March bliss

Well, who'd have thought? It's been a week of those impossibly perfect spring days here, with perfect breezes, no rain, ideal sun and finishing with the season's very first G&T, with Tanqueray, which I finally found in a good store here (Gall & Gall, a national chain).

Sunday afternoon included collecting a guest at Schiphol. Within 24 hours, the guest became an unwelcome and unpleasant guest, but realized it and left Monday afternoon. I hadn't expected this turn of events, but was *very* relieved. This left me with my house in the best shape it's been, brimming with flowers, fully stocked, and an entire week of no classes, so I set about enjoying it all to the full (and still am)!

I heard the best Bach St. John Passion that I ever expect to hear (having sung it twice, but never having actually heard it) in Amsterdam on Monday night, at the Concertgebouw, that famous concert hall in Amsterdam. The hall is full of red padded seat cushions, so one doesn't expect great things acoustically, but it's very clear and true and easy to hear everything. I particularly had wanted to hear this St. John, since its conductor was Frans Brueggen, the former recorder and transverse flute virtuoso, and one of my heros of the early music movement. He was a semester at Harvard in the '70s when I was in Cambridge, and he carte blanche invited anyone who was interested (tuition be damned) to attend his baroque performance class. Needless to say, I didn't miss one class. He's now 72. He's stooped, but given how he played the recorder (sitting, bent over, VERY long legs crossed), 30 years later would have to find him a bit stooped. And he's always smoked heavily. His conducting style utterly baffled me (seemed to conduct upbeats, and seemed always 1/2 beat ahead of the orchestra, but they're used to him and played flawlessly). It's his orchestra, the Orchestra of the 18th Century. Players are based all over Europe and come together for performances and regular tours. It's the best band I've ever heard. I'm so critical that I frequently don't enjoy live performances, but this one had me open-mouthed more than a few times. The choir was gorgeous -- the Capella Amsterdam -- only 20 singers, with a rich but utterly straight sound, similar to English choirs, but with more meat on it. The soloists were very good, but not great, except the counter tenor, who sang so beautifully. I'd never heard the alto solos sung by a counter tenor before, but now will want ONLY to hear them that way. The Evangelist was also excellent, which is always an impossibly hard role. It was a transporting evening and put a perfect end to what had started as a disturbing day. Tra-la, it's spring!

Where is that sweep?

I'm about to meet my first chimney sweep (maybe: he/she has 27 minutes to make an appearance)! The tiny (think of two shoe boxes) open hearth is clean and waiting. I've made one fire so far, the other night. The fireplace is nearly too small for a fire. However, the chill rain keeps coming down, and the fire was lovely. Having never seen a fire, the cats were intrigued, but wisely kept their distance. I tried burning anything that would burn. The pruned tree bits must be too green and wouldn't catch fire. Normal-sized logs are nearly too big.

School: This term, we B-groupers are tossed in with the more advanced "in-streamers" and the MUCH more advanced second- and third-year students. I was dreading this, but it's helping a lot, hearing more advanced Dutch. The classes are very eclectic. Our "Culture & Society" Friday class had its first "excursion" last Friday and spent the day marching around very interesting historical things in Amsterdam, none of which I'd seen. I madly took notes, knowing I'd remember very little otherwise. We started with a low-key boat ride, but moved at a near sprint the rest of the day (at least it didn't rain). Subsequent trips will be to Utrecht (church center of the country), two trips to The Hague (governmental center), Leiden and Haarlem.

Historical Linguistics is fascinating, but hard. It's one thing to understand the course material in one's own language, but filtering the material through one's very limited vocabulary is hard.

Literature in Context is an odd course, and not at all what I expected. So far, it's reading the texts of lots of old (17th century) songs and hearing history lectures of the same time. There's no real literature.

Each course exists in a few different media, which keeps us running, too. Assignments come from the electronic "Blackboard", verbally and occasionally in our books, so we scramble to keep aware of everything that's expected of us. I doubt I'm alone in finding this too much energy expended on routine work. It does enable the faculty to put a lot of material in digital form, saving time and money all around. There also are quizzes on the Blackboard. Coincidentally, "Blackboard's" global headquarters is nearly across the street from my former office, in Washington, D.C.

My "Methods & Techniques" class is a preparation for writing our first small papers, and then in the third year, a thesis. Dutch citation rules (footnotes and bibliography) are a little different from those in the U.S. Also part of this course is training in the vast digital library, both of Leiden University, and also national libraries, all over Holland. Maybe all university libraries are as digital now, but it's dizzying to search for things here. It seems that all periodicals are published digitally as well as in paper. Leiden U's holdings are enormous and constantly growing. The library building itself is not huge, but must have additional storage.

Above nearly all (not counting the goodness of the people and all of the myriad amenities), what continues to impress me about this country is the superb organization of nearly everything. Money, time and intelligent thought have been applied to all aspects of life, and it makes things SO much easier. Superficially, it seems a country of overwhelming rules and regulations, but things WORK here. Things broken are fixed, crimes are solved, and the trains mostly run on time. I just wish they'd sort out the weather!