Music@Menlo

Tonight I walked about three blocks down the street from our house in Palo Alto to the St Marks (Episcopal) church, where I heard the first Music@Menlo concert.

David Finkel (cellist of the six-time Grammy-award winning Emerson String Quartet) and Wu Han organized this two-week concert and teaching series (now in its second season). Tonight's program was entirely Italian music, which was delightful, but coming up there is a Schubertiad planned that I'm really looking forward to.

I happened to spend a little time this afternoon transcribing the melody to "Nearer, My God to Thee" for Cole to play on the violin with me as I played it on the piano. So during intermission I looked for it in one of the St Mark's Hymnals. It wasn't in there. Neither was "What a Friend we have in Jesus." Are these hymns considered too Baptist-Reactionary for the Episcopal church or something? They are certainly in the old Presbyterian church hymnal that I asked my mother to send to me several years ago so that I would have something to fiddle around with on the piano (no pun intended). Since I rarely am inside a church, much less a multidominational visitor, I had no idea how the hymns might differ across various Christian churches.

I did find "Amazing Grace" in the Episcopal hymnal.