Tuesday, July 29, 2014

The Enchantress Returns

The Enchantress Returns
by Chris Colfer
Recommended Ages: 10+

Collection spells are not just for debt collectors who want to put the hoodoo on a delinquent customer. In Chris Colfer's Land of Stories series, they are the framework for a quest-like adventure through a magic world teeming with fairy-tale heroes and villains. The first book, The Wishing Spell, was all about a shopping list of magical items that twins Alex and Conner Bailey needed to assemble in order to get home to the "Other World" (namely, ours). It could only ever be used one more time, and the Evil Queen from Snow White wanted to get there first. Now in their second visit to the Land of Stories, Alex and Conner are trying to complete one collection spell, while the Enchantress from The Sleeping Beauty races to finish another. The twins' goal is to create the Wand of Wonderment, whose wielder is invincible, so the Enchantress can be stopped. She, on the other hand, only wants to take over the whole fairy-tale world, and then get started on the Other World.

Fans of cracked fairy tales will love this book's mash-up of Rumpelstiltskin, the Little Mermaid, the Snow Queen, Jack and the Beanstalk, and many other stories, as the twins search for the most prized possession of the seven most hated villains in the Land of Stories. Glee cast-member Colfer proves again that he is more than just a pretty face, as he explores the private lives of folkloric monsters with a touch ranging from heart-touching tragedy to grim horror.

When I listened to Colfer's own audio-book reading, I came to appreciate his hammy side, as he fearlessly put distinctive voices to many characters. He seemed especially fond of voicing the rough-living Mother Goose, the operatic enchanted harp, and the spoiled Queen Red Riding Hood. In comparison, his narrator-voice sounded disappointingly flat and rushed. But I have read one of his books in hard copy too, and even though his vocal performance may not fully do it justice, his work is very entertaining. The old stories come together in a creative new way, investing old and new characters with hilarious attitudes and romantic feelings. One particular scene, in which Alex takes counsel with a quartet of storybook heroines, got me choked up for some reason. His text is riddled with pop-culture Easter eggs that both kids and adults will delight in finding, from a sneaky Harry Potter reference to a line from a Mel Brooks movie. My favorite line: "Witch, please!"

In the end, however, something develops that will put fans of the series through an emotional wringer, at least until they collect the third book in the series. A Grimm Warning came out in July 2014. Colfer's other work includes the YA novel Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal, which was made into a film starring the author himself.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

The Dragon's Lair

The Dragon's Lair
by Elizabeth Haydon
Recommended Ages: 12+

The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme, allegedly discovered in an archeological dig and reconstructed by an expert scholar, relate the experiences of a young explorer in a long-ago world full of magical races, objects, and stories. In this third book, following The Floating Island and The Thief Queen's Daughter, Ven and his friends flee from the frying pan to the fire. By "frying pan" I mean the Inner Market, walled up inside the Gated City, walled up inside the seaport of Kingston, where the Thief Queen has just been cheated of her prey. By "fire" I mean, well, fire. A dragon's fire.

Tipped off that Felonia is out for revenge, and threatened by an unkindness of ravens (such an apt word), Ven collects his human friends Clem and Char, pickpocket extraordinaire Ida No, his merrow friend Amariel, and the quiet little Gwadd girl Saeli, in the back of a produce cart driven by a Lirin forester named Tuck. Together this diverse group will answer a riddle put by the River King, investigate the disappearance of Saeli's people, intervene in a war brewing between the Lirin and Ven's Nain folk, and—if they survive that far—ask a dragon named Scarnag why he has made himself the scourge of the countryside. And they'd better hurry, because Amariel has one turn of the moon to get back to the sea, or she will be stuck with legs instead of tailfins.

Ven's relationship with his friends hits a rough spot in this installment. He had hoped his friends from Mrs. Snodgrass's wayside inn would get along with the merrow girl who once saved him from drowning. But the suspicion between the merrow and the others is heightened by clashes between such strong personalities as Ida and Amariel. By trying to protect the secret of Amariel's true nature, Ven just makes things worse. When his party finds itself pinned between the arrows of the elvish Lirin and the crossbow bolts of the dwarvish Nain, the situation is about as bad as it can get. Yet Ven moves forward with courage, determination, and above all, curiosity. He obtains treasures no one would have believed he could get, and the greatest of these treasures is a magical story of betrayed loyalty, bitterness, and sorrow. And he both learns and teaches a lesson about the power of forgiveness.

Elizabeth Haydon, whose C.V. lists "advanced degrees in Nain Studies from Arcana College and in Lirin History from the University of Rigamarole," informs us that the manuscript suddenly ends at the conclusion of this tale—just when Ven and his friends are about to start a new adventure. Fortunately, it seems her team of archaeologists dug up another journal, because a fourth book, The Tree of Water, arrives in bookstores in October 2014. I've received an Advance Reader Copy of it, which is why I've been in such a rush to catch up with the series, squeezing the latest two books into a week when I'm packing to move houses. I absolutely have to return this book to the library, post haste. But I'm not in such a hurry that I would skip over the two "Endnotes from the Documentarian" and the Acknowledgements, all of which are entertaining and full of clues. For more fantasy novels set in Ven's universe, check out her Symphony of Ages series, whose seventh book came out in June 2014.

Sky Raiders

Sky Raiders
by Brandon Mull
Recommended Ages: 11+

When Cole and his sixth-grader friends troop down the basement steps to view a spooky, Halloween house of horrors, they're more worried about whether they're too old to go trick-or-treating than about being kidnapped. But the basement is already nearly full of caged kids waiting to be forced down a ladder in the floor. Cole manages to hide until everybody has gone down the hole, wondering how anyone could think of getting away with kidnapping so many kids at once. Then he follows them. His plan is just to find out where the kids are being taken, so he can report back to the police. But the hole in the basement floor proves to be a portal to another world—and it's a one-way trip.

Cole arrives in the Outskirts. It's a world where magic, or something like it, is possible. It's a world where slavery is permitted. Cole's friends have been captured by a team of slavers, and are being hauled to market. Some of them are to be delivered to the High King, who is interested in kids with Shaping potential; which is basically Outskirts lingo for magic. Before he can free them, Cole is betrayed, snatched, marked as a slave, and sold to the sky raiders. These folks literally live on the edge of the world, and plunder the castles that float by on clouds. It's a dangerous job. Average life expectancy is measured in weeks. Cole will have the especially deadly job of scout, until he has flown fifty missions—if he lives that long. All he really wants to do, though, is escape so he can find his friends.

Raiding the castles is tough work, and not just because of the risk of falling into a bottomless pit. The brink is bounded by cloud walls, from which the castles emerge and into which they disappear every day. Nothing that goes into these cloud walls ever comes out again. The castles themselves are inhabited by semblances, more or less conscious temporary illusions of life. Some of them are people who can be reasoned with. Some of them are dangerous guardians. Tricks and traps await the unwary. For those who survive, the castles offer treasures, weapons, and enchanted objects to make the risk worthwhile. Cole doesn't get much training. To make his fifty missions count, he has to bring back something to show for them—even if it means running from a giant cross between a scorpion and a centipede. His best chance is a sword that tugs him wherever he points it, a cloak that makes semblances do what he says.

Cole has just started to prove his courage when the slave girl Mira, toward whom he feels protective, finds herself in trouble. The High King wants her, and he considers her capture important enough to send four hundred legionnaires. Mira's secret turns out to be even bigger than knowing that the High King murdered his five daughters. She actually is one of the daughters, secretly imprisoned for decades, and kept eleven years old all this time by the fact that her shaping powers have been stolen. As soon as Cole, Mira, and a couple other young sky raiders run away together, they have a whole army after them and a strange, deadly, unpredictable world of magic to hide in. Before they can get away, they must reunite Mira with her rampaging powers, entrust themselves to new allies, brave forests haunted by fiendish monsters, and learn not to drive each other crazy.

These kids argue a lot. Sometimes their arguments grow repetitive. The clash between their personalities is ripe for conflict, which could work in favor of an ongoing series, but in this case it doesn't achieve much other than making the reader squirm in his seat. Some of the characters introduced in this book will be fun to watch for a while to come, such as Liam, the super-powerful shaper who can't take anything seriously, and Lyris the semblance-knight, who wants above all to test his courage. I may be misspelling his name, since I enjoyed the audio version read by the kid-friendly voice of Keith Nobbs. I don't think it was his fault, or my imagination, that this book seemed heavy on talk and light on action. Apart from some thrilling scenes, mostly early in the book, and swaths of amazing imagery and atmospheric suspense, my overall impression of the book was that it suffered from too much bickering between four kids sharing an automated transport. Also, Cole's role in saving the day, while important, isn't really central in the end.

The Outskirts is an interesting new world, full of dangers and wonderful, magical possibilities. But the Five Kingdoms series, starting in this book, has a way to go before it can match the energy and enchantment of the author's other titles. These include the fabulous Fablehaven quintet, the Beyonders trilogy, and two Candy Shop War books, most of which I have enjoyed and admired. I'm only two books away from having read everything in these series, and I don't plan to quit just because I found this book not quite up to their level. A lot will depend on Book 2, The Rogue Knight, to be released in November 2014.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Album for the Mature 8

I'm sure this blog has engendered no fanboys. If it had, I would probably hear from them that this post is all wrong, starting with the title. As I write this, the latest entry on my thread of piano albums is "Album for the Mature 6." The reason I'm skipping Album #7 is that I have already started, and saved as a draft, a review of another piano album. It's been parked in drafts for a while, actually. That's the trouble with having a blog that's about lots of things. Planned articles often fall into the cracks.

Another thing wrong with this post is that it's about J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (hereafter WTC), which I have already discussed somewhat. Twice, even. But it's one of those topics that, for me at least, never gets old. And besides, I haven't even nearly done it justice. In my essay on whether Bach wrote an Album for the Young, I only gave a brief, general description of the WTC as a whole, whereas other "Albums" for the young and the mature have gotten a full, piece-by-piece treatment. And while I gave more consideration to the tonal scheme of the WTC in my article on how many major and minor keys there are, I didn't say half a word about the music itself.

Is this an Album for the Young or an Album for the Mature? Answer: Yes. There are pieces in the WTC that I started playing, at least in a simplified arrangement, at quite an early age. By my teens I was playing carefully selected numbers from it. In college, I prepared one of the preludes and fugues for a recital. I've been living with the two books of the WTC long enough to own two editions of it. There is the cheap, not very reliable edition that I started with, and that I keep with my "manuals only" organ books at the church I currently serve as worship accompanist (because their instrument does not have a pedal board). And there is the Henle Urtext edition, which I have collected volume by volume until I have almost all of Bach's non-organ keyboard works in it, and which has altogether spoiled the other edition for me.

How important are these two books of Preludes and Fugues? Let me try to express their importance to me by means of an illustration. I am well along in the process of packing everything I own to move from St. Louis to another city. All but two of my piano albums are packed in cardboard boxes, held shut by cellophane tape. For this last week before I move, I am cut off from Handel, Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich, and all the rest. Even most of my Bach collection is tucked in for the duration. No French Suites, English Suites, or Partitas for the next little while. No Inventions, Sinfonias, or Toccatas. No Goldberg Variations, even. What did I keep out, to be packed up in my personal luggage at the last moment before I leave? What was the bare minimum of that I needed to be able to play? Guess. Hint: One of them has "Teil I" under the title, and the other says "Teil II." That's German for Part 1 and Part 2.

Don't bother asking what one piano album I would want with me, if I could have only one (and an instrument to play), during a long period stranded on a desert island, or in a bunker below a post-nuclear wasteland, or in a space capsule bound for Proxima Centauri. You already have your answer: The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach.

At the risk of repeating what little I have told you about these books in my previous posts, here is what they're about. Bach wrote these two books, each containing a Prelude and a Fugue in each of the twelve major and the twelve minor keys, to celebrate the invention of a system for tuning musical instruments that made it possible to play decent-sounding music in all of those keys. You see, there is more than one way to divvy up the twelve musical tones within an octave. The now popular system of "equal temperament," which assigns evenly-spaced numbers of Herzes to each pitch, is only a recent development and wasn't the one Bach's title referred to. Older systems of temperament, however, made some of the theoretically available major and minor keys unusable in practice. Because each "half step" or "whole step" interval wasn't exactly equal, some keys sounded more agreeable than others. Some keys, in the tuning systems customarily used up to Bach's time, sounded downright obnoxious.

So what Bach meant by "well-tempered" was an instrument tuned in such a way that every possible major and minor key sounded "in tune," within an acceptable margin of error. Believe it or not, such systems of temperament were, and in some circles still are, controversial. Instead of some keys sounding really good and others sounding grotesque, all keys now sounded about equal, but just a wee bit off. It wasn't ideal. But it made possible, for the first time, a realistic keyboard technique running the full range of sharps and flats. For more information on this issue, I recommend this book. Rather than belabor it further, let's just take it as read that the title of these books has to do with this remarkable new tuning system, which the contents demonstrate by taking a Preludes-and-Fugues tour through all 24 major and minor keys. Twice.

Perhaps by accident, or perhaps just because we're talking about J. S. Bach, these pieces also happen to be consistently marked by the highest standard of craftmanship. They explore a vast range of moods, styles, and textures—practically a compendium of what could then be done on a keyboard instrument. They are masterpieces of form, style, and expression. They are deeply intelligent pieces of music, yet at the same time are full of passionate feelings and splashes of beauty that defy analysis. I bear witness, from personal experience, that a fearless pianist with moderately good technique and note-reading ability—or even a pianist with only one or two of these qualifications, assisted by a love for the art of music—can play pieces from these books every day for decades without growing tired of them. One constantly finds new facets in them, new food for thought, new delights that cannot be described in words. These pieces constantly reward the pianist fortunate enough to hear them, feel his hands running over them, and meditate on them. They open a pathway through which today's musician can sit at the feet of the master who died in 1750, and be taught by his genius. And as one becomes increasingly proficient in playing them, it is comforting to think one is sending these pieces spinning out into the cosmos, doing their part to correct all that is wrong with the universe.

Before we talk about the pieces individually, let's talk about the concept of the Prelude and Fugue.

"Prelude" (Praeludium in Bach's original text) is a pretty generic title for a piece of music. It doesn't really describe anything about it, except the expectation that it will be followed by something else. There are a lot of Preludes and Fugues among Bach's organ works. The English Suites and Partitas all begin with a movement titled "Prelude," often the longest, most serious, and most intricately structured piece in the suite. Then consider: the original title of each of the fifteen two-part Inventions was Preambulum, which is closely related to the concept of the Prelude; and none of these pieces were specifically meant to go "before" anything else. Many of Bach's organ works were Chorale Preludes, which is to say, self-standing pieces of music arranged around the framework of a hymn tune, or chorale. Insofar as they were conceived as an introduction to the tune, to be played before singing the hymn, the word "Prelude" makes some literal sense; but it didn't have to be played before the hymn to be regarded as a Prelude. To be fair, the term Chorale Prelude is an English-language gloss on the German term Choralbearbeitung, which literally means "Chorale Setting." So my analysis isn't definitive. But as far as what gives the WTC Preludes their "preludishness," it needn't be merely an introductory flourish, or a musical clearing of the throat, before the seriousness of the Fugue. The Prelude could be as large-scale, as contrapuntally sophisticated, as dramatically expressive, and as structurally significant as the fugue itself. Ideally, the two movements formed an equal balance.

The Prelude could, in theory, be just a short piece establishing the tonality (home key) of the fugue. Some of the Preludes to Handel's keyboard suites, for example, fit exactly that description; often Handel's preludes weren't even fully written out, but only sketched in such a way that a musician of Handelian skill could improvise an effective "realization" of the score. But in Bach's suites, as in the WTC, the Prelude was nearly always a major work in itself, fully realized, and following through on a complete musical argument. Sometimes it was a free-form piece, starting in the tonic key, moving through other harmonic areas, and firmly reasserting the tonic before the end. Sometimes it was a binary form, with repeat-signs at the end of the first section (ending either in the dominant key, or in some minor-key cases the relative major) and again at the very end (beginning the repeat at the start of the second section). A couple of the WTC Preludes are practically fugues in their own right.

"Fugue" (Fuga in Bach's score) designates a very special style of imitative counterpoint. What's that? "Counterpoint" is a musical texture in which different melody-lines, or voices, move around independently. Think of this as opposed to one melody line being supported by generic background patterns, or all the voices moving together from one chord to another. Counterpoint is "imitative" when each voice uses similar melodic material at different times, and in different ranges of pitch. If you pay attention to a piece of imitative counterpoint, you should recognize the same melody, or something like it, coming in first in the top voice, then in the next voice down, then in the bottom voice, etc., or in whatever order. Some pieces of imitative counterpoint will have the voices chasing each other with a whole succession of musical ideas. The style of imitative counterpoint known as "Fugue" makes use of the same musical subject, give or take some obvious permutations of it, from one end of a piece to the other. Sometimes there may also be a second and even a third subject, coming in at later stages of the piece; and sometimes there will be a countersubject, accompanying every entrance of the subject; but these will only add to the richness of the treatment of the main subject, combining with it in various ways.

You may see some common landmarks go by during your journey through any given fugue. The first thing you will see is an initial entry group, in which each voice comes in, one at a time, with either the subject or an "answer" to the subject. The answer is an altered but still recognizable version of the subject, with one or more intervals changed to lead back to the next statement of the subject. Statements of the subject and/or answer, at least within the initial entry group, will tend to alternate between the tonic key and the dominant (the key based on the fifth note of the tonic scale). They will alternate, tonic-dominant-tonic, etc., until all voices have entered, whether there are two, three, four, or five voices in play. (Because the WTC is meant to be playable by keyboard soloists with an average of ten fingers, none of the fugues have more than five voices. Given other instruments or singers, the number of voices in a fugue is limited only by the composer's ingenuity.) After the initial entry group there may be several other entry groups, separated by more or less unrelated "episode" material. The other entry groups will use the same subject material, and perhaps additional subjects, to explore other key areas. The piece will end after a final entry or group of entries brings the music back to the original tonality.

Besides the "answer," discussed above, one may see, hear, and play many other kinds of permutations of the subject. Motives, or thematic fragments, may be broken off the subject and used to bring a sense of unity to the otherwise loosey-goosey episodes. The subject may be inverted, or flipped upside-down, so that its upward intervals move downward and vice versa. It may be turned retrograde, or back-to-front, with the same intervals played in reverse order. A retrograde inversion is also a possibility, though often harder to recognize. The subject may be played against itself at two different speeds, either by augmentation (when the new speed is slower than the original) or diminution (when it's faster than the original). And very often, a fugue may climax in a stretto, which means "speeding up"—or, in the context of the fugue, bringing in the overlapping entries of the subject sooner than expected, so that it seems to be in a rush and interrupts itself. This is a good way to build tension, and one of the key selling-points of a fugue is the sense of drama inherent in the form. Who knew? The fugue isn't just an exercise for the intellect. It is also, and indeed primarily, an outlet for dramatic expression.

Some fugues are very rigorous. This means that, if you analyze them closely, you will find a high population density of subject or answer entries, including stretti, inversions, augmentations, and whatnot. They don't have to be very rigorous, though. Some very dramatically effective and beautiful fugues only have the minimum allowance of subject entries, or thereabouts. So as we move ahead into describing the 48 Preludes and Fugues of the WTC, you can expect me to remark now and again on whether or not a fugue is particularly rigorous.

And now we get to Book 1, BWV 846-869, which begins under the full title: "Das wohltemperirte Clavier oder Praeludia und Fugen durch alle Tone und Semitonia." This practically translates itself as, "The Well-Tempered Clavier [keyboard instrument], or Preludes and Fugues through all Tones and Semitones." By "tones and semitones," I think Bach means all the black and white keys.

Prelude 1 starts us off as white as can be, with the no-sharps-or-flats key of C major. This is the famous prelude whose rolling pattern of broken chords (arpeggios, in musical lingo) was adapted by Charles Gounod, with the addition of a measure or two, as the accompaniment of his setting of "Ave Maria." It isn't the only piece in this album that has been sampled by later musicians. I guess you can call it an homage. This piece could probably be transcribed very easily for guitar or harp. In fact, I have an upstairs neighbor who, unless my ears deceive me, has been trying to learn to play this piece on the harp. God bless her. If she has to listen to me play Bach all the time, she is entitled to her revenge.

Fugue 1 in C major (4 voices) is a nice, bright, friendly-sounding example of a rigorous stretto fugue. In 27 bars, I count 24 entries of the subject, plus a few false entries (i.e., little fragments of the subject that fake you out before trailing off into filler material). The stretti begin quite early in the fugue. Though the subject is a measure and a half long, entries #5 and 6 overlap each other at a remove of only one beat. Something like this happens again two bars later, then at the end of the very next bar, then again and again throughout the piece, with different voices duetting off each other in a grab-bag of textural combinations. With the subject coming at you from all directions, nearly all of the time, you might worry about not being able to recognize it. Put that worry aside. The subject has a very distinctive shape and rhythmic pattern that will stick right out of the texture for you.

Prelude 2 in C minor (3 flats) is a good piece to show musically-declined people when you want to impress them. They'll look at the two pages of almost unbroken runs of sixteenth-notes, in both hands, and gape at you as if astonished: "You're really going to play that?!" Once you've read through it a few times, you become familiar with a machinelike pattern that makes it surprisingly easy, though it sounds very dramatic and passionate. The drama is heightened by changes of tempo toward the end.

Fugue 2 in C minor (3 voices) is the other side of the irony, or paradox, or whatever you want to call it, that a fugue that sounds so serious to the ears, and that feels so convoluted to the hands, turns out to be not at all rigorous on paper. If the C major fugue's charm belies a subject-dense, stretto-fugue structure, the C-minor fugue's histrionics conceal a lightly argued structure in which the subject surfaces only eight times in 31 bars. Part of the reason the entries are so spread out is that the subject is all of two bars long and does not lend itself to stretto. Also contributing to its sparseness of subject entries is the considerable space given to episode material, mainly sequences based on fragments of the subject.

Prelude 3 is a dazzlingly bright, quick piece in 3/8 time, in the tricky key of C# major (7 sharps). It will help you brush up your double-sharps, to say nothing of remembering that E#=F and B#=C. Once you've wrapped your head around the key-signature, playing it is a cinch. It's technically a breeze. If you're desperate to run through it without a big struggle, and if four or more sharps in the key signature makes you sweat bullets, you may transpose it on sight to C major by changing the sharps into naturals, the double-sharps into sharps, and the naturals into flats; but in my opinion, the resulting piece would be a shade duller than the key it is written in. You could also try transcribing it into D-flat (5 flats) while playing exactly the same keys. Some non-Urtext editions probably do this for you. But again, I suspect that the results would sound different. This is something to work on. Don't be afraid. It's worth it.

Fugue 3 in C# major (3 voices) is why it's worth it. While the prelude is light and playful, this piece has an emotional depth and a richness of harmonic color that can only be the result of a man of genius rising to the challenge of writing music in a previously unheard-of key. It's a relatively long fugue for this album: four pages in the Urtext edition, 55 bars. Again, it's not particularly rigorous. The two-bar-long subject, recognizable by several leaps as wide as the interval of a sixth, only makes about 12 bona fide entries. The remaining passages, including a dry spell almost a page in length, are filled with false entries and episode material based on motives from the subject.

Prelude 4 in C# minor (4 sharps) is a dramatic dialogue between the soprano and tenor lines, tarted up with rolled chords, grace notes, embellishments, and more of the exquisite harmony that makes C-sharp minor one of my favorite keys. Another good reason is Fugue 4 (in 5 voices), a magnificent four-page, 115-bar, double stretto fugue. You already know what I mean by "stretto fugue," thanks to Fugue 1. By "double fugue," I mean that it has two separate subjects which, although they often overlap each other, are introduced at different times and are sometimes spotlighted on their own. By the time Subject B makes its first appearance in bar 49, Subject A has entered the argument at least 14 times. The final score, unless my reckoning is off, is 28 entries of A vs. 36 entries of B. This includes some pretty thick stretti, and at least one instance where two entries of Subject B occur simultaneously, in parallel thirds. All this is in addition to a pattern of running eighth-notes that almost comes across as a countersubject. The five-voice texture makes it a handful, and an earful, and a brainful. But the final resolution after the intense climax is, for my money, one of the most beautiful harmonic and dramatic payoffs in music history.

Prelude 5
in D major (2 sharps) is a demonstration of the amazing Baroque-music technique of Single Voice Counterpoint. Over a simple, detached left-hand part that does little more than lay down a bass line, the right-hand part looks like little more than an endless run of sixteenth-notes. When you listen to it, however, you realize that you are hearing a dialogue between two characters, delivering their lines with comic timing so that their voices overlap at the beginning and end of each remark. It's like Abbot and Costello at the opera, only with your fingers playing both roles. The addition of a pedal note (a long, low A in the left hand) signals the denouement of the set piece, and the last few bars serve as a sort of orchestral flourish punctuating the final punchline.

Fugue 5 (4 voices) is a deceptively non-rigorous fugue, based on a subject that begins with a finger-twisting challenge: a one-beat run of 32nd-notes, followed by a pattern of dotted eighths and sixteenths. Shostakovich's Fugue in G major, from his set of Preludes and Fugues, seems to have been inspired by this idea. Anyway, it's a good exercise for independence and agility in both hands. And the considerable number of false entries means you will have lots of chances to work on that 32nd-note pattern, even though I can only identify eleven authentic subject entries in this piece.

Prelude 6 in D minor (1 flat) is a right-hand exercise in triplet sixteenth-notes, set against an eighth-note throb in the left hand. For all its usefulness in building right-hand technique, it is also a dramatically effective piece. Fugue 6 (3 voices) takes the study of finger independence even further, with a subject that includes a staccato note and a trill. It also has the interesting twist of inverted entries of the subject; i.e. the same melodic shape, only turned upside down. And then there are stretti involving entries of the original subject overlapping with its inversion!

Prelude 7 in E-flat major (3 flats) is a four-page-long, toccata-like number. This is to say, it divides itself into several distinct sections, rather than following through on one basic idea from start to finish. First there is an introduction in which the two hands converse in alternating runs of sixteenth notes, concluding in a flurry of 32nd-notes. Then, in longer note values, something resembling a fugue subject appears, engaging all four voices in an increasingly intricate contrapuntal texture, full of harmonic suspensions. After a few bars of this, something like a second subject is added, based on the sixteenth-note patterns at the opening of the prelude. The remainder of the piece explores this loosely double-fugue-like argument so thoroughly that you may be surprise to find that Fugue 7 hasn't even begun yet. In 3 voices, the fugue is one of the sweetest and most radiant pieces in this book, allowing the performer to practice his or her arpeggios in a painless and delightfully rewarding way.

Prelude 8 in E-flat minor (6 flats) is a somewhat recitative-like piece, with an expressive melody accompanied by little more than rolling chords on the strong beats of each bar. Again, Bach seems to take the unusual key-signature as license to try some of his most daring harmonic moves. Fugue 8 (3 voices) flips over to the enharmonically equivalent key of D-sharp minor (six sharps), proving that six of one really is a half-dozen of the other. The three-bar-long subject, full of passionate melodic yearning, would ordinarily ensure a straight-forward, non-rigorous fugue in which the drama is generated by harmonic tension and relaxation. While that is indeed there, it proves to be an amazingly rigorous fugue featuring stretto, inversion, and augmentation. In addition to these textbook methods of tinkering with the subject, Bach tried some unorthodox methods, such as changing the rhythm of the phrase and building a stretto using an abbreviated form of the subject, all while filling four pages (87 bars) with some of his most striking harmonies.

Prelude 9 in E major (4 sharps) is a nice rounded-binary melody with a little chromatic-scale surprise at the end of both sections. For you music newbies, that's a bit where the melody moves by half-steps, hitting all the white and black notes within a given range. The effect is most unusual. Fugue 9 (3 voices) is an energetic number with a pattern of sixteenth-notes running through it like a motor. It's another piece that makes effective use of suspensions, that harmonic device in which (to over-simplify it) two voices move against each other, taking turns pulling in and out of a stable harmony, like two people running a three-legged race together. It's a handy way to create and release musical tension.

Prelude 10 in E minor (1 sharp) is a left-hand exercise in running sixteenths, keeping up a constant nervous patter while the right hand plays a slow decorated melody with little separated chords in the middle parts. It's a pretty long prelude, but before it quite gets boring, the tempo changes to "Presto" and both voices take off in a flash of sixteenths. Fugue 10 is the WTC's only two-voice fugue, with a subject that combines a broken triad with a chromatic, wedge-shaped, single-voice-counterpoint figure in running sixteenth-notes. It buzzes along briskly like two insects doing a courtship dance around each other, and ends with a humorous twist.

Prelude 11 in F major (1 flat) is a little bit like one of the Inventions, with two voices swapping material back and forth. It's not strictly a two-voice piece, though, and there are some good opportunities to practice trills in it. Fugue 11 (3 voices) has a subject similar to one of Rimsky-Korsakov's fugues, though to be sure Bach had it first. It's a bright, cheerful piece, and a good fingering exercise besides.

Prelude 12 in F minor (4 flats) is a very expressive piece, rich in the interplay between voices. Fugue 12 (4 voices) is another long one, 58 bars, four pages in the Urtext. Its three-bar-long subject is slow and torturously chromatic, and it comes with a somewhat more energetic countersubject that adds to the tonal uncertainty. The episodes come across as moments of relaxation between the entry groups with their anxious intensity.

Prelude 13 in F# major (6 sharps) is another piece, like Prelude 3, whose light, bright, touching beauty seems specially designed to reward you for mastering a key signature with an E-sharp in it, to say nothing of accidental B-sharps and various double-sharps. The left hand lays down the beat, and the right hand tries to pull against it. It's really nifty. Fugue 13 (3 voices) exercises some of the same note-reading skills, while adding an expressive repeated-note countermelody that upstages the formal subject.

Prelude 14 in F# minor (3 sharps) is a witty piece that makes me feel grateful to whomever invented the system of temperament that permitted Bach to write in this key. It really captures in a nutshell everything that makes F-sharp minor a fun key to play in. The accidental E-sharps and B-sharps feel natural (no pun intended). The running-sixteenth-note melody, passing from one voice to the other, combines a major key's fun sense of play with a minor key's range of interesting harmonic colors. And at one point, the piece motivates you to work out how to play a widely spaced chord with one hand. Fugue 14 (4 voices) is another member of the type of fugue with a long (three bars), chromatic subject. It keeps changing its mind about whether it wants this or that note to be sharp, which lends the entire fugue an air of strangeness and uncertainty. Again there is a countermelody with throbbing, repeated notes, only now in a more drooping, descending pattern. The subject has an interesting rhythm that suggests acceleration, or growing agitation. For some reason, I tend to find myself playing this piece more and more loudly, ending with a sound of satisfying fullness.

Prelude 15 in G major (1 sharp) hits the eye right away with an unusual key signature: 24/16 in the right hand, against 4/4 in the right. This represents typical Baroque composer laziness, where essentially the idea is to have steady eighths in one part and triplet sixteenths in the other. But instead of writing a bunch of little 3's over the sixteenths, or dotting the eighths, he just leaves it up to you to keep the note values straight. Chances are good, however, that you won't even notice this oddity while you belt back this tart, bubbly concoction. It fizzes along at a rapid rate, glittering with arpeggiated chords, spots of single-voice counterpoint, and tricky runs with repeated-notes requiring rapid finger substitutions. The three-voice Fugue 15, which also has a subject that Rimsky-Korsakov recycled in one of his fugues, charges forward at a similarly zippy pace. Between and among entries of its four-bar subject, it fills out its texture with scale runs set off against the type of single-voice counterpoint where alternating notes basically outline members of a chord. The subject undergoes inversion and stretto, but for once it is the entry groups that seem like the moments of relaxation between the sound and fury of the episodes.

Prelude 16
in G minor (2 flats) is the one whose opening you will recognize by the measure-long trill in the right hand. Such trills occur several times in the piece, making good practice for controlling and balancing sustained trills against other moving parts. Elsewhere, the piece is a dialogue between its voices, featuring rhythms alternating between sixteenth- and 32nd-notes. Fugue 16 (4 voices) is the technically demanding "My dog has fleas, but I don't give a damn" fugue, a fairly rigorous, stretto-fraught number that may make you wish you had been born with three hands, or at least six fingers on each hand.

Prelude 17 in A-flat major (4 flats) demonstrates a technique called double counterpoint. This means, roughly, that the melody line in the right hand swaps material with the left-hand part, proving that the counterpoint works equally well either way. It's a warm, charming piece whose inner workings are deceptively sophisticated. Fugue 17 (4 voices) has a subject based on broken chords. Contrapuntally straightforward, with no special fugal techniques, it is nevertheless a very effective piece, taking one on a far-reaching harmonic adventure.

Prelude 18 is in G-sharp minor (5 sharps), the easier-to-play enharmonic equivalent of A-flat minor (7 flats). For all that five sharps are less than seven flats, you still have to live with the ever-present fact of G-double-sharp, among other tricky accidentals. The piece encourages you along with the transparent logic of a three-part Sinfonia. Fugue 18 (4 voices) has a two-bar-long subject that combines a variety of motives, including a repeated-note figure that likes to be set off against detached chords in the other voices. Again, the unusual key-signature seems to bring out the harmonic genius of Bach in a very special way.

Prelude 19 in A major (3 sharps) is a somewhat chromatic piece in triple counterpoint; which, by analogy to double counterpoint, you should be able to understand as a piece in which all three voices swap material without any harm to the overall effect. And the overall effect is a pleasant piece with a slight tinge of melancholy. Fugue 19 (3 voices) is a four-page double fugue, which (as I hope you'll recall) means it introduces two distinct subjects, one after another. The first subject is a single eighth note, followed by three eighth-rests, followed in turn by a pattern of ascending intervals of a fourth, mainly in eighth-note rhythms. After a page and a half of this, Bach introduces a second subject in running sixteenths. Typically the solution is two parts Subject A to one part Subject B, but towards the end of the fugue there is another passage where the first subject goes it alone. The second subject returns for just a couple of entries right at the end.

Prelude 20 in A minor (no sharps or flats) is mostly a two-voice phenomenon, with some double counterpoint in it and a sense of troubled, abstract meditation. Fugue 20 (4 voices) weighs in at six pages, 87 bars of dense counterpoint based on a three-bar subject that breaks into two distinct segments. In spite of its hand-stretching, finger-twisting difficulty, it is one of my favorite pieces to play in this book, so thoroughly does it canvas the variety of effects that such a fugue can create. The subject undergoes inversion and stretto. It reaches a tremendous climax, signaled by a six-note chord held under a fermata, followed by a general pause, and ends over a long pedal-point in which the term "pedal" is no joke. I almost don't know how a mortal human being can play the final bars without either growing a third hand, or using the pedal-board of an organ. It might just be possible with the aid of that little-used middle pedal on the piano!

Prelude 21 in B-flat major (2 flats) is a little virtuoso showpiece with 32nd-note flourishes and runs. Believe it or not, yours truly played it as a recital piece in college, along with Fugue 21 (3 voices). The latter is a quick little number. It starts off with a four-bar subject that encompasses two wide leaps and a stream of sixteenth-notes that seems to flow in circles. As each successive voice comes in, it becomes evident that the piece has not one but two countersubjects, which is to say, it's written in triple counterpoint. No matter which bit of melody is on top, the other two strains are invariably under it somewhere, creating not only interesting fingering challenges for the pianist but also a scintillating variety of harmonic effects.

Prelude 22 in B-flat minor (5 flats) is another piece of the type that climaxes dramatically with a huge chord, held under a fermata and followed by a general rest. This particular chord has nine notes in it, which should say something about the richness and strength of the mood Bach is expressing here. It's one of the few minor-key pieces in this book that, in my opinion, could really be interpreted in a tragic light. Fugue 22 (5 voices) has a subject dominated by a descending interval of a fourth, followed by a wide upward leap of a ninth; in the answer, these become a fifth and a tenth respectively. It actually becomes a challenge to follow the separate voices and to pick out all the entries in what proves to be a tremendously rigorous stretto fugue. I used this pair of pieces for the final project in my orchestration class in college, and actually got a chance to conduct a reading of it with the university orchestra—the only time I have ever conducted an orchestra!

Prelude 23 in B major (5 sharps) is a nice, carefree piece, at least once you learn to unclench at the sight of E-sharps and F-double-sharps. Fugue 23 (4 voices) has a charming two-bar subject, and develops it in a straightforward fashion, with no fancy fugal techniques, apart from superb writing and sparkling charm. I had to sit down and play it just now, because it's probably the piece in this book I have played least often—not because it's especially difficult, or because I don't like it, but probably because I tend to flip the book open to somewhere close to the middle and pick something to play at random. It's simply too close to the end of the book to be picked often.

Prelude 24 in B minor (2 sharps) avoids that problem by being one of the first pieces in this book that I ever learned. Its left-hand part is an example of the "walking bass" type of accompaniment, often played by the cellist in solo arias, for example, in Bach's cantatas. The upper two voices form a duet, similar to the Violin I & II parts in a Baroque trio-sonata (another potential use for a walking bass). These two upper voices play off each other in a contest of suspensions, giving and taking moments of harmonic tension and relaxation. The repeat-signs at the midpoint and at the end make this one of the few preludes in Part I that fall very definitely into the rounded-binary form; more of these appear in Part II.

Fugue 24 in B minor (4 voices) is the six-page masterpiece that anchors the end of Book 1. The three-bar subject, in eighth-notes, is extremely chromatic: it actually comprises all twelve tones of the well-tempered system. The result is harmonically strange, tonally unstable, and emotionally tortured to a degree that must have seemed unusual in the heyday of the stile galant. Nevertheless, rays of consolation shine through, and the subject even tries on a happy, major-key face for a while. And when the piece finally concludes with a well-earned B-major chord, the composer's notation of "Fine. S.D.G." really seems meaningful, and not just a pious gesture. With these initials for the Latin phrase for "Glory be to God alone," Bach asserts that this book is a confession of grateful faith to the orderer of all things (including the gift of music), and an offering to Him of the first-fruits of a new musical system.

Then we turn to Book 2, BWV 870-893. I am not sure that this book necessarily represents later thoughts Bach had on how to use compose keyboard music for all the major and minor keys. Like Book 1, only perhaps more so, it contains pieces that are adapted from earlier works, or based on themes by other composers. But once again, Bach adapts them perfectly, and brings them to a level of perfection rarely paralleled in the annals of music. By itself, Book 1 of the WTC would be recognized as a great achievement of human art and culture. The existence of a second book in which the same master repeats the same feat is almost incredible.

Prelude 1 in C major makes up for the first book's C major prelude being a beginner's study in arpeggiated chords. Here is a piece with the grandeur to serve as the introduction to an entire volume of small-scale masterpieces. Its intricate counterpoint and wide-ranging harmonic journey foreshadow many things to come. Fugue 1 (3 voices) has a four-bar-long subject that, like many of Bach's longer fugue subjects, breaks into two segments: the first a strikingly distinctive turn of melody, the second a vanilla run of sixteenth-notes. In stark contrast to the corresponding fugue in Book 1, this is an exceedingly non-rigorous fugue, showcasing the possibilities of the keyboard with toccata-like bravura and dwelling more on episodes (using the first half of the subject to build sequences) than on subject entries, of which I spotted maybe eight in 83 bars.

Prelude 2 in C minor is mostly of the two-part Invention type, with two-voice double counterpoint and repeat signs at the mid-point and the end. You may notice that the journey to the first repeat-sign leads to the key of E-flat, which is the relative major of C minor. Starting to notice key relationships like this will help you develop your ability to make sense of these pieces, and to communicate that sense in your playing. Fugue 2 (4 voices) is a pretty rigorous fugue, putting its one-bar-long subject through at least 24 permutations in only 28 bars, including inversion, augmentation, and stretto, besides a couple of slightly varied entries.

Prelude 3 is once again in C# major. Although I've made this observation before, I still find it noteworthy that Bach would rather play in seven sharps than in five flats (as in the enharmonic key of D-flat). This piece is a mannered little harmonic study, comparable to the rolling-chord pattern of the C major prelude in Book 1, only with a four-voice texture and a repeated-note throb in the tenor line. The piece ends with a relatively long coda in a contrasting meter and tempo, breaking into three-voice imitative counterpoint, like a prelude with a built-in fughetta.

This doesn't take anything away from Fugue 3 (3 voices), whose subject consists of exactly four notes, and which nevertheless appears in a different guise for each of its three initial entries: the subject proper in the bass, the answer (with slightly altered intervals) in the treble, and the inversion of the subject in the middle voice. This sets the stage for an INSANE fugue. And when I say "insane," I mean conspiracy theorists should study it, because they might find even more hidden permutations of the subject than I do. The subject, as originally presented—do-mi-do-so in straight eighth-notes—only appears about four times, all within the first page of the fugue. The answer occurs some 14 times, as does the inversion. And that's not counting full or partial diminutions of both the answer and the inversion (changing at least some of the eighth-notes into sixteenths), each occurring several times; two augmented entries of the answer; one possible retrograde-inversion entry (albeit in diminution, and rhythmically displaced); a false entry or two; and several other possible variants, depending on how much alteration of the subject you can accept. It's mind-blowing. The number of permutations will probably be different for each listener, and perhaps each hearing of the piece.

Prelude 4 in C# minor is a relatively long (3 page), meditative piece in a deliberate, compound-triple time, slow enough to alow for lots of embellishment. The three voices weave together independent lines of an almost vocal quality, full of passionate meaning. Fugue 4 (3 voices), another three-page piece in a compound meter, moves along at a faster pace, like a dark jig. It isn't a very rigorous fugue—in fact, one episode goes on for most of a page—but the occasional inversion of the subject adds spice to the counterpoint. It's also another point of similarity to the gigues of Bach's suites, where he frequently used thematic inversion.

Oops. Wrong book!
Prelude 5 in D major is a four-page-long piece with a really energetic, fanfarelike character. The repeat-signs divide it into two asymmetrical sections, the second three times as long as the first. There are lots of striking features in it, such as hemiola (a sort of rhythmic wordplay in which groups of two pulses alternate with groups of three) and thematic inversion. It takes nimble fingers, but the fun of hearing it is worth the challenge of playing it.

Fugue 5 (4 voices) is likewise destined to be a crowd favorite. The fact that the episode material is a dense weave of references to the second half of the subject makes it sound three times as rigorous as it actually is, but with at least 23 full subject entries it's no slouch. Far from it: during each imitative episode, Bach seems to be catching his breath for his next fugal stunt, each more daring than the last. He starts with a two-entry stretto in bar 14, then another in bar 22. He dials it up to two full entries and a false entry, coming even closer together, at bar 27-28. Then he swings three full entries in bar 33, overlapping so tightly that they're practically on top of each other. Then after a false entry in bar 44, he delivers the ultimate stretto with four complete entries in as many beats. After that the fugue winds down with a glow of cocksure smugness, like a gymnast who has nailed all the hard parts of his routine with ten seconds to spare.

Prelude 6 in D minor pulls impressive effects out of such unimpressive means as the well-worn spinning-wheel figure of broken chords cycling up and down. The piece is a winning combination of textual variety and dramatic tonal design, with clever harmony and a couple strange-sounding bits where the fingers of both hands overlap each other. Fugue 6 (3 voices) belongs to the school of long subjects that split into two segments. The triplet-sixteenth rhythms of the first segment contrast interestingly with the straight-sixteenths that often accompany the second segment, which is also notable for its chromatically descending line. The effect is one of the more disturbing pieces of music in the set, full of rhythmic and tonal ambiguities.

Prelude 7 in E-flat major is a piece that reminds me, somewhat, of the Courantes from some of Bach's keyboard suites. With a sprightly, compound-triple rhythm, it challenges both hands to be at their nimblest, while rolling out a demonstration of textural variety. Fugue 7 (4 voices) sports one of the longest subjects seen so far in the WTC, with six bars of melody split into two segments of uneven length. The first two bars consist of a whole note, leaping up a fifth (or fourth in the answer) to a half-note. Then, after a quarter-rest, the subject continues with a two-phrase sequence—which means that both two-bar phrases have a similar melodic shape, but one is a step higher than the other. The result is one of the catchier fugues you are ever likely to hear. And though it is not an awfully rigorous fugue in number of entries, the structure of its subject lends itself nicely to stretto.

Prelude 8, unlike that of Book 1, is in D# minor rather than the enharmonic key of E-flat minor. It plays like a longish (three-page) Invention, with two contrapuntal voices and a pair of repeat-signs dividing it into two structural units. Fugue 8 (4 voices) is another three-pager, notable for its hesitant sounding subject, beginning with three repeated notes. The unexpected strength inherent in this subject appears later on: first when it appears in the bass, with detached chords in the upper voices; then when the subject and its inversion enter simultaneously at the end of the fugue.

Prelude 9 in E major is another movement of the trio-sonata type, with two intricately woven upper parts and a bass line that occasionally moves into the foreground. It also has repeat-signs accenting its tonal structure. Fugue 9 (4 voices) has a catchy five-note subject, lending itself to textures that really feel neat under the hands, and to rich harmonies. It's written in such a way that I am amazed nobody has put lyrics to it and turned it into a choral piece.

Prelude 10 in E minor is a tightly-written two-part Invention, with double counterpoint that turns a distinctive theme over and over in a variety of ways, including inversion. In four pages of music, divided in two by repeat-signs, some variant or fragment of the two-measure contrapuntal subject seems to be present almost continually; I count about 22 full entries in 108 bars.

Fugue 10 (3 voices) has an incredibly long subject, six bars with pickup, and one that has lots of different rhythmic and melodic things going on. It seems to divide into three or four segments: first a pair of triplet-eighths leading to a bar in which quarter notes alternate with groups of four sixteenths, then a broken triad of staccato quarter-notes, then a two-bar sequence with tied-across-the-barline quarter-notes and dotted-eighth rhythms, and finally two bars of triplet eighths. Once the voices begin piling on, the fugue reveals its potential for sudden contrasts, e.g. between groups of 3 and 4 pulses to a beat. Like a garden-path sentence that you have to re-read from the top to understand correctly, it forces you to reconsider your initial choice on how to interpret the dotted-eighth rhythms—as written, or as shorthand for a triplet figure? Other challenges in this four-page piece include two voices in the right-hand part that cross each other, and a sort of written-out cadenza at the end.

Prelude 11 in F major is a three-page piece that exercises your ability to keep four or five voices in play, with non-stop eighth-notes flowing through them from one voice to another, without getting your fingers tied in knots. Successfully playing it is a triumph of fingering technique. Fugue 11 (3 voices) has the seldom-seen time signature of 6/16, which suggests a delicately fast, floaty-dancy texture, not unlike a gigue. Its four-bar-long subject has a skirling, birdsong-like quality. And again, it makes its argument pretty thoroughly by the standards of the WTC, with 99 bars spread out over three pages.

Prelude 12 in F minor is one of the pieces I had in mind earlier when I mentioned pieces by Bach being sampled by later musicians. The 2005 hit song "They," by Welsh pop star Jem, sampled a 1960s Swingle Singers recording of this prelude, adding such lyrics as "I'm sorry, so sorry" to its distinctive melody. The result is a mind-worm that will never die. Played straight through, without lyrics, it's a deceptively easy piece that requires sensitive phrasing to have its full effect. The three-page Fugue 12 (3 voices) has a four-bar subject in 2/4 time, again dividing into two distinct segments: the first, featuring a pattern of three repeated eighth-notes, versus the second in running sixteenths. Watch for instances of the repeated eighths broken off as a separate motive. It's a dramatically intense piece.

Prelude 13 in F-sharp major is a three-page-long Invention, spotlighting dotted rhythms, sixteenth-note patterns that outline chords, and a wide-ranging exploration of harmony. Fugue 13 (3 voices) has, as is increasingly the case in Book 2, a long and multi-segmented subject. This one begins and ends with a trill, though its most memorable feature is an early turn towards a secondary tonal center. This guarantees four pages of poignantly interesting harmony.

Prelude 14 in F-sharp minor features a continuous flow of richly-accompanied, rhythmically complex melody. Its attractiveness and relative easiness, in terms of keyboard technique, seem at odds with its depth of expression, to say nothing of the challenging exercise in keeping different rhythmic groupings (such as 3 vs. 4) in balance. Fugue 14 (3 voices) is a four-page triple fugue with a similar emphasis on rhythmic variety. This emphasis appears right away in the three-bar-long first subject. In contrast the second subject, entering in bar 20, is four notes long, and has only a dotted rhythm to help it stick out of the texture. Then there's the third subject, entering at bar 36, comprising a four-beat pattern of sixteenth-notes with an eighth-note pickup. It really gets to be fun when all three subjects are coming in at the same time.

Prelude 15 in G major is sparkling, energetic musical game, divided into two sections by repeat-signs. Typically, while one part plays single-voice counterpoint in sixteenth-notes, a second voice duets with it in eighth-notes. So it sounds much more difficult than it really is. Fugue 16 (3 voices), elaborating on of a simpler fugue in (I believe) the Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, has a seven-bar-long subject in running sixteenth-notes that outline chords. The kind of triple counterpoint Bach uses in this piece reminds me of the B-flat major fugue in Book 1. The whole quick, happy, clean-cut fingering exercise leads to a 32nd-note flourish at the end.

Prelude 16 in G minor, with the tempo marking Largo, is an example of the "French overture" type of music often spotted in Baroque music, e.g. "Behold the Lamb of God" in Handel's Messiah. The slow tempo gives the performer license to embellish the music with as many trills, turns, and whatnot as he can tastefully manage. The multiple levels of dotted rhythm invite the player to apply some interpretive judgment, such as "over-dotting" the dotted-eighth figures, so that their sixteenth-notes synchronize with the 32nd-notes of the dotted-sixteenth figures simultaneously occurring in another voice. Fugue 16 (4 voices) has a long subject that begins with a three-bar, chord-outlining sequence. It then concludes with a full measure of eighth-notes repeating the same pitch. By embedding these repeated-note patterns in a four-voice fugue, Bach makes it hard to follow your orthodox piano teacher's rule of using finger substitutions when playing repeated notes. You just have to do your best to shape these patterns, say, with a crescendo and diminuendo. You'll have four pages of dramatic music to work it out.

Prelude 17 in A-flat major has a guitar-like thing going on. With its strummed chords and stretches of unaccompanied melody, it could easily have been inspired by music of a picked persuasion. When it's not strumming or soloing out, however, it forms a dialogue between two voices, full of rhythmic variety, harmonic depth, and sustained eloquence—four pages worth. Fugue 17 (4 voices), also four pages long, is jazzed up by a chromatic countersubject—meaning, a contrasting phrase, always accompanying a subject entry, in which the notes move by half-steps. Because A-flat is one one of those remote keys that didn't work too well before "well temperament" came along, it should not be surprising to see harmonies that challenge you with added flats, double-flats, natural-signs, and more accidentals than you can quickly process. This piece will take work.

Prelude 18 in G-sharp minor (again, the enharmonically-respelled key of A-flat minor) is a four-page piece divided into halves by repeat-signs. It's a poignantly expressive piece, touched by a jolt of nervous energy. Fugue 18 (3 voices) has a four-bar subject, comprising an ascending sequence of two-bar phrases. This leads to a relatively non-rigorous, four-page fugue in which the harmonic evolutions carry the weight of the drama.

Prelude 19 in A major is a three-voice Sinfonia type of composition, with a gigue-like theme treated in a triple-counterpoint texture that somehow manages to seem nice and transparent. Fugue 19 (3 voices) makes happy use of overlapping dotted-eighth-note rhythmic patterns to achieve clever and catchy effects.

Prelude 20 in A minor is a rigorous piece of double counterpoint in the tradition of the two-part Inventions. Split in two by repeat-signs, it is intensely chromatic and full of rhythmic energy. Fugue 20 (3 voices) is another whose subject is emphatically split into two segments, the second moving twice as fast as the first. It also has a counter-subject full of 32nd-note filigree and trills that will demand extra practice, especially when they occur in the middle voice. The piece ends with a veritable cascade of little notes.

Prelude 21 in B-flat major is another gigue-like piece, four pages long and divided in half by repeat-signs. Its technical challenges include hand-crossings and fistfuls of notes that flash by fast enough to leave your fingers panting by the roadside. Fugue 21 (3 voices) has a four-bar subject in running eighth-notes, comprising two sequences, one descending and the other ascending; the latter sequence features a bouncy repeated-note figure.

Prelude 22 in B-flat minor is twice as long and infinitely more free-form than its opposite number in Book 1, yet certain phrases in it have always struck me as quotations from the latter. Fugue 22 (4 voices) has a long subject which, judging by the rests in it, comprises four distinct segments. More importantly, these rests create interesting textural and rhythmic effects as different voices combine motives from the subject in a variety of ways. Oddly, for such a complicated subject, it also proves susceptible to stretto and inversion. The piece concludes with a grand stretto in which pairs of voices enter with the subject simultaneously, the second pair one beat behind and in inversion.

Prelude 23 in B major suffers from the same curse as its counterpart in Book 1: I hardly ever play it, because it's too close to the end of the book to be the page I randomly open to. It reminds me somewhat of a major-key version of Prelude 13, with a touch of Baroque vamping now and then. So I really don't regret the accidents of chance so much, in this case. Fugue 23 (4 voices), however, is a piece that I have sought out on purpose many times. It is one of my favorite fugues, full of brightness and nobility. It is also a double fugue, with a second subject entering at bar 28. Both B minor pieces in this book are three pages long.

Prelude 24 in B minor is mostly of the two-part Invention type, a very colorful and even playful piece given its minor key and contrapuntal rigor. It comes to an operatic climax, followed by a stirring coda. The whole set then ends with the three-page Fugue 24 (3 voices), whose six-bar-long subject includes octave leaps. This, in addition to a trill figure that migrates from one voice to another, makes for some pretty wild fingering challenges. Nevertheless, it's an easier read than the tortured colossus as the end of Book 1.

My remarks may have prejudiced you for or against trying certain of the pieces in Bach's almighty 48. I don't know how to correct this except to state that I have owned these books for many years now—longer than I have owned a piano. I started playing each of them when I chose, and not a day sooner; but eventually I had tried all 48 of them; or rather 96, since one may play a prelude with no obligation to its fugue, and vice versa. After many years I haven't just tried them all, but become thoroughly acquainted with them all. I play some less often than they deserve, and others more often than I suppose my upstairs neighbors can stand, but not because I feel less equal to playing some than others (with only a couple of exceptions). In contrast to the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, some of which I still cannot get through without agonizing quarter-hours of trial and error, and a few of which I frankly don't like, there isn't a piece in this book that I don't consider a dear friend. And it isn't because I'm a great talent, which I'm not; or because I have practiced the daylights out of them, which I haven't; it's all a matter of attitude. I don't just appreciate them as great art works, or respect them as an architectural wonder. I love them. Neither sharps nor flats, nor fugal rigor, can keep me away from them. No, not even tape and cardboard!

Saturday, July 19, 2014

The Thief Queen's Daughter

The Thief Queen's Daughter
by Elizabeth Haydon
Recommended Ages: 12+

In The Floating Island, we first met Ven Polypheme, an unusual specimen of the ancient Nain race. Unlike the typical Nain, whose idea of a good time is to dig ore out of a mountain's roots, Ven's family lives in a human city and specializes in building ships. Unlike other members of his large, practical family, Ven has the itchy feet of an explorer. And unlike practically anyone else in known history, Ven has survived an attack by the Fire Pirates. By the opening of this sequel, Ven has found his way to a wayside inn staffed by orphaned children. His friends include the cook's mate of a sailing ship, a pastor-in-training for a congregation of little people, a pickpocket named Ida No, and a quiet little Gwadd girl who shares her people's power to make things grow. These friends are ready to join Ven on his next adventure, when young King Vandemere sends him to the thieves' market to seek the origin of a mysterious, glowing stone.

You see, Vandemere has hired Ven to be his eyes and ears in the wide world, reporting on any real magic he may find. Only now, on a day when everything goes wrong, the king has also fired Ven. The young Nain is still resolved to go and find out what he can, even though the Gated City is such a dangerous place. This walled-off area within the port city of Kingston has long been home to charlatans, pickpockets, and worse. Visitors are only allowed once a week, on market days, and can only get in and out with the aid of tokens purchased at the gate. Anyone caught inside the Gated City's walls after the closing bell, will be stuck there at least until the next week's market day. And though some of the people who live there are decent folk, some are downright dangerous—especially within the keyhole-shaped gate that leads to the Inner Market, where the evil Thief Queen rules over her Raven Court.

When Ven and friends try their wits against Queen Felonia and her villains, trouble is bound to break out. And break out it does. First their most vulnerable companion disappears, stolen from under their noses. Then someone ransacks the shop of a weapons dealer who has shown them kindness. A scary fortune-teller lays a strange and perhaps costly gift on Ven, one he has no time to learn how to use just yet. And of course, the kids find themselves trapped between the Thief Queen and her hideous plans for her daughter. Only as they make their death-defying escape do they discover the good magic hidden within the walls of the bad city.

This is the second book in "The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme," a series that continues with The Dragon's Lair. A fourth book, titled The Tree of Water, will be published in October 2014. Elizabeth Haydon, whose dust-cover bio reads like the made-up credentials of a pseudonym like Lemony Snicket or Pseudonymous Bosch, is nevertheless also known for her (so far) seven-book "Symphony of Ages" series, running from Rhapsody: Child of Blood to her most recent title, The Merchant Emperor. In the present book, Haydon alternates between fragments from Ven's first-person journal and a third-person narrative that supposedly fills in the gaps. Is it original fiction or literary restoration? Answer: Yes. For in addition to her original characters and world-building, Haydon gives us lightly disguised retellings of such classic stories as Cinderella. Meanwhile, the tale-within-a-tale, explaining a certain Wonder revealed in this book, is a movingly beautiful imitation of traditional folklore. Ven's journey also includes a clever riddle and a valuable lesson about how to spot a true friend. And the young adventurers' thrilling escape reveals layer upon layer of danger and magic brooding beneath the surface of the Kingdom of Serendair.

57. Hymn for Christ-Centered Hymnody

Here is a hymn that may serve best as the dedicatory poem to a book of hymns.
O Christ, our theme of highest worth,
Make fit the praise of all the earth!
Whom we would laud on lowered knee,
Raise up a worthy hymnody!
Breathe into us a reverent song,
And hold it back from speaking wrong;
Help us to frame Thy praise aright!
Draw those who hear it to Thy light!

Lord of our song, we humbly pray,
Be all in all we do or say.
Make this our fundamental tone:
Salvation is of Thee alone;
Not of our works, which serve Thee ill,
But only by Thy gracious will.
This shall retune man's bitter din:
The sweeter strain of pardoned sin.

Composer of our flesh and soul,
Give hymns that keep Thy praises whole!
For Thou hast saved us without stint;
We claim not half, nor slightest tint.
To Thee we turn, not by our choice,
But by Thy lively, calling voice.
Through faith, Thy gift that sets us free,
Bind us to faithful hymnody!

Lord, grant us hymns that locate Thee
Where Thou hast sworn Thyself to be:
The baptism bath; the mighty word
Wherein Thy living voice is heard;
The consecrated bread and wine;
The absolution, which is Thine.
So give us hymns that glorify
Thy chosen means of drawing nigh.

Because Thou, Christ, hast suffered loss,
Redeeming us by blood and cross,
Teach us to make Thine agony
The theme of all our melody.
Lest we despise pain, sorrow, need,
Keep us from songs of shallow greed.
Whatever woe our hearts may feel,
Thy hymns will thereby soothe and heal.

And finally, long-suffering God,
When every tongue and tribe and blood
Has learned to sing Thy blest refrain,
Perfect creation's song again.
With penitence and praise we pray,
Make haste to cue that tuneful day
When, having dried at last our tears,
We join the music of the spheres!

Friday, July 18, 2014

Elantris

Elantris
by Brandon Sanderson
Recommended Ages: 14+

I've never read anything by Brandon Sanderson before, and I'm generally leery of thick fantasy novels that have the look of "Book One of a Punishingly Long Series." Three things convinced me to give this book a try. First is the fact that, although it was his first published novel back in 2005, Sanderson hasn't written any sequels to it... yet. I'm told he plans to, but so far all he has rolled out is a novella set in the same universe, titled The Emperor's Soul, and a short e-book called The Hope of Elantris. It's possible we may luck out and this will be a standalone novel; that would be just about perfect. The second and deciding vote in favor of reading it is the fact that an audio-book, read by Jack Garrett for Recorded Books, was available at the public library. Third, and making it unanimous, is the list of other works by Brandon Sanderson, which includes a bunch of other stuff that I suddenly want to read. More on that in a bit.

The city of Elantris used to be a glowing place, populated by gods in human form. Their skin gleamed like polished silver. Their hair was radiant white. They could heal sicknesses and injuries, turn trash into food, and do many other wonders, using a type of magic called AonDor: channeling enormous power (Dor) into the world by means of complex, glowing characters drawn on the air (Aons). Elantrians were almost immortal, though anyone could become one. If you were at least partly descended from the people of Arelon or Teod, and if you lived in or near the country of Arelon that surrounded Elantris, you might just wake up one morning and find yourself Elantrian. It was all very lovely until something happened that I wouldn't be able to spell, since I only read the audio-book. Fortunately, I was able to find an online glossary of this book, to which I am greatly indebted.

The word I'm looking for is Reod, and however you spell it, it shattered the magic of Elantris. Suddenly, a city of the gods became an earthly hell of the damned. In the ten years since the Reod, Elantris has become a dark, slime-encrusted ghetto full of shriveled zombies, divided between three savage gangs. When a new person undergoes the transformation into an Elantrian (Shaod), he is considered dead—though his actual fate is worse than death. Their hearts don't beat. Their hair falls out. Their skin turns blotchy, gray, and wrinkled. No matter how much they eat (which isn't much, most days), they are tormented by hunger. And since their bodies no longer heal, all their injuries, from a stubbed toe to a scraped elbow, accumulate in a chorus of pain that will eventually drive them mad. Most Elantrians last only a few months before they check out, becoming a whimpering bag of bones, never able to die. For good reason, those who continue to become Elantrians—at a rate of one or two a day, on average—are regarded as eternally damned. The local priests clap white robes on them, hand them a small basket of food, and shove them into the abandoned city with a brisk slam of the front gate.

Ten years after the Reod, the kingdom of Arelon is in trouble. Raoden, the king's only son, has fallen to the Shaod. His royal father covers it up, claiming that Raoden died of some disfiguring plague (hence the closed-casket funeral). This triggers a unique clause in Raoden's marriage contract to the Teoish princess Sarene, who was already en route their wedding when fate struck. On arrival, Sarene finds she is already legally married to Raoden, already a widow who can never marry again. Though her hopes of finding love and companionship are disappointed, Sarene is politician enough to recognize that both Arelon and Teod are in trouble. Both countries will need their alliance to survive against the gathering might of a theocratic empire that has already conquered the rest of the world. And even if her headstrong ways put her at odds with King Iadon's views on women, Sarene may be Arelon's best hope for resisting the Fjordell Empire.

Using a combination of religious outreach and military might, the followers of the Derethi god Jaddeth and his earthly servant, the Wyrn, have all but completed their mission to subdue the world. After heinous scenes of slaughter and chaos wrapped up their latest conquest, the only remaining holdouts are Teod and Arelon. Now there's a new Gyorn in town—that's a high-ranking Derethi priest, if you want to know—and he intends to convert the people of Arelon to his religion in three months or bust. And by "bust" I mean, if he doesn't succeed, the Wyrn's armies will destroy every man, woman, and child in the country. Hrathen knows that the only way to avoid a bloodbath is to make full use of his talent for reasonable persuasion, bribery, and political manipulation, to capture the allegiance of the nobility. Once their leaders are converted, the people will follow. Then it will be a simple matter of converting the kingdom of Arelon into a client state of Fjorden.

What Hrathen doesn't reckon on is the political skill of the young princess from Teod. With wits that match his own, she quickly rises to leadership in an opposing party that thwarts Hrathen's plans at every step. Meanwhile, Hrathen's designs for saving Arelon by peaceful means are undermined by Dashe, a passionate young priest whose hatred of Elantris is of almost demonic intensity. Between these two, Hrathen finds his faith shaken, his certainties challenged.

On the third point of the triangle, opposite Sarene and Hrathen, is Raoden himself. Everyone thinks he's dead, but he has other ideas—ideas that bid fair to transform Elantris once again. While he struggles to manage his rapidly growing pain, Raoden tries to unite the almost subhuman gangs of Elantris, beginning to rebuild a society and restore a sense of hope and purpose. Unfortunately he finds his aims thwarted by both Hrathen and Sarene, each of whom wants to use Elantris for political reasons. As he senses his time as a conscious person running out, Raoden races to rediscover the lost art of AonDor and the secret of why it stopped working. Then, if he can manage it before the inevitable disaster breaks out, perhaps he can heal what was broken ten years ago—and save a kingdom from the brink of destruction.

Whew! That's a lot of stuff to pack into one book! If I teased it any less, you wouldn't know enough of what the book is about to understand why it's such an impressive story. Any more, and I would risk spoiling too much. Here's hoping you now know just enough about Elantris to salivate. It's a thought-provoking book full of ideas about politics and religion. It's an immersive book, introducing a richly complex fantasy world, built atop many layers of history, folklore, and culture. It's an emotionally gripping book, touching the heart with the misery of Elantris, the loneliness of the princess, the tormented doubts of the priest, the growing love between Raoden and Sarene, and above all, the skillful application of suspense. There came a time, towards the end of the audio-book, when it was no longer safe for me to listen to it while driving. I had to take the CDs indoors, where I could swear at the characters, and yell, and wave my hands, and kick the air, and suck on my knuckles, without endangering other drivers and pedestrians.

This book was Brandon Sanderson's big break. According to this list of his titles, he went on from here to write such world-building fantasy epics as the Mistborn trilogy (now four books, starting with The Final Empire), the Stormlight Archive series (so far two books, starting with The Way of Kings), the Infinity Blade series (Awakening and Redemption), and another standalone novel of the same type, titled Warbreaker. He is also the author chosen by Robert Jordan's widow to complete the Wheel of Time cycle, which he managed in only three books (from The Gathering Storm to A Memory of Light). After reading this book, I will be more tempted to plunge into more of these big, fat, highly acclaimed novels.

However... There are other titles by Mr. Sanderson that I find even more imminently attractive. Now that I have tried him out, I don't know how I can resist them any longer. These include the Alcatraz quartet, beginning with Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, and featuring a bespectacled boy with amazing powers; the ongoing Reckoners trilogy, starting with Steelheart, and presenting a dystopian spin on the concept of a world with superheroes; Firstborn, a standalone novel whose hero is a prince in a futuristic, galactic empire; and The Rithmatist, the start of a new YA fantasy series, set in a world in which sidewalk chalk drawings can come horribly to life. I can hardly wait to plunge in!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Moving Along...

Today's progress on moving houses...

I heard back from a prospective landlord, who said pets are not allowed in her properties. She then gave me the phone number for the Stover City Hall, where I persuaded a clerk to email me the city's landlord list. One of these two ladies was nice enough to observe that everybody in the world has been editor of the Stover paper in recent years, and nobody has lasted very long. That was really encouraging to hear, as I prepare to leave behind all I have known these past seven years and to start anew. Harrumph.

I visited Walmart and stocked up on packing boxes, tape, Sharpie markers, and some other urgently needed supplies as the two-week countdown to Moving Day continues to tick away.

On reaching home, I started calling landlords on the list sent me by city hall. The results:
  • Out of 7 landlords with multiple-unit properties:
    • Two had phone numbers that led to the good old error message starting with three ascending tones, followed by a recorded voice saying, "We're sorry. The number you dialed..."
    • Two numbers, including the alternate number for one of the out-of-service numbers above, went to voice mail. I left messages.
    • One landlord said no pets are allowed.
    • One landlord said they only have storage units available for now.
    • I skipped over two landlords, for now, because the names of their properties indicated that they deal in trailer homes—a last-resort option for me.
  • Out of 7 landlords representing multiple properties:
    • One number was out of service.
    • I left voice mails at two numbers.
    • Two landlords said all their properties are currently rented.
    • One lady had a house available that sounded just right, but she wasn't sure pets would be allowed. My parents are going to look at the place next week.
    • Another landlord said both of his properties may become available between August and October, and that pets are allowed; another promising lead.
  • Out of 5 landlords representing a single property each:
    • One number was out of service.
    • I left voice mails at two numbers.
    • There was absolutely no answer at one number.
    • One lady said they would allow outside pets only.
So there it stands for now. Two perhaps-maybe-possible landlords have been spotted. Several more have yet to return my call. And there are still two whom I haven't tried to reach yet (three, if you count the number whose line kept ringing). Not a totally encouraging day's work, but not a complete shutout either.

UPDATE: The lady whose line kept ringing without any answer, called back. She had seen my number on Caller ID and wanted to know what I was calling about. After a slightly confusing conversation, it transpired that her property has already been rented. Bummer.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Today's Checklist Progress

Further to yesterday's post about all the things I need to do to get moving on, er, moving...

Today I contacted the veterinarians in the community I am moving to and collected information about where I can board my cats, if I can't immediately find a place that will accept pets; whether they board pets, what it would cost, etc. Then I arranged to have my kitty's (Sinead) and puss's (Tyrone) vaccination records faxed to the place from their primary care vet.

I used the local ads classified "for rent" to look up the phone numbers of a couple of prospective landlords. Tried reaching one and left a voice mail at an office that is only open Thursdays and part of Friday. Called another and actually heard a busy signal for the first time in so many years that I could hardly believe my ears. On a cell phone, the sound effect comes with a cute little animation that I have never seen before.

I went to my apartment complex's leasing office and submitted a form announcing my intention to move out, effective at the end of the month. The bookkeeper gave me a tentative figure for the buyout on my lease and the kind of payment plan I could use to make it a little less ruinous. Reader, I'm four months into my current lease, but if I make the minimum payment each month I will still be paying off the buyout at this time next year.

Baby steps, and not very many of them, but there's only so much business you can accomplish at the end of a hard day's work... And my work so far this week has accomplished little more than to make me relish the new career path opening before me. God be praised!

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Big Changes Coming

The times, they are a-changing. This blog will be a-changing soon. Since February 2007, is has been subtitled "Theology, Art, Entertainment, and Cat Litter in St. Louis, USA." That will be the first obvious change. By the end of the month, for starters, I will be writing it from a different location. And that's because, for the first time since 2006, I will be moving to a different town. This is going to feel weird. I've never stayed in one place nearly as long as I've been here.

My Book Trolley reviews originally ended with the byline "Robbie Fischer, Arizona USA." I started writing editorials and reviews for MuggleNet in 2003, while living in Yuma, Arizona. After 2005 "Arizona" changed to "St. Louis," more or less. There was that one awkward year in the bedroom community of Washington, Missouri, before I took the plunge into the city itself. And then there was one eensy, weensy move, five buildings down the street, when my apartment complex bribed me to shift quarters so they could turn my first St. Louis pad into a model apartment. I had started this blog by then. I remember apologizing for being out of touch while moving. That was in the era when I averaged more than one post per day.

Now things may slow down even a bit more. The art and entertainment threads in my existence may not be as robust as they have been before now. I may never again be involved in classical music at the level I have been since moving to St. Louis. It really saddens me to contemplate the end of my nine-season stint with the Saint Louis Symphony Chorus, the nearly three seasons I participated in the Bach at the Sem program, and many of the other cultural perks of living in this town. I will have to travel a lot farther to take in live performances of music, other than at a high school level. Opportunities to play the organ in church, or to sing and play the piano at social gatherings, may also lie somewhat thinner on the ground. I already regret taking for granted the art museums, theaters, and opera companies that I rarely or never patronized when my future seemed to bode of St. Louis forever.

I'm also a little concerned about my cats. I'm not sure what I'll do with them. I don't know what I would do without them. I seem to have two weeks to find either a place to live that will accept pets, or a place for them to live without me. Yikes.

Steps I have taken so far:
  • I gave my two-week notice at work.
  • I reserved a U-haul moving van.
  • I put in at the post office for a change of mailing address.
  • I sent my regrets for the foreseeable future to the two choruses in which I had planned to sing this fall.
Steps I still need to take:
  • I need to work things out with my current landlord regarding the remainder of my lease.
  • I need to get hustling on finding a new apartment that allows pets and charges less rent than where I live now. I can stay with my parents for a little bit, but the littler the better.
  • I need to have the utilities in my apartment taken out of my name.
  • I need to update my billing address with everybody who is either sending me money or demanding that I send them money—lenders, insurance providers, etc.
  • I need to pick up moving supplies and start getting my stuff packed up.
  • I will need to clean this place, and organize my junk, and throw a way a lot of it.
  • I will need to turn in all my work-related equipment and materials to my outgoing employer.
  • I will need to figure out my approach to the problem of church membership. Enough said for now.
  • And then it's only a little matter of picking up the truck, packing up the truck, driving, driving, driving, unpacking, and dropping off the truck.
Whew! Do I really want to do this? Yes, I'm afraid I do. In fact, I'm scared witless that I do. The reason I'm moving is that I've been offered a chance to do something that I started preparing to do at least as far back as the fifth grade. I'm going to be writing for, and eventually editing, a weekly newspaper: The Morgan County Press of Stover, Missouri, population 1,000. I also get to live within a few minutes' drive of my parents for the first time in my adult life. In fact, Dad will be working in the same office, editing the weekly Versailles Leader-Statesman, which is owned by the same publisher. I have a lot of reasons to be excited about this. Though I'm not looking at a big pay rise—indeed, in hourly terms, it's quite the opposite—the full-timeness of the job fills a need I have been struggling with since I left my previous position at a periodical, a year and a half ago. And I am hopeful that I'll be able to set myself up in a more affordable lifestyle, better suited to my current means.

But what really has me excited, what has kept my mind jumping night and day since I learned about the opening just last Thursday (and submitted my resume immediately, and interviewed for it on Monday, and was offered the job the same day), is that I get to live by the sweat of my gray cells and the blood of my pen. I get to make good on the promise that I made to myself when I published the class newspaper in fifth grade, and studied journalism in high school, and either contributed to or edited all the school newspapers and literary magazines at every level of academia from high school through seminary, and went to college on a journalism scholarship, and kept a handwritten journal for a decade just to stay in shape as writer, and thought I was going to be a professional writer someday. This will be my first opportunity to do regularly remunerative writing, after a dozen unsold novels, a massive album of unsellable poetry, eight years of doing everything except writing at a magazine, and eleven years of prolifically contributing to a Harry Potter fansite that has so far paid me exactly $50 and one collectible magic wand. Actually, the $50 was a prize for guessing closest to the date the "Diagon Alley" theme park was going to open. So what I'm saying is, I get to do for a living what I've been doing for love all my life. Isn't that cool?