

I am in 7th, no make that at least, 10th heaven listening to my old LPs of Benny Goodman and his extraordinary big band. What a sound. Those velvet saxes and the crisp brass and can't forget the percussion or the vocalists, all incredible ... such a signature creation by a genius of American jazz (a true taskmaster, I've been told, much like James Brown but look at the results ... Arturo Toscanini was the same demanding artist). 

http://www.discogs.com/Benny-Goodman-And-His-Orchestra-This-Is-Benny-Goodman/release/1126304


He, Ossip Gabrilowitsch,  married the daughter of Mark Twain, Clara Clemens, and they had one daughter, the last lineal relative to the famed author and humorist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Uhp5u8MIA 
The above YouTube link is to his own composition recorded in 1925. ("Ossip Gabrilowitsch was born in St. Petersburg (Russia) on January 26,1878. He was a pupil of Anton Rubinstein and won the Rubinstein prize at the age of 16. He later studied in Vienna with Leschetizky. It was during this period that he met a fellow Leschetizky student by the name of Clara Clemens,the daughter of Samuel Clemens(aka Mark Twain). They were married on October 6,1909 in Samuel Clemens home in Connecticut. (I once read an amusing article about Samuel Clemens'interaction with Leschetizky.Fortunately, Leschetizky had a good sense of humor).Gabrilowitsch made his first American tour in 1900. His repertoire included the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto and later Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto. However, it was the music of Schumann and Brahms (as it was with his good friend Harold Bauer)that he advocated. His performance of the Brahms and Schumann Piano Concertos were concidered to be definitive. In 1918, he became the musical director and principal conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He remained in that position until his death in 1936.Unfortunately,except for the Schumann Quintet Op. 44,his recorded legacy is devoted to miniatures that he regularly programmed. After his death Bruno Walter wrote,"Ossip Gabrilowitsch was a born musician. Music for him was the element of existence.In him reigned the spirit of song.He drew from the piano a truly lyric tone and perfect legato. The title of 'poet of the piano' surely belongs to Gabrilowitsch.") 

Just pulled this book off the shelf in the TV room, probably hasn't been removed in years or ever since it was placed there (dad said he was reading it recently) ... my husband Gabrilowitsch, by Clara Clemens. Dad tells me the pianist, composer, and founder of the Detroit Symphony, had a spat with Toscanini over a certain concerto, Concerto #2, Opus 86 by Johannes Brahms ... their views of the work in Toscanini's opinion were too "divergent" according to Sachs in his bio on AT. Toscanini performed the work, one time only, the next year with Robert Casadesus (sic).

Robert Casadesus (April 7, 1899 – September 19, 1972) was a renowned 20th-century French pianist and composer.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1822721.My_Husband_Gabrilowitsch

Uploaded on Mar 10, 2011

In this performance dating from 1905, Ossip Gabrilowitsch (1878-1936) performs Chopin's Mazurka in B minor, Op. 33, No. 4. The music you hear was recorded originally on piano rolls and reproduced with the assistance of a Welte Vorsetzer in 1962-63 on Steinway Concert Grand No. 261. This recording is from the LP that you see above, one of three discs in a collection entitled "Legendary Masters of the Piano," issued by the Book of the Month Club Classics Record Library series in 1963.

This Mazurka is one of ten pieces that Gabrilowitsch recorded in July 1905 for the Welte Vorsetzer.

To read the liner notes, which describe in great detail the Welte Vorsetzer and how it came to be used for this recording, please visit this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMK3qY...

Flonzaley/Gabrilowitsch -- Schumann Quintet in Eb Op 44, Mvt 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBrcidGKHXI

Another eyeopening quartet from the early part of the 20th century, known by dad, the Flonzaley Quartet, here playing with our man of the day, married to Mark Twain's daughter, Clara Clemens, Ossip Gabrilowitsch. 

Posted this photo of the kids and Nanny almost 20 years ago, I guess, at her apartment hugging together. Such a meaningful image. It was the only time they met each other.
 

Sold my Dodge Neon SXT this afternoon to a nice young lady who earned her stripes at Enterprise and got hired by webuyanycar.com as its branch manager and did a capable job of covering all the bases for the sale of my car ... I wrote on my gmail contact list:

10/21/13
"She negotiated, quite skillfully, the offer and eventual sale of my Dodge Neon 2005 SXT with 96,000 miles. The initial offer was $1460 and after all the inspection of the vehicle conclude (I was brutally honest about all the nicks and bumps on the vehicle). Found out, after a vehicle check, that the car had been in a rather serious accident in 2007 where the left side was severely damaged and had to be repainted. They did a good job repairing it. I never new. 

Well, when all the figuring was done, Beth came up with the amount (determined by others who were texting and messaging her throughout the deliberative process) was $1085, non-negotiable or at least, that's what I found out when I suggested perhaps $1200. I wasn't in the mood to banter and realized that other locations were 30 miles away at the closest to buy the car, so I accepted to amount and signed my signature and printed it, too, a number of times."