(no subject)

[solipsistnation]

Today at Goodwill I found a set of recordings of Bach on vinyl. They're from 1972, the Smithsonian collection, recorded on period instruments. It appears that the records were either taken care of better than any 30-year-old records I've ever seen or were never played. I'd actually guess the latter. (this appears to be the same set)

I am not really familiar with the Brandeburg Concertos-- I suppose I should be, considering I claim some sort of cultural literacy, but really, classical music has never interested me much beyond the sort of "greatest hits" collection-- a little Bach, a bit of Beethoven, the pieces used in the soundtrack of 2001, and so on.

I find that as far as actual listening goes, classical music on vinyl is much more appealing than, say, compact discs, for (ugh) cassettes. Or, for that matter, mp3s. Classical pieces lend themselves to extended listening and suffer more from random access than pop songs (and remember, I define a "pop song" as a relatively catchy song about 4 minutes long, rather than an actual popular song. If I meant "popular music," I'd say "popular music." I mean pop songs.), and this, five sides worth of music, is certainly an extended listening experience. (The sixth side is blank, with a soundless spiral groove to keep the thoughtless from destroying their needles by dropping them on smooth blank vinyl.)

I'm not sure where I was planning on going when I started posting this, but I'm pretty sure I had something in mind. I guess at this point it's just sort of a status-of-my-listening report. Here I am, lounging around my living room, listening to ancient music on an obsolete format. I guess that's it.

Comments

[anitra.livejournal.com]

mmm... Brandenburg Concertos. Good choice. By the way, if you're looking for a concise "best of" classical collection, you should get Mad About the Classics (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001GKR/102-5511830-5012933?v=glance), put out by Deutsche Grammophon. Unfortunately only on CD, but it's a great collection of the most popular classical music. This is actually the first CD I ever owned - I won it in a contest from my local NPR/classical station as a kid.

Classical pieces lend themselves to extended listening and suffer more from random access than pop songs

So true. I should really set up my mp3/iPod playlists to segregate my classical music out. It's jarring to go from a pop song into a classical piece and back into pop songs.