Potatamoto

I have the webcomic links below the posts for a reason, but nonetheless I will point out this very telling recent strip from Scott Ramsoomair's (brilliant) VGCats: "Waiting".

Concerning Nintendo's general stance towards their fans, I am not qualified to comment (not being a Nintendo fan). However, their recent change of stance did not fail to attract even my interest.

Maybe it will work out, and their new target audience will support them for another two decades, like the last one did...

Lessons of GMG [Reproduction]

Part of the blog's mission statement is commentary.

And so far, I'll admit that most of the commentary I've had to make about things has ended up in either a forum among those where I'm currently active, or in my head for reprocessing.

Therefore, not much was left to post here. However, I recently had an epiphany and decided to make a satirical post about the aforementioned GMG Forum's everyday realities, as seen through the eyes of someone coming to the forum with the purpose of learning about life.

"Why are you explaining this, now?

Isn't a joke supposed to go unexplained?"

Well, yes, but it appears that almost everyone who responded in that by-now reasonably popular thread missed most of my less obvious irony, and I thought I'd make it plain that there is less-obvious irony to be found. I hope that helps, because I might even say that, judging from the responses, the very specific target I was aiming at has been hit.

So without further ado, here follows a reproduction of my commentary on both GMG, and the actual world of classical music lovers in general, in spite of(?) the various stereotypes in abundance.

[Further hint: neither order nor spacing are random, at any point.]

[Edit: Forum member Greg perceptively adds:

12. "In classical music, we always skip 12."

No, that was not deliberate.]

...............................................................................................

Valuable lessons on life from the GMG Classical Music Forum:


1. Classical music is for everyone.


2. Except bigots.


3. Or maybe especially them.


4. If composer or performance practice: old is good, new is better; older is best.

5. If conductor or soloist: new is bad, old is better; older is still best.


6. Each person is entitled to their opinion.

7. Unless they are wrong.


8. No matter their age, everyone has something to prove.


9. Classical music listeners are not elitist.

10. Non-specialist musical discussions are largely useless.


11. Classical music listeners also excel in philosophy, theology, sociology and psychology by default.

13. Non-specialist discussions on the above are far preferable to the lies specialist discussions give birth to.


14. Richard Wagner's music is boring and shallow, due to its dependence on long-winded text.

15. Richard Wagner's music is exciting and profound, especially due to its dependence on long-winded text.


16. Consistency is optional.

17. As are manners.

18. But mannerisms are not.

19. Nor is etiquette.


20. Classical music is for those who can understand it.

And Now For Something Completely Different: Behold, A Useful Post

Since this blog's establishment, I have done my best to turn my "acquaintance period" with the medium into something more than a stream of nonsense: a stream of entertaining nonsense.

Because in all honesty, occasionally entertaining (though labyrinthine, "syntactic boa constrictors", to adapt a Brahms quote) as The Prodigal Sorcerer's posts up to this point might have been, they are still nowhere near the stated goal of providing something.

So let me start steering this blog into the waters it was actually due to sail (if you'll excuse the overtly literary metaphor), through providing you with two links, and a small introduction.

I am a member of the GMG Classical Music Forum, as might be evident by my linking it. (See: "Relevant To My Interests, just to the right.)

And in this wonderful forum, which I will no doubt discuss again in future posts, there is a thread about what each member is listening to, where many an odd thing sees the light of the world at large: privately-sourced recordings, old LPs, new releases, downloads and radio or internet broadcasts all eventually appear.

So, in the realm of the latter, now that I am done with forming that rather idyllic picture of our "listening" thread, through a link he provided, esteemed member Bruce Hodges (one of our moderators, as well) alerted me to the existence of two immensely interesting sites:

The first is SymphonyCast, and it provides free broadcasts, available on demand, for one orchestral concert of symphonic music per week from the world's most prominent concert halls and orchestras.

"A great nation deserves great art" appears to be the rubric (sponsored by UBS), and although this site is mainly intended for an American audience as a result, it is still a fantastic source of high-quality (for broadcasts; 128kbps) material from such ensembles as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, or the Berlin Philharmonic in fascinating programmes, often by conductors among the finest (ca. 2008).

For example, I dipped into a concert by the RCO, Iván Fischer conducting, culminating in Schoenberg's transcription of Brahms' Piano Quarter No. 1 for orchestra; and then on to the Berlin Philharmonic playing Schubert's 9th (C minor) Symphony under Bernard Haitink!

I won't add anything beyond that anyone orchestrally-inclined should investigate posthaste. And thus the second site, which those of you following classical broadcasts on the net are almost certainly aware of, but which I am still mentioning, is medici.tv.

"A compilation of on-demand video broadcasts from the great Verbier Festival, as well as more concerts from Aspen and Aix-en-Provence, coupled with live streams of them from all three (after which they enter the free, on-demand phase), and a huge historical catalogue of classical concerts and documentaries to boot (albeit for a fee, these).

The broadcasts are available in low and high quality to account for one's connection speed, and are magnificently presented throughout."

What's more to add on medici.tv? Beyond the fact that they're also sponsored by UBS, conspicuously, I can't think of anything.

But if the notion of having a front-row seat at every concert in the Verbier Festival (let alone the other two), listening to some of the best chamber and orchestral musicians perform incredible music live or whenever you want to does not appeal to you, then I do imagine you're in the part of the readership that's not here for the music!

Let me even throw in the fact that both the MET(ropolitan Opera), and now the Bayreuth Festival (yes, I did write what you just read; albeit for a hefty fee) are streaming a number of their productions online, to couple the orchestral and chamber music from above.

So it seems that times do change. And in the face of this revolution in the dissemination of good music across the globe, I would enjoy having someone tell me we are, in fact, in cultural decline.

A Chopin(g) Liszt Triumph!

Oh yes, going from one bad pun to the next (see title).

However, the subject matter, a Chopin and Liszt piano music compilation from the hands of Sviatoslav Richter, is altogether beyond my repeated poor attempts at humour.

When I was compiling said shopping list yesterday, you see (in my head), the 2-disc set in question was a big "maybe":

According to Decca, the recordings dated from 1988, and that was not generally Richter's best period (old as he was, by then). But he did have moments of brilliance in that era, and I couldn't rule out the possibility. And what of the Liszt B minor sonata, always tricky?

Yet in any affair, I finally caved in and put it in the shopping list, spent a whole lot more money than I planned between it and Horowitz's last public recital (superb), and was amply rewarded!

For that is no mere recital, in that Richter disc (was that trite enough?): it is genius caught on record, the legendary pianist at his elusive best throughout. In fact, his best period too, if information I was given placing the recordings in 1966 is correct (very likely).

Masterful and deeply profound, this is a disc that I would recommend to all Chopin or Liszt lovers, or anyone wanting to find out what either composer can sound like in such great hands.

Edit: Added a snide self-critical remark, which you can ignore; I couldn't.

Edits, RSS and You

(As excised from the previous post.)

Edit: Do those of you subscribing, all three of you, get repeated notices for posts, one for every time I edit them? If so, I'd best type each of them a couple of days ahead, for good measure.

Edit 2: No, seriously, I feel very guilty now, if I'm making your readers go berserk. Or worse yet, if they don't update, and you end up reading the unedited versions of the posts. Hm. Distressing.

Edit 3: Firstly, I shrunk the edits. Secondly, I think I've gotten the hang of the spacing in this interface, at last. Significantly fewer edits predicted, regardless of what's going on in your readers.

Edit 4: The edits won't shrink, so I'm moving them to a different post.