As I said I have been listening, if not writing, and here is a selection that I have enjoyed while gone:
Mozart's Serenade in B-Flat, K. 361 "Gran Partita" (Crap)
Bartok's String Quartet No.1 (different)
Milhaud's String Quartet No7 (makes Bartok look normal)
Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie and Piano Sonata in A-Minor D. 845 (so outrageously good that just thinking about it makes me orgasm so hard that I won't be able to stand for 34 and three-quarter minutes)
So what does this means to you? Nothing. Unless you like good music (and by good music I mean well recorded music, the type is a matter of taste) and/or drugs, because really they are one in the same.
Let me explain. Yesterday I sat down for a listen, and this time I mean a true listen. I turned off all my lights (and as I live next to the north pole it's dark between 2:15pm and 11:30am), sat down on the floor beneath the beautiful print of Rothko's Red on Maroon and listened. And it was glorious. A virgin record, still sealed in its sleeve, devoid of surface scratches, thumb prints, the dust and the oils of life, ready to release it's full tonal assault of beautiful analog brilliance to my ears. I entered an opiate like haze.
More on that in a moment, first let me state what I listened to
Side One:
Piece: Mass in G Minor, BWV 235
1.Kyrie
2. Gloria
3. Gratias Agimus Tibi
4. Domine Fili Unigenite
5. Qui Tollis Peccata
6. Cum Sancto Spiritu
Composer: JS Bach
Performers: The Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra
Conductor: Richard Hickox
Recorded: June 1975
Side Two:
Piece: Mass in G Major, BWV 236
1. Kyrie
2. Gloria
3. Gratias Agimus Tibi
4. Domine Deus
5. Quoniam tu solus Sanctus
6. Cum Sancto Spiritu
Composer: JS Bach
Performers: The Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra
Conductor: Richard Hickox
Recorded: June 1975
So you get the idea now, I was listening to a two Bach masses, that ranged in pitch and tone from pipe organ to solo soprano, and it was amazing. You don't realize how good analog is until you listen only to digital (whether CD or god have mercy on me, lossy mp3) for a while. But once you actually sit down and listen to music they way you're supposed to (with your ears), music becomes a drug; a wonderful, wonderful drug that actually allows for you to listen to music. This is not the compressed crap they shove at people through iTunes, or the Amazon store or hell even your local independent record store (though in truth it looks like everyone is trying to become better). There is air around each note (not to mention there are notes instead of just tones), there is depth to the sound. I could go on and on, but let's put it this way, I'm a music junkie, and I only want the white china stuff.
Bach's masses were, well Bach's masses; they're amazing works of mathematical efficiency, counterpoint to point were the concept breaks down at perfection and still have remarkable beauty. Vocals interplay with organ, bass and cello set the stage for the incredible use of double-reed woodwinds (bassoon and oboe obbligato), the oboe strikes out, setting the melody, winding it's way through the sections of the mass, which always ends in the return to normality (or a G-Major chord). In the end I was a dripping man, laying on my back as my cats poked at me thinking I was dead, though rather I had found relaxation of the deepest variety. I had begun to listen to music again.
