Reactionary

My musical tastes move in phases of a few months. Around the time of the latest U2 US tour, it was all U2 all of the time. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb was on all the time, both at home and on the road with the iPod. And then for a while it was Other Bands like the latest Franz Ferdinand and the Corrs. It was sort of an easing down from tour mania. After an incident at work, it all turned around again.

One of the plastic surgeons was playing classical music on his iPod (they all have one along with some kind of portable speaker instrumentation). Usually he plays things like Mozart who are technically perfect but don’t seize me like some of the others. But that particular day he was playing Tchaikovsky. The Russian romantics are my favorites, even above some rock bands. I grew up loving them even before I was into rock music. Over the next few days, I found my neglected classical CDs like Essential Tchaikovsky and ripped them into AAC for the computer (since I no longer play straight CDs). I had some Beethoven as well (the Pastoral) and some sonatas. My Rimsky-Korsakov is at my parents’ house, so I found the works I wanted on iTunes and downloaded them. It’s awesome how they let you buy a work for a discount even if you don’t buy the whole album. The latest thing I’ve purchased is a new recording of Vivaldi’s quartet of violin concertos The Four Seasons. That’s as far into baroque as I’ve ever delved.

And that’s what I’ve been listening to for days. It isn’t boring, like someone at work said (though Bach is heavy-handed and he does put me to sleep). I don’t pretend to know a lot about it, but it isn’t elevator music or background music. It’s so complex, and when it comes to the Tchaikovskys and Prokofievs and Rachmaninovs of the world, it’s acutely emotional. And it helps me think. I love it.

Posted on March 19th, 2006 under General, Tunes •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed