THE UNIVERSE: And then there was light….

[ronprice]

THE UNIVERSE
And then there was light….

The Universe(1) is an American documentary television series which first appeared in the UK in 2007 and it continued to the end of 2011.  I did not begin watching the series in Australia until 2012.  Computer-generated imagery and computer graphics of astronomical objects, as well as interviews with experts in the fields of cosmology, astronomy and astrophysics make this series fascinating for people like me whose knowledge of these fields has always been minimal.

I have had a fascination with these subjects since the start of the space age in the late 1950s and early 1960s, since my becoming affiliated with the Bahá'í Faith back in the 1950s during my adolescence, and since having the influence of a maternal grandfather who was also interested in these fields.   It is difficult not to be interested in the subject being in the first generation to see the movement of man into space in the last five decades.  But I have never followed-up that interest in any serious way other than: (a) to attend two or three of those planetariums that dot the landscape of the cities of the world, (b) to browse through a few books and (c) to listen and watch the occasional special on astronomy in the electronic media like the one to which I refer above.-Ron Price with thanks to (1)7TWO TV, 25-26 February 2012, 11:45 p.m. to 12:50 a.m. and The Universe(TV Series) at Wikipedia.

Now that I am retired from
the world of jobs, meetings
and what now seems like an
endless amount of socializing,
I can give myself to learning &
the cultural attainments of the
mind. I really got going with the
fields of astronomy, cosmology
and astrophysics in the year ’09:1

1 The International Year of Astronomy 2009 was a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day-and-night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery. In 2009 astronomy celebrated four centuries of its modern existence, beginning with Galileo in 1609. In December 2010 a National Geographic video-documentary was televised. It was entitled: Journey to the Edge of the Universe. I have written about this before.

In the first years of my retirement from FT, PT and volunteer work, 2005-2012, there has been an increasing range of stimuli that have turned me toward astronomy of which the series I mention and that National Geographic video above are but two.  It will be interesting to see the development of this interest in these middle years(65-75) of my late adulthood, the years from 60 to 80 according to one model of human development in the lifespan.

The cosmic dark age, perhaps as long
as 10 to 12 billion or more years, is but
one of the great mysteries of astronomy.1

1 John Mather who won the Nobel prize for physics in 2006 said this. He is a senior astrophysicist at the U.S. space agency's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland and adjunct professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park.

What brought this cosmic dark age to an end was the birth of the first stars and galaxies. "Suddenly light was everywhere," says Abraham Loeb of Harvard's Centre for Astrophysics. "The Universe lit up like a Christmas tree."

Ron Price
29 February 2012

[Bob]

These are odd posts.  They look copy and pasted in.  Pre-written for sure. Not a regular forum post.

[ronprice]

Not to worry, Bob. At over 8000 posts here you are what one might call a regular. I on the other hand, just drop in occasionally. I am a writer and poet and my posts are all mine. yes, they are cut-and-paste jobs, but they are creative pieces of my own.-Ron in Tasmania

[Bob]

Why are they here though?  They just seem a bit random.  No offense.

[ronprice]

No offense taken, Bob.....Yes, you are right as far as the random nature of my posts at this site.  Some concern music and some do not. I've only been at this site for about an hour and a half since I joined nearly a year ago. I was attracted to this site due to its: (a) visual attractiveness and (b) my interest in the piano and music in general. My parents used to play a spinnet piano back in the 1950s in our home. I grew up on piano music and hope to post here from time to time in this the evening of my life. But life is busy even in these middle years(65-75) of late adulthood(60-80) and I'm sure it will be in old age(80+), if I last that long.-Ron Price, Tasmania, Australia

[ronprice]

The exercise of listing one’s favorite music is no easy task after the passing of some seven decades. If a person is young, say in their childhood or adolescence the task is not as great. It may be better for such young people to wait for some years before making such a list. they might be advised to wait until, and if, they survive the perils of: (a) their sporting interests, (b) their love life, (c) their job life, (d) their other leisure pursuits, (e) their desires and passions, wants and wishes as well as (e) the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that inevitably come into life.  

In my lifetime there has come to be a world of sound in which I can drown, happily or not-so-happily as the case may be.  The list below contain some of the happier sources, pieces, items, inter alia, that give me pleasure now and at various times in my 69 years of life, 1943-2012.
_____________________
In the three year period June 2002 to May 2005, I compiled periodically a list of my favourite music. It was an attempt to define, to give expression to, to list what had become by then a vast sea of pleasurable sounds produced in a number of genres of music. My first memories of listening to music were in about 1948, although I was exposed to music right from the word go in 1943 by two parents who played the piano. I would post the full list here, but it is too long. I would post here "a short list" of nearly 70 years of musical experience, musical pieces I have enjoyed from a longer list of music that gave me pleasure, but it is, as I say, too long to include.

It is just a start to making a comprehensive list, a brief survey, a dip in the sea, so to speak. There are now over 1000 items in this full and comprehensive list that I put together in the years 2005 to 2012.  I add to that initial list from time to time and it has come to well over 1000 items. If I continue to add to this list systematically and regularly the list will become completely unmanageable and necessitate far too much of a focus on music in my otherwise highly interdisciplinary life. But the names of many of my favourites are found below for my interest and occasionally to post at a website when others ask about my musical tastes or wonder about my presence at their site.  Since it seems impossible for me to remember the names of many of the pieces, this list helps assist me in bringing to memory these names when and if required. The exercise is interesting to me in its own right without any particular practical value.

Most of the items listed below are in my personal music collection(LPs, 45s, CDs and cassettes) or they are items that I have access to temporarily on the radio, or any time I chose from the vast list now available on the internet. I have only listed here at this "Piano Forum" the classical portion of my musical enthusiasms.

As I began adding every item to this list from what I heard on ABC FM Radio in and after 2002, and on the internet, it became obvious that, in the end, the list would become too long if I took the exercise seriously with any sense, as I say, of making a comprehensive collection. What is found here serves as: (a) a list of musical pieces I own/have access to in my collection and (b) a list of additional material I would like to have access to in my study, but do not. As I say, this is a list of musical favourites that I will never bring to an end. The sea is just too full. -Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, Last Updated on: 3/3/'12

A.1 CLASSICAL:

1.1 Bach: Symphony No.2 E-minor
1.2 Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.1 in F; 12.2 No.6 in Bflat Major; No3, 4
1.3 Bach: Goldberg Variations
1.4 Bach: Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring
1.5 Bach: see my 20 record collection of Bach--too many to list here
2.1 Beethoven: Sonata #8 opus 13 and Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61
2.2 Beethoven: Symphonies: set 1-9, especially no.#5
2.3 Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Opus 57(Appassionata)
2.4 Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 24 in F# major, Opus 78
2.5 Beethoven: Pathétique Sonata, Piano Sonata No.8 in C minor Op.13
2.6 Beethoven: Moonlight Sonata, Piano Sonata No.14 in C-sharp minor Op.27/2.
2.7 Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5(Emperor)
2.8 Beethoven: Fur Elise(Bagatelle No.25 in A minor, G.173
2.9 Beethoven: Leonore Overture No.3, Opus 72 and 72a
2.10 Beethoven: Waldstein Sonata, Piano Sonata No.21 in C major Op.53
2.11 Beethoven: Piano Trio #7 in B Flat Opus 97(The Archduke)
2.12 Beethoven: too many other pieces of Beethoven’s to list due to prolixity
3.   Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique
4.1 Johannes Brahms, Symphony No.1 in C-Minor
4.2 Brahms, Piano Concerto # 1 in D Minor, Opus # 15
5.1 Frederick Chopin: Scherzo 1,2,3 and 4 ; 11.2 Ballads 1 to 4
5.2 Chopin: Fantasy Impromptu in C sharp minor, Opus 66
5.3 Chopin, 24 Preludes(C#minor,A-Flat-Major)
5.4 Chopin, Waltz No.7 in C Sharp minor, Opus 64/2
5.5 Chopin, Study No.3 in E major Opus 10 Tristesse
5.6 Chopin: Polonaise in A Flat, Op. 53 "Heroic"
5.7 Chopin: Nocturne No. 2 in E flat, Op. 9 No. 2
5.8 Chopin: Etude Op.10 No. 3 in E
5.9 Chopin: to list all of Chopin’s music that I enjoy would lead to prolixity
6.1 Claude Debussy: Claire de Lune from the Suite Bergamasque
6.2 Debussy: Preludes, “Girl With the Flaxen Hair” among other preludes
7.1 Anton Dvorak: New World Symphony
7.2 Dvorak: Symphony #3
7.3    Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B Minor, op.104
7.4    Dvorak: Symphonic Variations, Opus 78
8.   Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt, Suite No.1
9.   Frederick Handel, Water Music Suite
10.   Gabriel Faure, The Pavane in F-sharp minor, opus 50
11. Franz Joseph Hayden: Concerto in D. Major
12. Franz Liszt: Concerto No.1 in E Flat Major
12.1 Liszt: Liebestraum No. 3 in A-flat, S 541 / III.
12.2 Liszt: Consolation, for piano No. 3 in D-flat Major
12.3 Liszt: La Campanella
12.4 Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody #2 in C-Sharp Minor

13. Henryk Mikołaj Górecki  (pronounced Goretsky), Symphony #3.
14. Jules Massinet: Meditations
15. Felix Mendelssohn, Symphony #4 in A(Italian), Opus 90
16.1 Amadeus Mozart: Sonatas for Piano
16.2 Mozart: Divertimenti for strings, Adagio & Fugue in C Minor
16.3 Mozart: Piano Concerto #20 in D minor, K466
16.4 Mozart: Piano Concertos: other
16.5 Mozart:  Symphony #40 in C minor
16.6 Mozart: too many other pieces of Mozart to list due to prolixity
17.  Giacomo Puccini:One Fine Day, Madame Butterfly
18. Nicoli Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
19.1 Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
19.2 Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G Minor, Opus 23, No.5
19.3 Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 D Minor
19.4 Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C sharp Minor Op.3 No.2
19.5 Rachmaninoff: too many other pieces of Rachmaninov to list due to prolixity
20.1 Joaquin Rodrigo: Ecos de Sefarad-guitar
20.2 Joaquin Rodrigo: need to familiarize myself with his repertoir
21.   Erik Satie: Gymnopedie No.1
22.1 Franz Schubert: Fantasie in F. Minor, D 940
22.2 Schubert: Ave Maria, Symphony #8 in B-minor
22.3 Schubert: Octet Quintet in F major(For 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, horn and bassoon)
22.4 Schubert: Impromptu No.3 in G flat major D.899/Op.90
22.5 Schubert: Impromptu No.7 in E flat major opus 6   
22.6 Schubert: Impromptu No.7 in E-flat major opus 90 no.2
22.7 Schubert: String Quartet #14: Death of a Maiden, D 810
22.8 Schubert: String Quintet in C.
22.9 Schubert: Piano Trios in E Flat Major, D 929 and 897
22.10 Schubert: Piano Quintet In A major: 'Trout' D667
22.11 Schubert: Impromptu in A Flat Major. Op. 90, No. 4
23.1 Robert Schumann: Concerto in A-Minor
23.2 Schumann: Symphonies 1-4
23.3 Schumann: Etudes
23.4 Schumann: Romance Violin
23.5 Schumann: Fairy Tales for Viola and Piano
23.6 Schumann:  violin concerto op 134 d minor
23.7 Schumann: Mondnacht
23.8 Schumann: Traumerie

24.1 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 in B Minor
24.2 Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto D Major
24.3 Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50
25.   Antonio Vivaldi: Violin Concerti #3; trumpet concerti for 4 violins
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end of document

[jesc]

I don't blame Bob. Usually I watch out for spams, troll posts etc. in ImdB or other forums invaded by teenagers or worse pre-teens. It's quite a shame that the same had to be done here.

When you've been around the forums in the internet from the very civilized ones to the nauseaus gutter talk, you notice patterns from baits, to spam and to god knows whatever issue the poster has.

This behavior has become so common place that the responsibility of being identified as a troll or a spammer no longer rests on the community, but on the poster to behave in a way that prevents him/her being identified as such.

Too bad, I think this site has much potential, I really do.

[watermusicprincess]

I don't blame Bob. Usually I watch out for spams, troll posts etc. in ImdB or other forums invaded by teenagers or worse pre-teens. It's quite a shame that the same had to be done here.

Excuse me!  but teenagers can be a lot worse than pre-teens!! and trolls are usually adults anyway! 

[Bob]

I was wondering if it was something automated, grabbing existential blog posts and reposted them. 

It differed from the other hoaxers in that it's a lot better written.

[jesc]

Well, clicking on his profile and his website revealed a lot more. Problem is, I think that profile clicking is not exactly a standard operating procedure for most participants here (including me of course).

[ronprice]

I was a teacher for 32 years and a student for 18. In that half a century in classrooms the big worry, among other worries, was plagiarism. On the internet its spam and irrelevant content. I've had to deal with it, as we all do, in my dozen years of internet posting. At the risk of writing too long a post below, outside one of the main conventions of site posting, I post the following on this subject.

If my post is too long, moderators and administrators here can simply delete it and give me a warning. In the future I will only post items concerned with music and leave longer posts to other sites and my website at: https://www.ronpriceepoch.com/   -Ron in Tasmania
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INTERNET SITES: AN OVERVIEW

Internet communities are like micronations.  Some are not governed at all; a sort of literary chaos reigns. The posts and images at these sites represent the worst features of contemporary literary society: loud, crass, illiterate and completely devoid of what you might call an etiquette of expression. Others are governed by tyrannical rule. This tyranny often leads to a whimsical enforcement of arbitrary rules and law.  Personally and emotionally induced muscle flexing operates at such sites in the hands of moderators, administrators and site entrepreneurs.  Still other site organizers try to hit a middle ground between these two extremes. 

I find, as a retired teacher, that the various modus operandi and modus vivendi at internet sites are very much like the different philosophies and styles that I used to see teachers using to cope with the increasing number of difficult students filling our modern society and its classrooms.  Some teachers resort to the iron rod of verbal and assorted disciplinary forms available to them. Some of these teachers have success and others do not.  Other teachers are too permissive and get walked-all-over by their charges/chargers.  These authoritarian and democratic styles are also found at websites.

There is usually no way to know just how oppressive system operators are at internet sites as all access to the records of their decisions are hidden from public view.  But a short stay at one of these authoritarian regimes will give the novice, the new-comer, a quick feel of the atmosphere and usually a quick response from one or more of the interpreters of the rules. For these rules and guidelines are often like some biblical text with literalist interpretations rampant.  The more permissive sites are just the opposite and you are just as likely to be told in no uncertain terms where to get off with lots of “F” words, slang and a vocabulary that you will not find in any good dictionary. 

These site interpreters, moderators and administrators, like teachers, have a difficult job in our modern society.  Traditional standards of excellence and agreed on definitions of the literary and grammatical canon on just about anything are all up for grabs, so to speak.  Like the hundreds of teachers I knew in the half century(1949-1999)when I was a student and a teacher, these standard setters at internet sites have a tough job. It is not surprising that at many sites there are no standards at all.

The purpose of a nation or a community—or a website—is to support progress and interaction, to provide information and integrate ideas and actions into some harmonious and philosophical  whole.  This is a tough ask a goal that is difficult to achieve.  To pick and choose posts, to accept some and deny others based on some fixed criteria, tests and patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon—and there are few of these old wise men around these days.  If people only follow strict traditions and the community banishes someone at the slightest hint of a heretic, does it not undermine it's own purpose for being, as if a man were to decide feet are bad because they are not like the hands, and cut them off.  Societies exist to encourage progress as well as to maintain stability.  It is a difficult balance to strike. 

If those in charge find a routine, a rule, that works, they do their best to stick to it. This is often called tradition, law, schedule, taboo.  It is all about keeping the boat steady.  Risk-taking is often difficult.  Society’s systems and the systems at websites are not easy to keep running with some order and form.  The places require effort and time on the part of those who have accepted the responsibilities for running the show.  Storms and radical thinkers may throw them off course; they will resist with all their might, never giving up until the vessel has been overturned and they are forced to start anew.   Change in this paradigm is bad and even if you tell the crew, "Look, we are headed for a cliff, we will crash to our death, if you don’t alter course!"--it will not change their steadfast position.

They do not care about where they are going; they assume all is okay even if their ship is old and falling apart. Some fall apart from too many rules and others from too few; some from not enough money and others from not having people to do the jobs required to keep the sites in operation.  Repetitive tasks are required to keep things going as they have been and often nothing will awaken the administrators except the ice-cold water as their ship sinks to the dark depths of the ocean floor.  The iron cake of custom and tradition is difficult to alter.  In our world of crises and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—you can’t really blame these internet site arbiters.-Ron Price, Tasmania.
_____________________

[piano_vs_science]

yay!!! someone other than me likes science!!!