Pink Hydrangeas on the Ring

Nothing like hydrangeas to make a slightly homesick Southerner pause during an energy walk along the Ringstrasse, to admire the clarity of the reflected light from the more unusual pink variety, just after the sudden afternoon shower (escaped by ducking into the mom and pop-style Café Sinfonia to partake of their luscious warm apfelstrudel). Luigi Nono's introspective string quartet, "Fragmente---Stille, An Diotima," has been my exquisite musical treat today, on a newly acquired WDR recording, performed by the Arditti String Quartet. There are some fifty fragments of Friedrich Hölderlin's poems festooning the notes of his score, meant for the performers only - a technique I first encountered with Erik Satie's piano works, and later observed in original manuscripts of Charles Mingus at theLibrary of Congress, where the inscriptions were personal messages to his players.