Musical binge behavior

Wow, I am warmed by Ward's admission the other day that once he listened to William Byrd's "Ne irascaris, Domine" (nine minutes long) performed by St. John's College, Cambridge, for about an hour. In the car.

In the car is where these things happen because you have the time and also a lot of the time no one is there to witness your binging behavior. I could not find Ward's binge piece on You Tube but that is a picture above of St. John's College, Cambridge, in tribute to his confession.

I have a car binging story too. Once my friend Lizzie and I were driving to New Orleans and I got stuck on the slow movement to Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto. Lizzie was asleep, and I just kept hitting that button. And the movement would start again! I love that long sensuous line when the piano comes in. It is like getting a massage. You can almost feel it physically.

So I listened to that movement, again and again. I started grinning to myself just with the secret pleasure of it. It was like chocolate cake. Imagine just running your finger along the frosting one more time. That was what I kept thinking of.


What else have I binged on? Oh, it is not pretty.

Omigosh. I cannot believe I found this song on You Tube. This is a song I binged on when I was 16. One afternoon in my room I listened to it about 100 times. It is so obscure. I can't believe I found it.

This is a song by Schubert called "Normans Gesang." I don't have to translate it because whoever put this video together translates it and did a great job with these Sir Walter Scott images. The You Tube video maker even used the recording I loved and binged on, by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau of course. Well, no one else probably has ever sung this song.

"Oh, glaub, o glaub, mein letzter Seufzer, Maria, ist fuer dich." I am dying here watching this. This song has the greatest Schubert gallop motif. You can hear the knight's horse galloping -- as some commentator put it once, you can hear it galloping over uneven ground. That is true!

And at the end he salutes his love, with that little vocal flourish. That is another thing I read somewhere. I read so many things and I never remember where.

I have just blown 20 minutes binging on this song all over again. "No shame in that, Mary," Ward wrote. But still.

Howard just stuck his face in the door and went, "Nerd."

Well, at least this binge behavior won't make me fat.