Music and a Mystery

Today I emerged from an absorption in online reading, piano playing, and watching opera videos on YouTube, and went for a walk in the Kleistpark with J. The weather was rainy, and the sunlight quite dimmed except for a few bursts of brightness. When we went out, the asphalt had mostly dried, and other people were venturing out. In the portion of the park beside the Kammergericht building, we spotted a plant that I didn't know; it was a hibiscus-like shrub with long shoots full of large leaves, and topped by large pink-petalled flowers with large, furry, pale yellow stamens and pistils in the centre.

I had a good piano session today, too, browsing through the Klavierbüchlein für Anna Maria Magdalena Bach, Beethoven's middle sonatas, Mozart sonatas, Schubert's sonata D 960, Chopin's waltzes and mazurkas and nocturnes (as well as the Polonaise in A major), Grade 6 and 7 pieces from the Toronto Conservatory of Music books, Claude Daquin's "Cuckoo Song," the piano part of Händel's Largo arranged for the piano and cello, and Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte. I also took a look at songs by Schubert, picking out the melodies and trying out the accompaniments. I found "Ave Maria," but I don't think I'll play it much, because I think that one can tire of it very quickly. With the Mozart my fingers were fortunately nimble enough to play with appropriate lightness and clarity, and some of his sonatas went very well indeed.

Besides this, I am re-reading The Crimson Blind, written by Fred M. White and published in 1905, at gutenberg.org. The protagonist is David Steel, a writer of crime fiction, who is summoned by a mysterious phone call and a thousand pounds to give advice to a damsel in distress at the dead of night. The advice is duly given, but when the writer returns to his home, he finds a seriously wounded man in his study. The police are called in, the injured man is brought to the hospital in critical condition, and Mr. Steel must clear himself of the suspicion of attempted murder. To do this he enlists a friend, Hatherley Bell, an excellent doctor of most astute mind. Mr. Bell soon discovers that the enemy who is responsible for the wounded man is the same enemy who blighted his own career by framing him for the theft of a Rembrandt painting. The enemy's name is Reginald Henson, a cunning scoundrel who is known to the world as a genial philanthropist. The damsel in distress is one of two sisters whose aunt is being blackmailed by their relative Mr. Henson (two thousand pounds for new hospital beds, for instance). Anyway, as I write I see that the plot is rather complicated, but it does make sense in the end, and it is a good yarn (reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Adventure of the Copper Beeches").