Oh yes.
I have discovered something new to derive great joy from.
Two things, indeed:
1) The absolute and utter sexiness of early Busoni: both the man himself (see right) and his piano concerto (which does make me tingle with delight and spasm with sincere and mildly profound affectations), and the sheeeeeer excellentness of the later Busoni.
2)The existence of places on the internet where people do freely trade in rare and exotic musical scores, (almost) all out of copyright and so perfectly legal. I have already amassed a collection of several gigabytes of compositions, and do right now plan on playing handful of them for definite.
Oh yes: Life is Good.
And, more topically, I bought a naxos CD by Bechara El-Khoury, a contemporary Lebanese composer, including his great orchestral work “Lebanon in Flames” which, what with the times being as they are, is especially poignant and likely to make me all moist about the eyeflaps.
ALSO: do forgive my recent absence, please. It should cease now.
2 Comments
Had a look in Tower anf HMV yesterday for Bechara El-Khoury, but you must have bought the entire stock :-)
And your post prompts two thoughts: (1) I wonder is there a composer from Israel who has music with titles that reflect being subjected to shelling or suicide bombs from Hamas or Hezbollah (2) Would the music be as poignant if it has been called, ohh … say, Nappy Rash?
(1) *shrug* not too sure. No doubt, though.
(2) I doubt so; it is progamme music, after all. Actually, I found that I was only moved by his works a little – he is totally an excellent orchestrator, and his music is quite accessable, but nit quite as nuanced as, say, Respighi. However, he still has a few years, and, no doubt, plenty of conflicts involving his native land to draw from. Still though, he has one other Naxos recording; I think I’ll get that.