你好 Hi! I’m J. Mark Goldman and I’d like to invite you to join with me in exploring the world’s greatest classical music.
In the vast and wide-ranging world of 'classical' music there is truly something for everyone - pieces which once discovered represent the start of an exciting and irresistible journey which will provide a lifetime's pleasure. For example, those who are particularly excited by hearing instrumentalists working at full stretch will thrill to the likes of Liszt and Paganini, or if something a little more reserved and self-contained is required, the chamber music of Haydn or Mozart would be a good starting point.
Any attempt to define what is meant literally by the term 'classical' music is difficult. How can you put into just a few words a musical tradition which encompasses such infinite varieties of style and expression, from the monastic tones of Gregorian chant to the jazz shadings of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, from the elegant poise of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik to the dark, stormy emotionalism of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony?
With such an amazing variety of material available, it is an awesome job to know just where to begin your disc collection, and as a result expensive mistakes are often made as tempting looking purchases turn out to be a disappointing. This is where this blog can really come into its own, and where I hope this blog will help you to choose the kind of music that will bring you a unique and deeply moving human experience.
But that’s just really an excuse for the main reason we’re posting this blog: we want to share with you the music we love, some of the greatest music the world has ever heard.
We’re not going to go through classical music from A to Z, nor are we going to go through it chronologically. History is fine, but we’re going to write about remarkable concerts we’ve heard by some of the world’s greatest (The Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to name just a few) or just whatever CD we’ve just heard.
But we want to hear from you. Email us at Jeffrey.Mark.Goldman@gmail.com, slip notes under our door, leave comments or questions, approach us late at night in one of our wateringholes with any information, suggestions or opinions on classical music. Or just to tell us how we are doing.
J.Mark Goldman.
In our player now:
JS Bach: Goldberg Variations (The Complete Goldberg Variations/Glenn Gould, piano
Sony S3K 87703)
This is one of the first classical music albums I owned, a birthday gift from a friend. I had heard of Bach, but this was the first time I really listened. Even though I had nothing else to compare it to, what an amazing performance it was! Bach was sedate, respected, disciplined, and scholarly, and here was Gould, a Canadian near-recluse with the face of an unworldly poet, an eccentric with his bottle water, towels, his bottles of pills, and his special worn-out folding piano chair, swinging, dancing his way through it!
There’s an electricity, and a driving urgency to the Goldberg Variations that I had never imagined Bach could have. It took repeated listenings for me to appreciate that the music is also soft, delicate in places, almost meditative. You can feel the deep values Bach held dear. There can be no lies, no affectation when Bach is played like this – and old JS’s inventiveness, his sense of humor, his love of life, it’s all there in those swirling cascades of notes!
If you can get hold of the three-CD Sony set, in addition to an interview with Gould, you can hear his 1981 recording as well. It was the last recording Gould made before his death, and a wonderful but completely rethinking of the Goldbergs - the only time in Gould's career that he wanted to re-interpret a piece. Both are amazing performances.
Myth has it, Bach composed it for a nobleman who had trouble sleeping. No one could sleep through this – unless they were deaf.
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