More -Wely

Tomorrow is the day for pancakes.

No, I'm not talking about National Pancake Day, though I'm sure there is one. It's Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent. A lot of Christians spend the six and a half weeks before Easter being reflective and penitent, sober and sombre. And that takes a lot of calories.

Actually, the church calendar is full of feasts and fasts, and the alternating rhythm of same can be a real anchor in the slipstream of time. Fasts give way to feasts, such as Lent yielding to Easter, but hungry, inventive humanity found ways to make sure the day before the fasts was as full of fat and savor as they could manage. Let's run right up to the boundaries full tilt before we have to stop and walk. Hence the pancakes.

There are other traditions, parades, hi-jinx, general merriment. I like to take part in that rhythm musically. This year, you may have noticed, the weekly featured recording is from a fellow named Charles Louis Alfred Lefebre-Wely. It's a postlude he wrote for church, but it wouldn't be out of place at the circus. So before we go full Lent--actually, this year it's going to be full Beethoven, since I'm teaching a class on same--I thought this website could use more Lefebre-Wely.

That's a joke my British readers will understand.

Some year I'd also like to drop in the Schumann Carnaval. Somewhere I have a recording from my junior Recital, over a quarter century ago, but it's not digitized and I probably wouldn't like the playing anyhow. In the meantime, let's enjoy some joie-de-vivre  with our pancakes will we observe one of a myriad pleasant little customs our species has devised to help us hurtle successfully around the sun.

Sortie in Eb: by Charles Louis Alfred Lefebre-Wely


[if you missed it, the rest of the pianonoise.com weekly lineup is available right here]