traviata, but none the wiser.

Favourites change from time to time. For example, my favourite piece used to be Verdi's La Traviata. Then, it was Mozart's K.516, String Quintet in G minor. Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande took over, followed by Schubert's Winterreise song cycle, Berg's Wozzeck/Lulu, Corelli's trio sonatas, but Mozart's Requiem kicked all that aside, before it was replaced by Verdi's Aida. Bach's keyboard partitas were always a very close second. And now, I'm wavering between La Traviata and Aida. Hmmm, I just realized that my favourite pieces are mostly vocal works. You'd think I'd have at least mentioned Chopin, and I do adore his works.

I suppose I don't really need to have a favourite piece really, but it just happens, you know? Very unwillingly, I subscribe to the detested notion of having a 'favourite', or many 'favourites'. Organized hierarchy rears its ugly head once more.

It makes me think about the concept of faithful constancy, and I marvel at my own changing tastes as time passes. Each time I realize that something new has replaced the old, I feel an incredible sense of guilt. Have I been unfaithful? But to whom? Have I betrayed? But who, or what did I betray?

And I listen to all these operas, where the characters profess undying love and eternal devotion to each other (most of the time anyway), and I feel a sense of cringing disorientation, an awkward dislocation within, that tells me otherwise. But the music is so convincing, and for a while, I believe, and after it's over, it ends there.

I think I'm far more 'spontaneous' than most [Dominic might term it as 'rash', or 'fickle' ;)], always making all sorts of reckless changes on my own, with nary a thought to the consequences. But it's quite strange - I can't deal with the changes that are not instigated by my own hands. What do you know? I'm an orthodox control-freak at heart. So much for being a free-spirited musician! Perhaps, there really is some truth in that tiresome slogan, that all musicians are perfectionists - and therefore, control-freaks.

Midsummer's Day on the 23rd of June has come and passed, what did you do to commemorate the longest day of the year? Why, I can't even remember the person who I was yesterday. I suppose this is what it means to grow old - without any trace of bitter regret, just tainted by that ochre tinge of resignation.