Wednesday, December 28, 2011

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the Preserve? 
Hope you all enjoy the above image, taken a few nights before Christmas down on the Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve. Some of the hardest-working, visionary voluteers on Mare Island have set the mile-long trail to the Spirit Ship aglow with festive lights of the Season. The lights will be on every evening 5-8pm, until New Year's Day - see their Web site for details!

Check out more work from this location, this Season - visit us on Facebook ("Downon the Preserve" album) - http://www.facebook.com/tim.baskerville

If you would like some music (Hey, it IS The Nocturnes!)to accompany the viewing of this image, visit The Nocturnes Blog for a special "20th" commemorative posting (just below this one!).

Enjoy this season of peace, warmth, remembrance, and kindness.

From The [not so] Daily Nocturne


Saturday, December 24, 2011

For Christmas - Nocturne No. 20

As we close out 2011, our 20th Anniversary year, for our customary Chistmas Nocturne, we find it apropos to feature a Nocturne composed by Frédéric Chopin in 1830 - No. 20 in C-sharp minor, Op. posth., Lento con gran espressione.



Performed here by Wladyslaw Szpilman at home, in Warsaw in 1997. (Cameraman Jaroslaw Mazur / Copyright 1998 by Andrzej Szpilman) Wladyslaw Szpilman (Wladek) played this music in the last live broadcast for the Polish Radio on 23.9.1939 . An hour later German bombs destroyed its power supply and Warsaw Radio was closed for the next 6 years. This Nocturne is featured in the Roman Polanski film The Pianist, and in its entirety, in the soundtrack

It's been a busy, heartening year with all "TheNocturnes@20" events! Enjoy this season of peace, warmth, remembrance, and kindness.

From The [not so] Daily Nocturne