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Weather: Mostly sunny. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 90s. East winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening, then mostly clear after midnight. Lows in the mid 70s. East winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Drug Court convenes before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse, Kim C. Hammond Justice Center 1769 E Moody Blvd, Bldg 1, Bunnell. Drug Court is open to the public. See the Drug Court handbook here and the participation agreement here.
Palm Coast Concert Series: Soul Fire, 6 p.m. at The State at Town Center (the former location of the Palm Coast Arts Foundation), 1500 Central Avenue, Palm Coast. This free event is for all ages. We ask residents to bring lawn chairs and/or towels for seating. See you there! Stay tuned for September’s artist announcement! Vendors should reach out to [email protected] if interested.
| In Coming Days: Aug. 28: Joint Workshop Between County Commission and Palm Coast Council, 5 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The two governments will discuss recent controversies at the Flagler Humane Society, atrocious traffic on State Road 100 and Seminole Woods Boulevard as the opening of BJ’s approaches, and how to spend law enforcement impact fee money. Aug. 29: Palm Coast Concert Series: Soul Fire, 6 p.m. at The State at Town Center (the former location of the Palm Coast Arts Foundation), 1500 Central Avenue, Palm Coast. This free event is for all ages. We ask residents to bring lawn chairs and/or towels for seating. See you there! Stay tuned for September’s artist announcement! Vendors should reach out to [email protected] if interested. Sept. 4: “An Evening with Shaun Tomson” 5 p.m. at the News-Journal Center, 221 N. Beach Street in Daytona Beach. World champion surfer, documentarian and best-selling author Shaun Tomson will be the keynote speaker. The event includes a showing of the classic 2008 surf film “Bustin’ Down the Door.” Tomson, whose book “The Code: The Power of ‘I Will’” explores faith, courage, creativity and determination, has become an in-demand motivational speaker. He will speak in advance of the film and will take part in a Q&A after the showing. Sept. 19: Sheriff’s Summit to Protect and Serve Seniors, 3 to 5 p.m. at the Sheriff’s Operations Center, 2101 Commerce Pkwy, Bunnell. Participants will benefit from a presentation about frequent scams and frauds, have access to free document shredding and paramedicine, and will get a tour of the Sheriff’s Office Museum. The event is free to the public. |
Notably: Anton Arensky isn’t among the first, second or third names you think of when you think “classical,” though he probably ought to be among the quite great. The Russian composer and pianist was born in 1861. He was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov at St Petersburg Conservatory, he taught Rachmaninov and Scriabin at the Moscow conservatory, and he was influenced by Tchaikovsky, among others, though we won’t hold that against him. (In 1882, when Arensky graduated with a Gold Medal in piano and composition, Ingrid Bols writes in a paper on the composer, “Tchaikovsky awarded him the highest grade for his harmony exam.”) Certainly in the piece below, the emotion is a lot less brutal, a lot more poignant than anything Tchaikovsky wrote. It is more Mendelssohn than Russian. It is his first piano trio, from 1894, dedicated to his friend the cellist Karl Davidoff “who had been Director of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire when Arensky was there as a student and had died suddenly in 1889,” writes David Truslove. “It is no surprise that the cello features prominently in this wonderfully elegiac work. The expansive first movement opens with a lyrical theme stated twice by the violin over a gently rippling accompaniment. With the cello’s arrival both instruments briefly “discuss” the theme before a dance– like episode is reached. Its carefree mood soon makes way for a new expressive idea announced by the cello. To this quiet rapture the violin joins in, and after a dramatic flourish from the piano the music builds towards an intense coda– the piano very much a leading participant. Imitative phrases derived from both the opening theme and the dance– like episode fashion the development and following a dramatic passage of tremolando strings the violin ushers in a full recapitulation with the main theme. An Adagio section reminiscing on the main theme brings the movement to a gentle close.” But don’t stop there. Arensky is worth a long listen
—P.T.
Now this:
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Language and religion were the two determining factors of the nineteenth-century definition of the Russian nation, and Arensky integrated features of both the Russian language and Orthodox Church music in his compositions. Through his training in St Petersburg, his teaching at the Conservatoire of Moscow, and his leading role in the Imperial Chapel, Arensky gathered existing folk and church tunes. His integration of Russian folklore, such as the ancient epic byliny, the Orthodox Requiem and Obikhod prayers give his music a diffuse feeling of Russianness. Arensky developed no unique concept or philosophy but adapted and followed the compositional trends of his time. In this respect he remains a significant witness of the standard teaching practices in nineteenth-century Russian conservatoires. He was certainly not a leader of the nationalist movement in music but his contribution to the russification of art and music is interesting. He was part of Ruth Helmers’ ‘grey area of musical practice that existed between the explicitly formulated ideals of nationalism and cosmopolitanism’ (2014, p.3). The work of Anton Arensky shows that in music Russian nationalism and cosmopolitanism can cohabit without major antagonism. With Richard Taruskin’s reformation of musicological analysis on Russian music history, Russian music for today’s researchers is ‘no longer judged exclusively in terms of its national character’ (Maes 2006, p.10). It is probably time for a complete re-evaluation of Arensky’s music, misjudged for its lack of obvious Russianness, which becomes a questionable criticism given the evidence shown in this paper to the contrary.
–From Ingrid Bols’s “Anton Arensky and the Rise of Musical Nationalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Russia,” eSharp.
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