I’m enjoying the benefits of the free wi-fi the Dutch National Railway Company provides us with and using my last hours in The Netherlands to post some musical actuality. Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer was a Dutch diplomat and composer of the first half of the 18th century, who lived in The Hague. His family name originates from the city of Wassenaar, that is now part of The Hague (actually, that’s the district The Really Rich People live). Since in his society circles composing music was sort of uncool*, he didn’t want to publish his works under his own name but anonymously, so his main work, the Concerti Armonici was attributed first to Carlo Ricciotti, a violin player of the The Hague Court Orchestra and later to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Wassenaer remained “the mystery composer” until 1980 when a letter was found at his birthplace (well, actually birthcastle) that reveals his identity as the composer of named concerti.
* you would think that those times are already passed and being a composer is really cool nowadays, but I have to warn you that there still are society circles obeying the same rules. Just look at my father, for example. He, being a mathematician himself, holds the strong opinion that musicians are “no worthy people”. That’s why I studied nursing first before I went bohemian, haha.
I’m heading back to Salzburg today. While I didn’t manage to accomplish all the things that would be necessary for reducing the chaos in my life, I still enjoyed the past three days very much.
I used to live in this street for two years, together with my good old buddy, The Rat. He moved in uninvited and stayed without asking me for permission. With the time we got used to each other and learned to accept each others rights. Then I moved out. He still lives there, I guess.
SprookjesBeelden aan Zee (fairytale images by the sea) is a free art project of the Museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen, created by the American artist Tom Otterness. It contains 23 groups of bronze sculptures of (mainly ill-tempered or heavily troubled) figures, and it is pretty amazing.
It’s raining again since days (actually since weeks, with eventual breaks). I spent the last summer in Holland and it was raining all the time. In June I thought, we still have the whole summer ahead of us. In July I got nervous, but thought, we didn’t lose the battle yet, August is the hottest month of summer in Europe, there is still some hope. In August I was furious, in September apathetic and in October I became depressed. And while I clearly cannot blame my clinical depression on the weather, it is a scientific fact that sunshine does count, where mental illness (at least depression) is concerned.
Now I’m in Austria and it rains uninterruptedly. I start to believe that I’m die Frau mit den Regenhänden (the woman with rainy hands). Wherever I go I take my heavy clouds with me.
So for today is a photo of some strawberries and a cup of hot chocolate, made with coconut milk and without sugar (because, despite of the overwhelming amount of photos of tiramisus, chocolates and coffee cups on this blog, I’m still on my gluten-free, dairy-free, low carb antidepressant diet); wich I will drink in bed while reading Perry Mason. My new goal is to get through of all the existing Perry Mason-stories. I became somewhat oversatiated with musicology and health care literature lately.
Typical afterparty day: hanging out in pajamas, doing nothing but importing my archives and eating leftover cake. So today’s post is also from the archives: my trip to the Driemolen in Leidschendam last summer.
I spent the whole day with importing my archives from my now full and closed freeblog photoblog, because I like when things are organised and I can easily find everything. Looking at my Holland-photos made me feel very sad. It seems that I totally lost my life through depression. I had a life that I don’t have anymore. At this moment my life just doesn’t exist.I really hope it will change soon. I’m starting to lose hope.
So for today I post a photo from my archives. And sorry for overflowing your mail with this huge amount of three year old posts of mine. Just ignore them. I hope to be ready with the whole import in a few days.
