A Lark Ascending

Indeed. Off topic I know but any love for Caravanserai? I picked it up yesterday, the guy at my local record store said "for most people the first three are the way to go but based on your tastes try Caravanserai". Caravanserai stands head and shoulders above anything else in the Santana catalogue to these ears. Not following that line of development strikes me as one of the lost opportunities of early 70s rock. Some of the guitar playing is just ecstatic - the varied atmospheres give a real sense of a journey across the disc. It also took the fullest advantage of the LP format, hitting two astounding peaks at the end of each respective side. Commercially, it couldn't sustain the sales of Abraxas so retreat was almost inevitable.

Hope you have a good one and Santa is generous (and appropriate!). Thanks for all the nice conversations this year and the wonderful recommendations in a multitude of genres. Special greetings to Jim for keeping this whole thing afloat. I don't know how he does it.

I'll take your advice...and invest the money in a company whose shares are bound to rise in the next three years:

Peter King the alto player also writes operas! Has a great affinity for Bartok - did a great tour with his quartet and a string quartet about ten years back. He used to be a regular at Appleby and could always be guaranteed to tear the place up on those three horn jam session things they did so well there. http://peterkingjazz.com/bio.html This is a great disc to sample his playing: ****************** I don't know much about the recently deceased Pete King - but given the importance of Ronnie Scott's in UK jazz life has achievement was considerable.

What should I do about my mortgage? It will still have four years to run. Will I still be liable in the next world?

Has worked very smoothly over the week. On the first day it was taking time to move between pages when you clicked but that was sorted within the day. No problems now - wish farewell to those late morning UK cut-outs.

Listened to 'Look at Yourself' (the track) on Spotify. Very much of its time. Not my cup of cocoa.

Should not be confused with Peter King the alto player.

Fish and chips is such a great meal. Almost enough to earn forgiveness for the rest of England's culinary contributions... I have a feeling the chips part is originally from Belgium! So we can't even claim that! I do like a burger every now and then, just as long as they don't butter the roll. And that it's cooked right through!

How DARE you! I'm sorry- this means WAR. Looks like flame-grilled White House again!

Fish and chips.

I nearly bought 'Look at Yourself' when it came out (c.1970/71?) - I recall hearing the title track on the radio. Is there a manic organ solo in the middle? I was really into manic organ solos at the time (Jon Lord, Emerson, Vinvent Crane etc). [but what 15 year old boy isn't!!!!!!!!] Might have to check Spotify to see if my memory is correct. Shortly afterwards I learnt from the NME that Uriah Heep were not cool and so never bought any of their records (traded in my Deep Purples and ELPs too!). Got my organ fix from Caravan, Soft Machine and Hatfield and the North instead. Oh, the power of the fashion police.

I have Stevens' cello concerto on an old cassette tape (from my days of illicitly taping things not available commercially from the library!). Haven't played it in many a year. Will need to seek it out and give it a try. William Mathias is another very appealing UK composer (Welsh, actually) who did the bulk of his writing during this time period. Three symphonies, concertos, choral, organ music (he was associated with St. Asalph's in Wales) etc. More in the British-take-on-Stravinsky-esque mould - a bit like the Holst of the '20s (or, perhaps, Rawsthorne). There are recordings on Lyrita and Nimbus. I heard an especially wonderful organ concerto one year in Gloucester as part of the Three Choirs Festival (a famous Britocentric shindig). Sadly, I don't think it ever got recorded. This one is especially enjoyable: Can't beat a good harp concerto!

Bizarrely, this was my first Jarrett album (and first ECM!). I've always liked the long flute and strings piece, the brass music and the track with Ralph Towner (which set me off exploring him). The string quartet loses me. I've never heard Luminessence but I have the later Arbor Zena with Garbarek, Haden and strings - I've always found it a bit glacial. The strings seem to move as a block - I don't get much of a sense of the independent movement of parts that a dedicated orchestral writer can bring off.

Looks good to me. Well done, Jim. Can't believe you have a full time job as a musician, a young family and still have the enthusiasm to make this board work so well.

That's been sorted. It's called downloads! "I buried Bev." Or "Paul is going to make some really dire records after this one."

In the end I don't think there is any overall superiority of one medium over another. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. I think most of us decide on a preference beyond the rational (in the same way we might prefer one style of garden or wallpaper [actually, I prefer paint!] over another). It's easy then to get blind about what others hear. With vinyl I always hear the clicks, pops, inner groove distortion, wow and flutter - and if it's not there I'm waiting for it. I know others can just tune out (in the same way that I have no awareness of differing sound quality between downloads and cds - but then I've never 'A/B'd' a recording in my life). Apart from the relative cheapness of the format, it's the instant availability of downloads that have led me in that direction. I know I'm not typical amongst (older) music obsessives in that regard - apparently the record companies in the UK still sell 90% of their catalogue via CD with only 10% on download. Partly suspicion of the new technology, partly its association with youth and superficiality, partly a lack of awareness as to just how far the quality has come on in a few years, partly a failure of the record companies to successfully market non-pop music in the new formats (too hung up on worrying about illegal file-sharing). When you open up iTunes you see such a glitzy, glossy, kiddie-pop front page and it takes a bit of time to navigate to the gems that lie within. With e-music there is no differentiation between the careful, high quality release and the bargain basement repackages. To grab the specialist audiences these sites need to get better at doing the equivalent of a record shop having its new releases on display and core catalogue in an obvious place, with all the cheapo versions lying in a separate bargain area. I miss three things with vinyl: a) The big sleeves. b) The 20 minute sides - awkward in some longer pieces, but in most music having to change sides really did help you focus. c) The way the 20 minute sides made performers really think about album track sequencing. Very hard to do this over 70 minutes - but on the LP you had two points where you could make a real impact with maximum concentration; two points of ending (where you could drift into the ether or end with a bang). I never really feel that sense of architecture on CDs of new material - tends to feel more like a sequence of tracks.

Have you never noticed how the most common place to get those static skips is towards the end of a disc? Normally because you've plonked a sticky finger-print there! Has anyone programmed their player to go the other way. Might reveal some astounding revelations on a few 60s/70s discs!

I've not bought any vinyl since the late 80s - always hated the format. CD took all the fear out of playing a record for the first time. Today I'm one step beyond what you are suggesting, Bill. 90% of my purchases are via download. I only buy on CD if it is unavailable on a download site. I've learnt to do without the packaging; and I'm far from an audiophile and so don't wrestle with all the angst about sound quality.

I've been getting most of my Hyperion discs from iTunes over the last two years; never found them on other download stores. Noticed this evening you can download direct now - seems to be most of the catalogue and the prices are cheaper with discounts for multiple purchases. Available as MP3 and FLAC. Worth checking out if you're not averse to downloads.

I tend to think of them (and Shostakovich too) as being stylistically of an earlier period - the bulk of their output predates the (random) cut-off point. They also have lots of music that is very well known; where most 'classical' from after 1960 has a pretty narrow following (minimalists excepted).

Not really. I'm interested in anything that has given people a real buzz. Doesn't mean it'll give me a buzz, but its a good place to start. Too many professional reviews concentrate on why a record or piece is important in the grand scheme of things. I'm always more interested in what people find emotionally involving.

Thanks for those recommendations. I must listen to the Gorecki 3rd again. It was a big 'hit' over here in the early 90s. At the time I found it a bit static but suspect I'm more open to that sort of thing now. I've been exploring Aho and, especially, Rautavaara myself of late. In fact I find a fair bit of the more recent music that has touched me has come from Scandinavia. I find myself returning to Sallinen quite frequently. One from the 80s that really moved me was the late Nicholas Maw's 'Odyssey' - I saw an early performance in Nottingham some time before Rattle recorded it. Doesn't have the melodic memorability of Mahler (what does in contemporary music...composers seem terrified of a delicious tune, fearful they might be accused of vulgarity) but has that same mammoth sweep. Another piece I really like is a recording of pieces by Judith Weir called 'The Welcome Arrival of Rain'. James MacMillan's recordings have also caught my ear as have Tōru Takemitsu's. I'm fond of John Adams and have been slowly overcoming a long aversion to the likes of Reich and Glass in the last couple of years (that fear of seemingly static repetition again!). This record from a young Finn keeps returning to the player: Beautiful orchestral colours, harking back to Debussy or Scriabin with the inevitable Sibelius echoes. ************* Hopefully people can add to this thread as they encounter things or rediscover things in their collections. Could be a useful resource.

The chap who started it all. After all, he could sing from a first person perspective.

Old hat really. Trying to tie Sibelius to Nazism was a popular sport amongst some of the Post-1945 ultra-modernists (not remotely connected with his popularity compared with general public indifference to their music, of course!). Reading a recent bio last year I was left with the image of a man who was undoubtedly aristocratic and self-centred but far from a supporter of the regime. Like many Finns I suspect he initially would have seen the German success as a potential safeguarding of Finland from the greater menace of Russian domination, very real in the shadow of the Winter War. The ultra-modernist claims were ironic considering the uber-hero of that group (some of who asserted the need to send a flamethrower over the Romanticism they viewed as partly responsible for the rise of nationalistic totalitarianism) was Anton Webern, a man with far more overt sympathies to the Nazis (despite his music being rejected by the regime). [There's a summary of the way Sibelius' reputation waxed, waned and waxed again here.)