jill.musick

My history-teacher friend Katrina asked me if I wanted to go see an Austrian musical with her (she grew up in Austria). When I found out it was Elisabeth, I realized I already knew the music because we had played an arrangement in Stadtmusik Kandern (community band). Katrina went to relish the Austrian history, and I went to appreciate the music and everything else.  So today, I saw my first musical in German!

An example of melodramatic Austrian art, this musical is about the life of Elisabeth, or “Sissi,” the famed Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Though she is a real person and the musical does document some actual events from her life, it is largely fantasized and exaggerated.

This famous portrait of Sissi showed up in the musical!

Luigi Lucheni, Sissi’s murderer, narrates. The musical begins at his after-life judgement, during which he must account for his murderous deed. His plea: innocence – she wanted to die. He then tells the story of her tragic life and her love-hate relationship with death.

Sissi was born a duchess in Bavaria (now southeast Germany). Her sister was destined to be the Empress of Austria – she was to marry Franz Josef, the heir to the empire. But when the family went to meet Franz Josef, he fell in love with the free-spirited and beautiful Sissi and proposed to her instead. The wedding bells tolled a death of sorts for her – a death of freedom and a carefree way of life and into the cage of royalty.

Death is personified; he struts around as a fair-haired man with a seductive voice. During times of Sissi’s doom and depression (at her wedding, after her loss of freedom, after the loss of her first daughter), he tries to seduce her. They dance and come within inches of kissing. He also influences Sissi’s only son to commit suicide.

My friend Kristin wrote a blog post about death’s personified roles in fairy tales and literature. She noted that “death comes to all, but death comes to some who are young and some who are old, and some suffer in death and some go peacefully.” In the case of the musical Elisabeth, Sissi went to Death gladly, even lustfully, though it was the weapon of a mad assassin that actually took her. Her son, however, was like a puppet being controlled by Death, even in his suicide. The contrast seems to stand on its head; one would think that a person who commits suicide would be longing for death, while a person murdered would feel that Death had stolen life. Yet in this portrayal of the event, the son was actually longing for his mother’s love, not for death; he had been deprived of his mother’s comfort by the overbearing mother-in-law (Franz Josef’s mother). Sissi in her depression did long for death, but it took the needle file of Lucheni to give her Death’s kiss.

It was a fascinating musical; it gave me food for thought and helped me brush up on the history of the Habsburg Empire (thanks to Katrina’s help!). As she reminded me, Sissi’s son’s nephew was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the guy whose assassination started World War I.

Friday was the last Class Party of the year, and the last ever for the Seniors. With several students gone for away basketball games, the group was somewhat reduced, but they managed to create some ruckus.

The first organized activity was “friend making” – basically a re-named version of speed dating. Since most of the kids in the senior class know each other quite well, there wasn’t too much awkwardness. Then we had smoothies.

While we made and distributed the juicy refreshment, the seniors entertained themselves with conversations and spontaneous games of Ninja, Signs, and Bloody Knuckles.

The last organized activity was a competition to create the best outfit using a Gelber Sack (yellow recycling sack). Five teams came up with everything from a superhero to Jesus.

Overall, the evening turned out well. There were no major disasters and the kids mostly had fun without getting too bored. It’s a great bunch of seniors!

Kandern finally stayed cold long enough for some snow to stick. It’s beautiful!

Emily captured my amazing running outfit designed to withstand wind, cold, and bright winter sun. Tacky, you say? You just wish you could be this cool.

Emily let me borrow her GPS wristwatch so I could track pace, distance, and time. It was fun using it!

I was explaining natural half steps and whole steps (between E & F and B & C). Suddenly I realized I had drawn a couple birds!
The strangest things are motivational. Marit and I started a 45 day practice challenge – students try to get 45 days of practice before the Music Festival. If they make it, they get some kind of prize (exact contents yet to be determined, but they will probably include something edible). To chart their progress, I let them color in a box for each day practiced.

My youngest student declared: “I’m going to try to practice every single day!” A high school student enthused, “This is so exciting! I’m totally going to practice more just so I can color in my boxes!”

Recently I have discovered some new (or old but new to me) music. These selections come at the recommendation of music students, German church members, YouTube, and friends in various parts of the world. Thank you to all of you who have given me these musical recommendations! I hope that others reading this blog can benefit as well.

1. Mosaic. This band is one of my new favorites. With lyrics saturated with Scripture, rich vocal harmonies, and uneven meters thrown into at least one song, this music is both spiritually enriching and musically novel. Check out #7 “Seek the Lord” to hear the meter vacillate between uneven quadruple (3+3+2+2), common time, and uneven quintuple time (3+3+2+2+2).

2. Phil Wickham. The lyrics from his “Heaven and Earth” CD put into words the longing in my heart for Heaven. These longings are often tied with my experience of God in nature, so somehow his music touches me deeply, despite somewhat unoriginal chords and song structure. The upside of unoriginal chords is that I can teach them to the guitar class!

3. Gungor. As one of Emily’s favorite bands, I’ve been hearing a lot of them lately. If you click the link, you’ll see the band playing in the forest. It’s an appropriate setting for a song about how the earth and nature belong to God. I like their sound – they use creative instruments.

4. Kari Jobe. A friend recently gave me this recommendation. Her lyrics speak to the tough times of life and how we can rely on God during the painful times. Her music sounds like an honest cry from the heart to know God more.

5. Leeland. Thought-provoking lyrics lead me to a reflective time of worship. I haven’t listened to much of them yet, but I plan on investigating more!

6.Lecrae. He’s a Christian rapper, speaking truth into tough places. This guy speaks powerful words. There are so many twists, turns, plays on words – you have to listen to each of his songs several times to really grasp the full meaning!

7. Matt Papa. Solid lyrics, sometimes inspired by John Piper. From my limited listening, he seems to have a mission-minded focus with a background of good theology.

8. Josh Garrels. Folk-ish style with an exciting testimony of God’s grace in his life. You can download an album for free!

9. “Somebody that I used to know” by Walk Off the Earth. How many hands can you fit around 1 guitar?

10. “Cello” by Udo Lindenberg, featuring Clueso. A German song about a cellist. Just watch the video; you might find it funny even if you can’t understand the cheesy lyrics. And for the record, I think German is a beautiful language, not all guttural and harsh like most people say. There’s a great deal of poetic potential in the textures of the consonants, and there can be a natural rollicking rhythm in speech which easily translates to songs. Just listen to a little more Clueso to hear it.

Some of my other favorites are Jars of Clay, the Gettys, Jon Foreman,  Jenny & Tyler, Meredith Andrews, Tenth Avenue North, and Shane & Shane.

What else are you listening to? Add a comment!

Though we attempted to fix the machine last week, Emily’s load of laundry got stuck with 1 minute left in the cycle. We decided we should get some professional help to solve the “C2″ riddle (water not pumping out).

Last Thursday I went to Bissinger, the local electric store that sells washing machines. They previously fixed our oven when it malfunctioned. In talking with the lady in the store, the problem sounded like a simple fix. There was just a little hose to drain the water, and another filter to the left that most likely needed to be cleaned in order for it to drain properly. So I went home and followed her instructions. There was a lot of gunk in the filter, so Emily and I figured the problem was solved.

Well, Emily ran the spin cycle on some of her wet clothes from her previous attempt at laundry, and the machine once again stopped and stubbornly said, “C2.” I fiddled around with it some more and ended up with water all over the kitchen floor. Clearly we needed professional help.

 

Top: "Girls have a right to their computers, too" Dad says: "Now come on, it's yours! You can program it!"

This morning I repeated my trip to Bissinger and explained the situation. The lady wrote down my information and said Mr. Bissinger would call my house when he could come. So this afternoon, he came over and took apart the entire washing machine and discovered that the pump was old and broken. He replaced it with a new pump, and now the machine works!

Today I’m thankful for clean laundry and a dry kitchen floor.

Today after lunch, Emily started cleaning while I started making hummus. Suddenly, a small piece of Styrofoam bounced off my shoulder. I turned to see Emily’s impish grin as she brandished a slab of the lightweight packaging from our new TV. Not to be outdone, I grabbed another slab of Styrofoam and we were off to war! It was an epic battle that left wreckage strewn across our kitchen floor. Who won, you may inquire? Well, that depends on who you ask. What determines the winner? Who has more synthetic white fluff on their person at the end? Who dealt more blows? Who dealt deadlier blows?

In the end, I think the Styrofoam won. Emily and I were left picking up the pieces while the Styrofoam gloated about its evasive techniques. We will be finding little white specks around the house for the next few months. The good news: it fits better in the Gelbe Sacks when crushed and mangled than when it was whole. Perhaps the Styrofoam will be conquered at last… by German recycling and the Vacuum!

Saturdays are always interesting. It’s a grab-bag kind of day. Monday through Friday is predictable; there’s a schedule at school and with evening activities. Sunday is routine with church in the morning and soccer in the evening with relaxation in the afternoon. But Saturday…. this mysterious day is the one day I can always count on to bring unexpected adventures into my life. Sure, there are the routines like running, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, doing laundry, and attempting to complete lesson plans for the upcoming week, but there’s still room for other adventures.

Yesterday was no exception. I returned from my friend Katrina Custer’s house, when Emily announced that the washing machine was not working. There was a load of laundry in there, but it had stopped with about 32 minutes left (the “short” version of a wash cycle is 60-70 minutes long). I pulled out the manual and discovered that “C2″ meant that our beloved washing machine was having difficulty draining. The advice from the manual: Check the hose for kinks or cracks; check some other hose for blockages; in other words, figure out the problem yourself.

So Emily pulled out the washer, tore off the duct tape adhering the hose to the pipe in the wall, and poked around while I handed her flash lights, buckets, and pliars. Though we didn’t find any blockage, the machine finished the cycle when she reattached the hose into the wall. We’ll see what happens next time we do a load of laundry.

Just after reattaching the hose, our ride showed up – we were going out for the evening! Marit and I had looked up the schedule of performances at the Freiburg Conservatory of Music, and we decided that a student recital would be a refreshing reminder of our time at Wheaton when we attended recitals 2-3 times each week.

Four of us went: Marit, Natalie (Marit’s roommate who also plays violin), Emily, and me. For about an hour and a half, we were in musical bliss; what could be better than a senior cello recital?

Bach, Schumann, Crumb, and Brahms – it was an excellent recital, and left us feeling contented and at peace.

Then we went home and Emily chopped up our Christmas tree. Actually, she sawed off the branches so we can burn it later. All in a Saturday!