Number One for February 13, 2015

Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps as performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic

 

The famous January 20, 1958 recording which Sony Classical had kept slightly out of view for too long before giving it a classy reissue for the Rite's centenary in 2013. Ironically, I just got around to acquiring it while killing time at Newbury Comics, waiting for the ever more impatient rush hour crowds at the bus stop to thin out (and chill out) in our snow addled present state.

Top 3 for March 20, 2014

Room 237 directed by Rodney Ascher

I actually saw this about a month ago, but the recent news brought it back to mind.

The film presents five persons giving their theories about the secret subtextual messages hidden in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining. As the theories themselves are abjectly ridiculous, what I enjoyed about the film is the way the interview subjects' theories seem to exist in search of a vehicle to convey them. I mean how else would somebody happening upon a movie poster with generic advertising copy that goes something like "the wave of terror that's sweeping the country" have a reaction that goes "well neither this movie, nor the book on which it's based is all that popular, so this is obviously a reference to the slaughter of the Native Americans." The fact that The Shining is a movie by a director with a reputation for meticulousness which happens to be riddled with continuity errors can only mean that he is sending secret messages. (Well, some of the Native American stuff is kind of interesting, but since the setting is a desecrated Indian burying ground in Colorado, not as much of a stretch as the claim that the film is Kubrick's obvious confession to fabricating the Moon landing footage.)

Top 5 from December 2, 2013

Texarcana, for disklavier (Mechanical Piano Studies, No. 5) by Kyle Gann

After Conlin Nancarrow's hometown. And his compositional style.

Symphony No. 5 - II: Melodie by Karl Amadeus Hartmann performed by Clark Rundell conducting the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra

Very Rite-of-Springlike

followed shortly on the shuffle play by The Rite itself, in the classic Pierre Boulez / Cleveland Orchestra performance from 1969

Fairlee by Matt Pond, PA from the polyvinyl 15-year Anniversary Sampler

A rockin' little tune

Chopi Chopsticks by Gideon Nxumalo from Jazz Fantasia

Top 5 (plus) for September 11, 2013

En Saga by Jean Sibelius performed by Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1943, from Aufnahmen 1942-1944, Vol 2.

Or whatever of the Berlin Philharmonic had not fled by this point. Not a very refined performance, but with a depth not typically found. From Furtwängler's quixotic battle that culture could save Germany.

How does it feel to be back – Daryl Hall and John Oates from Voices, 1980

Oates' finest moment

Parole Ambulante – John Tchicai's Five Points, from One Long Minute

I saw this group (and bought this disc) on the fist day of summer 2010 at the Brooklyn club Zebulon, two years or so before Tchicai's death. He was very much in the role of the proud teacher, watching his students put their lessons into practice. only letting it rip at the end. After one tune fell apart at its start, he said, while regrouping “The task at hand is to change the mistakes into something beautiful” which I jotted down on the back of a flyer with Muhal Richard Abrams on the front. (for the benefit of the scholars who will someday study my papers, I must make sure to note this is Tchicai's quote and not Muhal's (or my own for that matter) to avoid misattribution.) A wonderful souvenir of a wonderful night.