A Lark Ascending

Interesting. About 20 miles south 'nesh' means scared. A 'nesher' is someone who runs away from a fight.

But can you do it using another search engine than Google? Could one say that one has googled something on Bing or Yahoo? You've been able to hoover the carpet with something like an Electrolux or Dyson for many years,

Kill the Wabbit! There's a 2 and a half minute version of The Ring here: Sublime artistry. Here's the Tristan Act III Prelude...just realised how much Sibelius got from this! I have a feeling this Stokowski version was the one I first heard on a cheapo 'Wagner's Greatest Hits' disc in the 70s.

Good plan. I spent the last month watching the Copenhagen recording of The Ring. Very powerful. Actually, 'Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg' is probably the best place to start. Very warm and humane with fabulous tunes and one of the great spine-tingling vocal quintets. Spend 5 minutes with this:

A 'clever' remark but completely inaccurate. Part of the misconception with Wagner is just hearing the grander overtures and 'bleeding chunks' which only tell a tenth of the story. The piece that completely undermined my prejudice against Wagner a good 35 years ago was a recording of the prelude to Act III of Tristan - an incredibly haunting piece of music with a cor anglais pining out over a desolate shoreline. I recently downloaded that Klemperer 2CD because it seemed to have the most comprehensive range with nice long excerpts. It doesn't have that Tristan Act III Prelude (not many do) nor any of the final scene of Gotterdammerung but it's very enjoyable. This one gives you 20 minutes of the Gotterdammerung ending: At some point give the operas a go - they're nowhere near as hard or breast beating as they appear. A bit of disbelief suspension and you're inside one of the most powerful streams of music I know. This one's good too, though you only get 3 pieces:

Lovely pictures, Kinuta. A bit like Doncaster!

My overall favourite of the year, in this case from way outside the jazz world: Shows how a relatively new, distinctive performer can take a genre (in this case English folk music) that has been around for ages (the songs for centuries, the performance approach, maybe 50 years) and still come up sounding totally fresh.

Didn't know that about Honegger.

Appreciate that the quote above is hype, but is The Four Seasons really an exhausted warhorse that needs new life breathing into it? Overplayed, undoubtedly, but listen to it on your own terms and its a thoroughly engaging piece. Nothing wrong with doing this to 'the classics' - Uri Caine's been playing this game for a while and all manner of people from The Nice back to John Kirby and beyond have had fun doing this sort of thing. I recall a big deal being made about playing the Four Seasons amplified and with a light show in London in the 80s. Seems to be more about hitching a ride to a very popular piece of music than an act of vital resuscitation.

I'm sure that's true but I never found a shop like that. Maybe mainly me as I'm not one to strike up conversations with people I don't know in shops. There were places where the owner got to recognise me as a regular customer and we'd have a bit of a chat. Agree about the fun of being blindsided by something you'd never heard whilst browsing. I did really enjoy my record buying years. But I don't miss them. My musical interests have broadened considerably since the arrival of the net because it is so much easier to follow my natural instincts off the the beaten track.

I'm still bewildered as to how Ronald Reagan got on the list.

Very low tinsel factor but can occupy the same space as the Bach Oratorio or the Messiah.

The Klemperer is too slow. I much prefer the foreboding of the Schuricht and the bombast of Toscannini.. Get the Schnabel. Wonderful bouquet. Blackberry after taste. P.S. I would like to take this opportunity to withdraw the Rutter from the first list. I like some of Rutter's other pieces and greatly admire his commitment to writing music that people can just enjoy singing and hearing (as opposed to 'appreciating'). But the fast pieces in particular on the Xmas disc have something of the happy-clappy about them.

I just love the transition from Mahler through the likes of Korngold to the Hollywood soundtracks up to about the 60s. I'm pretty sure that the big Mahler boom that took off from the 60s is partly connected to the fact that we were used to hearing that style of music (generally simplified with more firmly shaped melodies) in films.

No-one recommending this?

Two of my favourite musicians. Look forward to this.

No idea where they fit in the pecking order but the Chandos series has kept me well entertained over the last 15 years or so, the Symphony in particular: These two from the Decca Entartete Musik series are very good too: Might be hard to find on disc now but available as downloads. The Violin Concerto is lovely, though very Hollywood. Doesn't bother me but bothers some.

The way the teachers reacted is amazing. I hope I could show a 1/10th of their courage. The whole event brings back terrible memories of Dunblane in Scotland in 1996. Hard to even begin to comprehend what the families are going through.

Heard a version of this on the radio yesterday. Apologies if it's well known but I'd never heard it before. Loved the comment on the programme about Isolde Charlestoning into immortality. By one Clement Doucet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9ment_Doucet One to add to the famous Belgians.

I find this always works. I also enjoy Sun Ra albums more dressed like that.

"The Killing, Boyo" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-20727032

Can't believe that UK TV had nothing to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Very impressed so far - pacey narrative with lots of worm's eye views.

I enjoyed going to them in their time. Spent way too many Saturdays in record shops from 1970 until about 2005 or so. But I don't miss them. Online purchasing (and downloading in particular) suits me much more.

The BBC varies on this - sometimes it's up straight away, sometimes later. Especially annoying on BBC 4's 'Something Understood', a 30 minute religion/philosophy programme made up of someone's thoughts, readings and the most bizarre mixture of music. I'm always hearing something I want to track down but then have to wait a day until the playlist appears. I must admit I don't look at the JRR list until after a track has been played - I like to be surprised. Really enjoying the 'Basra' version of 'Lazy Afternoon' at present. Must play that disc again.