A Lark Ascending

Quite!

Best to enter that wonderful state where time is immaterial.

This one is marvellous: I first noticed him on various Ella records many moons ago. Always a pleasure to listen to.

Proof that jazz is no longer even keeping up with the times, let alone forging ahead.

Marvellous on this double CD (with extra tracks from the original vinyl) on nude piano and electric piano. A favourite from the earliest days of my jazz listening.

Does blue indicate voting intentions? Well this one certainly doesn't!

Hope you are OK. You don't seem to be in the major danger zone but it still looks pretty hairy. (though looking again, aren't you Dorset?) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26042990

That's Devon! I'll certainly not be seeking a sea view on the strand.

But do not fear. David Cameron has taken personal command of Cobra. He's ordered Osborne and Gove to bring the buckets.

Watching Handel's Julius Caesar a few weeks made me want to get a one-stop narrative history of Rome. This one does Greece as well. Skates over the surface but does the job. Just got to the post-Alexander Macedonians.

The original side 4 of Keith Jarrett's 'Eyes of the Heart' was silent (just as well it was an ECM pressing!). Can only be a matter of time before it's reissued as a 2 CD set restoring side 4 (currently it is a single, incomplete, CD). Don't think I ever played more than a minute or two out of curiosity. So it may not be silent. There might be the odd grunt.

I wish they'd issue a boxed set collating all the silences just before Schnabel's fingers touched the keyboard. Peerless quiet. Such lack of touch; such absence of tone. Though, of course, I find Horowitz's silences to be 'finer'. Burble, burble, burble zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

Suspect it's a Brit thing.

Now here's a worthwhile reissue. Always loved 'The Faces' (and swear by the 4 CD box that does what boxes should do). I was aware of Ronnie Lane as a solo performer and with Slim Chance (must have heard sessions on the Peel show) but didn't pay much attention. Over the years I've heard tracks by him that have piqued my interest but his catalogue seems to be in disarray. So this 2 CD compilation does the job perfectly for me. Seems to cover a substantial part of his solo career - I spot the tracks that I've been looking for. Nice to spot a reissue that is not just trying to sell you the same thing again; mercifully they didn't bump it up to 4 CD with boutique packaging by adding Small Faces and Faces tracks that can be had elsewhere (something I've noticed with quite a few of these retrospectives). Though whether that is record company sanity or licensing availability, well.... Due in March. Time to get the beers in.

Despite my aversion to owning multiple copies of classical pieces I have owned 3. The Giulini from the mid-80s has been my main listen but the soundstage always bothered me. Like many of those early digital recordings it sounds like it was recorded in a cavern. I was driving round Austria in the late 90s with no Das Lied so bought the Phillips twofer with the Haitink/King/Baker version on. Very enjoyable and it's got played more than the Giulini. But today I found my first Das Lied on Spotify - Solti/Minton/Kollo. This is - regardless of where it falls in the approved hierarchy - how I hear the piece. In those early years I could only afford a few records so they got played again and again and stamped themselves on my memory. This one evokes those angst ridden late-teen years, sitting in a student hall of residence worrying about whether I was going to make it with my studies or how I was going to approach that unattainable girl. Not what Mahler had in mind but worrying about death or the possibilities of the eternal was not high on my list of priorities at the time. I've never seen a live performance - would like to.

Due in the next month: Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor), Raquel Andueza (soprano), Vincenzo Capezzuto (alto), Dominique Visse (countertenor), Gianluigi Trovesi (clarinet) & Wolfgang Muthspiel (acoustic guitar & electric guitar) L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar Interesting musician list. Definitely not for the HIP.

Yes, having access to the large collection on the hoof is what draws me to them. I tend to go through phases listening to a particular style or performer and then suddenly change gear; but I'll return again months later. Constantly deleting and re-uploading would drive me nuts (I did a bit of that with my first player). Could do with a 10TB iPod!!! Now that would be progress. When I was a student (mid 1970s) my parents lived in Germany. So when I went to see them (and do holiday work) in the summer I used to take one of those cases that carried 50 LPs on the ferry with me. Few clothes or anything sensible. Just records! So the iPod still seems like a minor miracle to me. Even ten years ago when I went on long vacations in the car I'd have a box of 50 odd CDs in the boot to feed my addiction. Mysteriously by the time I got home they'd mutated to 80!

Must have been one of those moments when time had run out and someone screamed 'For god's sake, what shall we call it? Think of a name! Anything!'

The South Korean Rice Paper Edition. You could only play them once and none have survived. But those of us who heard them...phew...an indelible memory.

Not sure. I don't have the liner notes. It appears to be a contemporary song with music by Savall - so it might be Catalan. The rest of the set is trad. arr. from across the Med but this one seems to be a specifically written song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-darWpcoOKs This is lovely - comes at the end of the third disc of Jordi Savall's cruise round various cultures of the Med:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25996176

You can take tablets to hear music? Oh Brave New World! Take an Anthony Braxton before breakfast and a Webern (the really small ones) after lunch and you'll soon feel better.