A Felix and Fanny discovery, my personal nightmare, and Ted Lasso's spiritual heir

Sharon's Weekly Head Dump

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Today’s post will be short-ish, because I am exhausted—not necessarily because anything big happened, but because I let a lot of self-inflicted panic and anxiety pile up like dry tinder and when my list of things to do grew just a tiny bit beyond what felt doable, it was like throwing a lit match on the pile.

From Mastodon because the vibes were off on Twitter this week and I needed a calmer place to post

I don’t know what to do with the frustrating knowledge that I get my best, most productive practicing when I completely disregard any work or tasks that aren’t practicing, and I do my best, most productive writing when I completely disregard any work or tasks that aren’t writing. Choosing one and having a really good work day for that thing means 1) the other thing doesn’t get done, and 2) the little errands and tasks that I need to do through the day to keep the rest of my life going—including feeding myself on time—don’t get done.

I guess this all means that I would have really thrived as one of those old-timey wealthy men who had housekeepers and cooks and a team of servants taking care of them so they could focus on making scientific discoveries and creating Great Art, but I feel like if your answer to “How do I get things done and not hate myself” is “Be a privileged colonizer who exploits the labor of others for their own convenience,” something is terribly wrong.

This is not a request for advice, or even a real complaint; I’m still figuring out how my silly little brain works, how to approach structuring my days when I can’t predict what said silly little brain is going to want to do each morning, and how to move forward when I feel temporarily overwhelmed. I am, like Ted Lasso, a work in progmess.

A Felix and Fanny discovery

In self-inflicted homework news, I am determined to write a thoughtful analytical blog post about Apple Music Classical, which, while imperfect, is the best answer I’ve yet found to the oft-bemoaned problem of streaming systems being wholly unsuitable for the entire classical genre.

In the meantime, I’ve been enthusiastically playing with the app, which gave me a good excuse to pull up old and new favorite works. Remembering how much I loved Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet when I first heard it played by the Takács Quartet in January, I put on a recording of the work while starting my day. I didn’t clock this when I heard it live, but while I was finishing up my skincare routine one morning earlier this week the opening of the last movement grabbed me.

Listen to the first 6 or so seconds of the 4th movement in Fanny’s piece:

And now listen to the first 6 seconds of the 3rd movement of Felix’s Fantasie in F# minor, Op. 28 (8:14-8:20 in the video):

While in totally different keys, these are nearly identical figurations, both kicking off perpetual-motion-type final movements.

Here’s the written score for Fanny’s piece (via IMSLP):

And the written score for Felix’s (via IMSLP):

If you were wondering, Felix’s Fantasie was composed in 1833, and Fanny’s String Quartet was composed one year later, in 1834, meaning these works were possibly being worked on at the same time, or at least in quick succession.