music and spring

Sunday, our parish choir sang another Mozart missa brevis (small mass)in our worship. This one is sometimes called the Sparrow mass, and in addition to strings, we included timpani and brass, appropriate for the festivity of the Easter season in its second week.

Since this followed Holy Week, a period of intense preparation and singing, it could have been harder than it ended up. We did have an extra rehearsal on Saturday morning.

Over the weekend, five graduate students at the School of Music at IU died in a plane crash. Since one of our singers and a couple of the instrumentalists are graduate students who knew those who died, it was a painful weekend for them. It is hard to imagine loosing five colleagues or friends at once.

Meanwhile, the weather has been perfect for the past few days, and the last blooming trees -- crabapple, redbud, and dogwood -- have all changed the landscape. How wonderfully odd are white and pink trees?

I wish that I could write what I see and feel each day, the cool air, the blue sky, the colored trees peppering amid the new green. Lilacs and viburnum have also bloomed, brining a great musky fragrance and more color. The chives are beginning to put on buds and I found one flower on a clump of cranesbill.