Music
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I’ve listened to this several times since the beginning of Lent, as it seems appropriate to the season. That, plus a sort of mood that made it seem appealing (and thus hardly penitential), plus a desire to make another attempt at grasping Renaissance polyphony, prompted me to get out this LP, which I’ve had for
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Well, this is more like it–more what I hoped for from a Beethoven concerto. More like Beethoven, I would even say. I mean, if Beethoven had died in, say, 1802, when he had written only the first two symphonies and the first two piano concertos, he would certainly have been remembered, but he wouldn't be
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I heard a story many years ago that Mick Jagger objected to the popular impression that he had corrupted the angelic-looking young Marianne Faithfull. He claimed it was the other way around. Whether that story is true or not, she was certainly a very enthusiastic drug user for some large part of her life (at
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Well, maybe this concerto plan of mine–getting to know the five Beethoven piano concertos–just wasn't a good idea. Or maybe this just isn't the right time for it. It's not you, I say to the second concerto, it's me. I listened to it once inattentively, then three times attentively, or as attentively as I could. And
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I don't listen to the radio very much, but sometimes when I'm making the ten-mile drive into town and don't want to bother picking out music to play from my phone, I press one of three presets on the radio. The three stations are: the one that claims to be "alternative," but doesn't really go
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Though this is one of my favorite Christmas works, I hadn't heard it for five or six years. This year I'd been thinking about it, but didn't have a chance to hear it until a couple of days after Christmas, and then I listened to it twice in as many days. As we're still in
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Who? If you're asking that question: The Call were a band who were moderately successful in the 1980s. Only moderately successful, but respected by both critics and musicians to a greater degree than their general popularity would indicate. If my memory is correct, which it may not be, I heard of them because there was
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One night at least a month ago, perhaps two, I was browsing in my 22,469 mp3 files*, looking for some classical piece to listen to before bed–something no more than fifteen minutes or so in length, and not overly intense or demanding. This album caught my eye: not the image, but the words "solo viola."
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Today, November 22nd, is St. Cecilia's feast day (and also that other day that many of us remember). Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern observes the occasion with Dryden's "Song For St. Cecilia's Day," a wonderful poem which you should read. Read it twice, actually: once slowly and perhaps haltingly for comprehension, making sure
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This really should have been a day-after-the-symphony post. The Mobile Symphony played on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, and the program consisted of this work, Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony, and a contemporary work by a composer I'd never heard of–not that whether or not I'd heard of him says anything very significant, but contemporary classical music
Light On Dark Water 