Friday, July 14, 2006

Byzantine Music and Ice-cream

Yesterday my wife requested some "doing-a-contract theme music" for her work. Naturally, I offered to help, leading to the following exchange:

Magda: Pistachio ice cream mode.

Me: Sounds like plagal of the first to me. I would say more, but I'll save it for tomorrow

Magda: ?? How does pistachio ice cream mode sound like plagal of the first???

Me: Well, if you must know, it is not the simple, classic goodness of chocolate ice cream (plagal fourth). Nor it is the exquisite mint-chocolate (third) [...] It is good, but it is a bit different - so therefore, plagal of the first. I think first would be something really simple and straight-forward, like vanilla.

Unfortunately, I am not much of a connoisseur of ice-cream, so my comparisons ended there. I kept thinking that second mode would have to be something that seems straight forward but has a twist, plagal second something Oriental, fourth something rather unexciting, and grave (in its "natural" form) something that takes some getting used to. Any suggestions?

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obviously not plagal first -unless you take pistachios to be somehow akin to the Resurrection. I go with plagal second. Hard chromatic.

7:51 PM  
Blogger Pistevo said...

I'd always thought of Pl.1 to be rather triumphant as well - which would, if I had to say one, be chocolate-coated chocolate.

10:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Father Justin Parvu once said: "Can't you see that nowadays the whole world is a huge Pitesti?". Beware:This remark is not for bloggers at all.

2:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pistachio ice cream is definitely plagal second. For plagal first I nominate chocolate-dipped vanilla.

11:18 PM  
Blogger Virgil Petrisor said...

I, for one, haven't thought of plagal first as particularly triumphant in itself (apart from the words of the hymns). Maybe that's because the Romanian Hristos Anesti is definitely of major tonality, but I digress. There seems to be a chocolate theme, however, developing around plagal first, though. And, on second thought, I think Fr. Raphael and Mary Beth are right, pistachio might just be the flavor for plagal second. Now, back to the regularly scheduled Greek and Orthros.

7:47 AM  

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