I am ashamed to be Californian today, and perhaps even more so to be an Angeleno. Our people are a mix of economic moderates and social liberals, or so I had thought. Live and let live seems to be the motto for many in Los Angeles, where gays and straights and people of all walks [...]
Archive for the ‘Classical Moosic’ Category
Goodbye gay marriage!
Posted in Classical Moosic, Los Angeles, Politics, Songwriters on November 5, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Glenn Gould plays some Bach
Posted in Celebrities, Classical Moosic, Performers on July 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
My god, is this man good.
Here’s a great recording of Gould, doing a little Bach. The one thing about Gould that’s slightly endearing but mostly annoying is that he would sing, often audibly, during his pivotal recordings. Though his lips move in this one, all you hear is pure genius.
Gould actually [...]
Luigi Russolo’s intonarumori
Posted in Albums, Art, Classical Moosic, Electronic Music, Futurism, Other Stuff, Performers, Songwriters on April 24, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Another great purchase I got at Amoeba this weekend was Musica Futurista: The Art of Noises, a compilation of Futurist speeches, original recordings, and recreations of music and noise composed by the Italian Futurist ringleader F.T. Marinetti, as well as Silvio Mix, Franco Casavola, Francesco Balilla Pratella, and a bunch of other crazy Italian artist [...]
Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes
Posted in Albums, Classical Moosic, Electronic Music, Ligeti, Songwriters on April 23, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I went with my girlfriend to Amoeba Records this weekend–and of course, we both easily spent over a hundred dollars on records we previously never knew existed, yet could not afford to pass up.
But one of my purchases was a premeditated conquest. For a few years now, I’ve been selectively collecting the works of Gyorgy Ligeti, [...]
The Goldbug Variations, Glenn Gould, and William Gillespie
Posted in Albums, Books, Classical Moosic on March 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I was supposed to be writing a blog about Richard Powers’s The Goldbug Variations, and how I finished the book while on a plane to Mexico, with Glenn Gould’s 50’s and 80’s recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations tinkling in my ears via the power of my new iPod, and how once again I was overwhelmed by [...]
Gyorgy Ligeti – Vocal Works
Posted in Albums, Classical Moosic, Ligeti on January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am not sure how I became aware of Gyorgy Ligeti’s music. It certainly wasn’t through his work on the Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack, or because of his electronic compositions. However, I’m now a raving, lunatic fan who can’t decide whether Ligeti’s oeuvre is a stone tablet of musical law that all people must obey, or [...]
Pictures at an Exhibition – the Oliver Knussen/Cleveland Orchestra version
Posted in Classical Moosic on January 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Over the holidays, I needed something good to play in the car while my family and I drove around wine country in Paso Robles, so I busted out this Cleveland Orchestra version of Stokowski’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition I got a couple years ago.
For those who really want to embrace classical music, [...]
Goodbye Stubby
Posted in Classical Moosic, Obituaries, Performers on December 17, 2007 | 1 Comment »
I just learned that an old friend, an amazing young guy who had a lust for life and a rapacious love for music, died a few days ago, brutally. I haven’t seen him in years and never got to know him better, but it’s quite a shock. He was such a wonderful soul, I can’t [...]
Nigel Kennedy
Posted in Albums, Classical Moosic on November 29, 2007 | 2 Comments »
I’ve been digging piano concertos recently, so thought I’d branch out into violin concertos.
In getting this collection of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concertos, I basically stumbled onto the punk rock Yo Yo Ma in the form of Nigel Kennedy, the lead violinist here. A little research shows him to be quite the anti-intellectual, or at least [...]
