William Zeitler's Music Box

Author: william

  • Kurt Godel (Part 2)

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    Last week I talked about Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), whom Einstein said was “the greatest logician since Aristotle.” Amongst Gödel’s papers found after he passed was a proof for the existence of God. I’ve been asked to expand on that, so, sure, I’ll do my best! But first, more context will be helpful. In my mind…

  • Kurt Gödel

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    “A Day Dawns”              W. Zeitler [Piano] Order of Chivalry: Truth        W. Zeitler [Organ] One of the major mathematicians of the 20th century was Kurt Gödel (1906–1978), who dropped a major thought bomb right in the middle of mathematics much like Einstein (1879-1955) dropped one in the…

  • April 1, 2017: Widor

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    Toccata in F                      D. Buxtehude (1637–1707) [ORGAN] Toccata from Organ Symphony No. 5    C.-M. Widor (1844-1937) [ORGAN] Charles-Marie Widor was born in to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music — especially organ — with his father. The French organ builder Aristide…

  • The Passing of an Icon

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    Prelude in Bm (BWV 544) J.S. Bach (1685-1750) Fugue in Bm Scholars say that the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) — in terms of percentage of the population that perished — was the deadliest in European history. It was a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. Some of that was religious ideology. Meanwhile, some kings and…

  • Recognizing Reality

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    Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason, has disastrous consequences.   — Ayn Rand Prayer as it is usually approached seems strange to me. Let’s see if I’ve got this right: my friend has cancer, so I pray to God that She heal her. So in other words, God wasn’t going to heal her, but…

  • The Path Up and Down

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    The ancient literature of the Mediterranean world is rather divided whether you go ‘up’ to find wisdom/enlightenment, or ‘down’. Interestingly, John’s gospel (John 1:51) talks about angels both ascending and descending on the Son of Humanity. (BTW, the Greek word for ‘Man’ in the phrase commonly translated “Son of Man” is actually gender neutral. “Son…

  • Padre Soler

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    Fanfare     A. Soler (1729–1783) [ORGAN] Concerto in Am         Vivaldi (1678-1741)/Bach (1685-1750) [ORGAN] Antonio Soler was a Spanish composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras. He is best known for his keyboard sonatas, an important contribution to the harpsichord, fortepiano and organ repertoire. Soler was born in…

  • Morning Has Broken

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    “Morning has Broken” is the best known work of Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965), children’s author and poet. Eleanor was born in London, the daughter of a popular novelist at the time, Benjamin Farjeon. Known as ‘Nellie’ to her immediate family, she was a sickly child who suffered from poor eyesight and was educated at home. Her…

  • Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 31

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    Moderato con amabilità (‘Moderate [tempo], with loveliness’) Op. 110  Beethoven (1770-1827) Beethoven almost never dated his compositions. This morning’s prelude is a rare exception, dated December 25, 1821. Much has been made of his ability to compose ‘in his head’ without having to ‘pound it out’ on a piano, but that is in fact a…

  • Revelation of the Magi — Part 3

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    We’ve been considering a 3rd century text called the ‘Revelation of the Magi’ that purports to tell the story of the Magi in the Christmas story. To recap: we saw that Adam’s son Seth founded something like an ‘Order of the Magi’, and that generations of Magi in this Order have been keeping watch with…