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Listening to a symphony by Charles Gounod -- for the readers who had German instead of French, it sounds like my friend Van De Graaff pronounces it "Sharl Goo-KNOW" -- and it sounds quite like a symphony by none other than Ludwig van Beethoven, a clean, elegant, less dramatic one, with less crescendo and descrescendo than Beethoven -- such that you don't have to constantly adjust the volume so that you can hear it without disturbing those around you.

Gounod's most famous work is the opera Faust. Perhaps his most well known work, at least to us oldsters, is "Funeral March of the Marionettes," which was the themesong for the ancient TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

I'm not saying that Gounod apes Beethoven, just that he uses some of the same classical/romantic techniques and phrasing and styles (don't know what I'm talking about, of course, having had no formal training (or discipline) in music, just have this ear for music and a lot of my life spent listening to it when I should have been doing something constructive -- e.g. learning to play a musical instrument). I still would like to be a classical DJ and that may happen yet. But I doubt it. Maybe a podcast or something.

Since Gounod's "dates" are 1818-1893, his orchestral composing sounds a little retrograde -- Beethoven's dates are 1770-1827, I seem to recall, and his music became increasingly more "romantic" and less "classical" in contrast with Gounod's -- at least in this symphony I'm listening to as I write. One parallel of the two is orchestration: whole orchestra here, horns or oboes there, both composers seem to use them in about the same way. Well, it's over now and the hearing was a delight. And I'm not left with a feeling of doom and death and so forth. In other words, Gounod's symphony sounds more light-hearted -- more fun -- than much of Beethoven's work. I guess I must add that I don't have the feeling of triumph that Beethoven evokes either, in such works as the mighty Eroica (Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major). This Second Symphony of Gounod is definitely "lighter" than the Eroica. Vive la difference.

Gounod was a Parisian, his pianist mother gave him his first lessons in music, he attended the Paris Conservatoire, and he studied 16th century sacred music, Palestrina in particular. Besides operas and symphonies, he wrote string quartets and oratorios. No mediocre composer. And we hardly ever hear him on "classical" radio.

I've been watching piecemeal Electric Horseman afternoons while sitting with Howard. That's the '80's movie shot in Utah when we were living there and Bob Redford and Jane Fonda were younger and prettier (Willie Nelson never ages!). The scene in which Bob and that magnificent horse escape from the St. George cops is still thrilling to me, and of course comic. There's something about a human being riding a horse at full gallop that evokes all kinds of powerful emotions in me. I know, I'm a big sappy sap, but I love the scene where Bob rides that horse -- and it's really him most of the time, although a stunt rider takes over some of the dicier leaps etc. (Greatest ride on film is that of Ben Johnson as a cavalry soldier in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, a Duke oater from way back when. It's Ben all the way. He was the best dang stunt rider ever was. You may remember him from The Last Picture Show or possibly the guy who fights in the saloon with the "sod-buster" Shane.) I also love the scene where Drew Barrymore and Andie McDowell are riding galloping horses in the admittedly awful movie Bad Girls. Which I loved. Forgive me. I have also loved other stinkers, like Havana and -- oh well, you get the picture.

And I can't keep these ravings apolitical. I just have to comment about some of the outrages of, as Gary Keillor calls him, the Current Occupant (of the "Oval Office"). Let's see how many peccadilloes I can get into one sentence: GWB chastised Congress for taking a "spring break" instead of giving him a bill for funding Iraq that does not impose any deadlines on a pullout, although it gives him every dollar the troops need, but he will veto it and keep them in harm's way longer because he can't have his way as he had it when the GOP was totally in control -- just before he himself takes off to clear brush and ride his mountain bike in Crawford for the umpteenth time -- he has taken more vacation than any president by far -- and before he took off, he made a recess appointment of one of his buddies, a guy whose nomination he had to withdraw when this guy, Fox, faced drilling from John Kerry the very guy who had been slimed by the Swiftboat/Rove clowns who this guy donated 50K to.

Well, let's all watch Law and Order -- Fred Thompson, who did one term as a senator from Tennessee, is being considered as a presidential candidate. Some people are "excited about him!" He did not disgrace himself during those six years. Might not even have broken the law! Desperation of the GOP for a candidate?