Western Vernacular Music: what I do and don’t know

Stuff I want to know more about in boldface

  • Dixieland Jazz
  • Country Blues
    • I got 7 CDs of anthologies, just need to rip them now
  • Grateful Dead, Phish, those kinda guys
    • I don’t think I’ll get it, but humour me
  • James Brown
  • Hendrix
  • Chicago before they turned into mush
  • Pink Floyd, Pink Floyd
    • Love the Wall and Dark Side, need to know what else they did
  • 80s crap
  • 90s crap
  • 90s good stuff
    • Loved Nirvana. What happened next?
  • What happened after I stopped listening to Western Vernacular Music? (It was when I started the PhD, ’95)

Musical Theatre: what I do and don’t know

Stuff I already know:

  • West Side Story. Not quite a musical, is it.
  • My Fair Lady. Perfect musical, and astonishingly faithful to the play.
  • Sweeney Todd. And Assassins. I don’t know other Sondheim pieces, but I’m sure they are excellent as well.
  • Wicked. My wife’s fave, and I did not expect to fall in love with it, but hey, we don’t always disagree! I did fall in love with it. Never got around to buying the German recording, so I’ll need to put *that* in the list too: Willemijn Verkaik is astounding.
  • Chicago. It’s an encyclopaedia of ’20s music, and wickedly biting.
  • South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut. So totally counts as a musical, and one that adheres very closely to the form.
  • Godspell. Meh. Jesus Christ Superstar is better.
  • Jesus Christ Superstar.

Classical Music: what I do and don’t know

As a guide to contributors, this is what I already know in music, and what I’d like to know more of. The latter is in boldface.

Classical Music.

  • Perotin
  • Stuff between Perotin and Ars Subtilior
  • Ars Subtilior
  • Stuff between Ars Subtilior and Corelli
    • Liked Byrd. Freaked out by Vincenzo Galilei. Liked Schutz.
  • Corelli
  • Bach, Bach, Bach
  • Mozart, Mozart
    • Love the Clarinet Quintet, the Requiem, the last symphonies, the Violin Concertos. Liked the operas, need to revisit. Need piano concertos. Needs to be convinced everything else is not fluff
  • Beethoven, Beethoven
    • Love the symphonies. Challenged by the Grosse Fuge. Know very little else.
  • Anything between Beethoven and Wagner
    • Love Berlioz Requiem and Symphonie Fantastique, enough not to call him French. Will gradually make peace with Chopin
  • Wagner
    • Have heard the Ring once, and that was 30 years ago
  • Brahms
    • Love the 4th. That’s all I know.
  • Mahler, Mahler, Mahler
  • Berg, Berg
    • Love the Violin Concerto and Wozzeck. Not sure I’d love anything else
  • Shostakovich, Shostakovich
    • Love the symphonies, the preludes & fugues, the cello concertos, and the 8th string quartet. Am OK with Rayok, but it’s not as subversive as he thought it is. Need to know more.
  • Stravinsky, Stravinsky
    • Know the standard Stravinsky Mark #1 stuff; fascinated by Les Noces. Loved Pulcinella, Symphony of Psalms and Oedipus Rex, need to know more Stravinsky Mark #2 stuff. Doubtful will like Stravinsky Mark #3, but I’m OK with the Requiem Canticles.
  • John Adams
    • I think I’ve tuned out of what he did post-Klinghoffer though.

Chopin, #2

https://www.quora.com/Chopins-pr…

From Michael Masiello

Nick, I propose this as your next homework assignment. You can find six minutes, right? Resist this — I dare you. It’s a stupor mundi any which way one looks at it, but in Ivan Moravec’s hands it’s touched by something superhuman. What do you think, Curtis — good pick?

And then you might try this one on for size:

Another blog for Nick?

Another blog for Nick?

Yes, another blog for Nick. It’s not like I’m paying for extra. Or that anyone’s going to see it anyway.

*sigh* And why this one?

My Chrome browser has too many open tabs.

So? Why is this Quora’s problem?

My Chrome browser has too many open tabs, because I get suggestions of music, or poems, or movies I should be experiencing from the good folks on Quora, and I’m not keeping tracking of them properly.

And…

… and if I track them here, success!

*rolls eyes*

So I’ll jot down each request here, solicit others in moderation; and if I accept, I’ll post my reactions to each piece in comments.

How very self-indulgent of you.

And screw you too.

Aphy-… Aphyre-… Ameri… WTF?

Aphypnēsis Amichaiou.

And screw you too.

The inspiration for this, and oldest open tab on my browser, is this comment from Michael Masiello, when I finally listened to some Chopin:

https://www.quora.com/Chopins-pr…

The awakening of Nick Nicholas continues!

Aphypnēsis is Greek for Awakening, you see.

And Amichaiou is…

Greek for “of Amichai”. Which Uri Granta has informed me is the closest name Hebrew has to Nicholas: Uri Granta’s answer to If you were to Hebraize your surname, what would you choose?

So. Aphypnēsis Amichaiou. The Awakening of Nick.

You really are a pretentious shmuck, aren’t you.

And screw you too.

Το αλάτι της γης

From Dimitra Triantafyllidou

ΤΟ ΑΛΑΤΙ ΤΗΣ ΓΗΣ

36 episodes, isn’t it, of an awesome ethnomusicologist inviting some Greek folk musicians for a banquet in the studio on Greek Government TV, where they jam and talk. And joining in the dance.

Only watched two episodes, and both were wondrous: one on Southern Italy, one on Istanbul.

There will be more. I will comment on each here as I get to them.

Will Quora ever add a notification for new responses to a particular comment thread?

Will they? No. Comments are essential to the social media nature of Quora, and the social media nature of Quora is not intrinsic to the stated mission of “to share and grow the world’s knowledge”™. In fact, I’ve read here that Adam D’Angelo wanted to do away with comments altogether, and had to be talked out of it.

No, I can’t find the source statement now, because Quora Search. And possibly because it was in a comment, and comments aren’t searchable. The source, I think, was the Facebook Secret TW Group.

The fact that comments aren’t searchable, though, is a kind of indirect confirmation.

Is it possible to have a Greek-Turkish Confederation in the future?

You know how people put A2A at the top of their answers, because they like the asker, but are ambivalent about the question?

Sofia, if we ever meet up for coffee in Oakleigh (you’re a Greek in Melbourne, you probably live inside an Eaton Mall patisserie), I will be asking you: WHY YOU ASK ME IF CONFEDERATION!

Greece is already in a confederation, and has been in one since 1981. That hasn’t worked out wonderfully lately; and that was an identity that Greeks actually invested in. To a heart-breaking extent.

What Serdar said. The rapprochement Greeks and Turks have had since ’99 has been a wonderful thing. I’m deeply grateful for it. But you know, we have a saying in Greek.

And knowing how things work in our part of the world, there is probably an identical saying in Turkish.

Μακριά μακριά κι αγαπημένοι. Distant, distant, and [therefore] loving each other.

Greeks ruled by Erntoghan?! Turks ruled by Çipras?!

That would end the rapprochement pretty quickly.

(… although, then again: Turks ruled by Erdoğan?! Greeks ruled by Τσίπρας?!)