What I do know is that the Rostropovich set is the first one I purchased and I love it to death. There's a mesmerizing quality to this music that carries with it a whole lot of emotion. It's the kind of quiet music that I've heard people put on as background. That's just not possible for me. Too many interesting twists and turns here for aural wallpaper. What's strange is that the music seems to fit into the background noises of this small neighborhood: the wind swishing through the trees, the sound of sea gulls, the occasional horn from a boat.
On second thought, maybe that's just me leaving my "real" life behind while allowing a total immersion in the moment.
Pass the coffee pot please.
Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments
1 - Snarkattack
You must listen to the Anner Bylsma recording, that one is my absolute favourite! It's not perfect but it's so goddamn soulful.
Darn, there is also a recording of the suites by a well-known viola da gamba performer (I only know because I play early music, so it's not common knowledge to classical music buffs) on a viola da gamba which I have to say sounds rather nice. But I'm biased there - the gamba is just...wow.
2 - Mark Saleski
wow, i'll have to look for that.
there's also transcriptions for the trombone...don't know about recordings though.
3 - Raymond c Lange jr.
Maybe the salty air will clear the head and you can bang out some awesome reviews or at least mellow ones. GOOD ONE! Ray
4 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Ah, Bach... Evocative article, matched by choice of "longhair" music. Have a great vacation.
5 - Mark Saleski
gordon, what's the history of the usage of "longhair"? the only time i've seen it used in reference to classical was in an old mash episode when winchester attempted to play some mahler on the jukebox.
just common usage in the 50's?
6 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Mark--Here's more than you probably wanted to know. I was familiar that the roots(!) of "longhair" in relation to Classical artists came from 19th Century intellectuals/Romanticism (notably German) who wore their hair long, but not how it developed into a specific Classical music sense.
So here's what the "Mavens' Word of the Day" has to say about its evolution up to the '50s and '60s--and now I am further enlightened, too:
The word longhair (or longhaired) does refer to people--specifically men, on whom it is, or was at various times, unusual--with long hair, but the implications of this have changed over time.
In the nineteenth century, long hair was chiefly worn by intellectuals or artists. There are assorted examples from the late nineteenth century of longhaired applied to such people: "Romanticism...was fermenting still...in certain long-haired German artists at Rome" (G. Eliot, Middlemarch).
In these examples, longhair(ed) is being used literally, but by the early twentieth century it became current in the sense 'artistic; intellectual', without reference to the actual length of hair worn by a person thus described. A few examples: "Carol, honey, I'm surprised to find you talking like a New York Russian Jew, or one of these long-hairs!" (Sinclair Lewis, Main Street); "The long-haired critics were too preoccupied with Kafka and Henry James" (The New Yorker, 1952).
By the mid-1930s, a subsense developed that referred to classical music (either a performer or fan thereof). This was used chiefly by jazz musicians and journalists: "Benny [Goodman] has also become a patron of long-haired composers....He gave the first performance of the new Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra that he commissioned from Aaron Copland" (Time, 1950). By about 1950 the noun longhair was in use in the sense 'classical music': "Classical music, too, is gaining in the field....M.G.M....reports that 10 per cent of its business is 'long hair'" (N.Y. Times, 1952).
While this sense seems to have fallen out of use in the 1960s, a new meaning arose at the end of that decade: 'a person wearing long hair, especially a hippie; (broadly) a person who is politically liberal': "He went along to the bank with another longhair, a member of our commune" (American Scholar, 1973). This sense has taken over the word longhair and is the only way you'll likely encounter it in current use, but during the middle years of the century, the 'artistic/intellectual person' and 'classical music (performer/fan)' meanings were the ones that mattered.
7 - DJRadiohead
Excellent stuff as always, Sir Saleski. TWTWIM married might be in need of this set.