Music
-
I expected to like this concerto more than I had the first, which I had found, overall, somewhat difficult and hard to love–see this post. Nevertheless I felt a faint tension as I put the needle down: was I about to get a challenging full-orchestra blast, as in the first? No, not at all. I
-
It seemed natural to go on from my tour of the Beethoven piano concertos to those of Brahms. There are only two, so this will be a shorter journey. And I'm sorry to say that it isn't off to a great start. I followed my self-imposed rule which says that I have to listen to
-
I've been wanting for a while to get back to that Pitchfork list of 50 Best Shoegaze Albums. As I reported in the post at that link, I've only heard a third or so of the albums listed there, and although I didn't expect to like them all it seemed way more than likely that
-
Usually I have some loose plan for what I'm going to post about over the coming two or three weeks–I've read this or that, or listened to this or that, and intend to write about it in the not very distant future. It's not a schedule but it's a guide. This symphony, however, was not
-
I may have mentioned in a post on one of the other Beethoven piano concertos that I thought I had heard the 5th (the "Emperor") in the probably fairly distant past, but didn't remember it at all. Yet when I listened to it a few weeks ago I recognized it instantly. The entire first movement
-
I had planned to post this last week, but a combination of computer problems and the nastiest cold I've had for some time got in the way. Last Sunday afternoon I heard the Mobile Symphony and the University of South Alabama Concert Choir in the Messiah–the first time I'd ever heard it performed live, and at
-
Four years ago I wrote about a very interesting collection called Miserere, subtitled "Music For the Holy Week Litugy." It includes the famous "Miserere" by Gregorio Allegri, a setting of Psalm 51: Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. and
-
I have a rule to which I stick pretty closely: I don't write about a piece of music until I've heard it three times. That applies whether it's a three-minute pop song or a ninety-minute Mahler symphony (sometime in the next month or two I'm going to say something about his Sixth). After I'd heard
-
When I wrote about Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the LP I had was a 1969 "rechanneled for stereo" reissue of a recording originally made in 1955. Rechanneling was a gimmick used for a while in the earlier days of stereo, when purchasers paid a significantly higher price for
-
The misty delicately flowering branch of this album cover is an excellent visual representation of its sound: Some music forces itself on your attention by volume and busy-ness, and in pop music a steady and very assertive beat. Some does it by quietness and simplicity, causing you to grow quiet and attentive yourself–as if a
Light On Dark Water 