Monthly Archives: February 2013

JRiver on the Mac

For those of us who store our recorded music collections on a computer, Apple’s Swiss-army-knife iTunes application has been a constant companion for a good long time now. However, iTunes has been slowly but surely transmogrifying itself from faithful tool … Continue reading

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Over Time, Patiently

I’m not one for rap or hip-hop. Come to think of it, I seriously doubt I can distinguish one from the other. To me, they both sound like poverty, like helpnessness, like crime and violence and ugliness and despair. That’s … Continue reading

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The Pleasures of Simplicity

Once upon a time Jean Sibelius and Gustav Mahler discussed the essence of the symphony. It must be an exercise in profound logic, opted Sibelius. No, countered Mahler, it must be like the world—it must embrace the whole. Their symphonies … Continue reading

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No Taste, No There

The Buddha once pointed out, with his outstanding gift for noticing the obvious that most of us miss, that if you throw paint into the air, not only does the paint fail to stick to the air, but the air … Continue reading

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Huzzah for Mono

when you put this disc into an actual cd player you can tell its an old recording.i wouldnt recommend this garbage to anyone i care about… You gotta love Amazon’s unconditional reviewing policy. As long as the writer doesn’t use … Continue reading

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Indianapolis, Fritz and Van

A recent re-hearing of the 1962 Van Cliburn/Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony recording of the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano concerto took me back to my 8th-grade self, unhappily stuck in a claustrophobic apartment in the midst of a labyrinthine complex in suburban Indianapolis. … Continue reading

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Spaghetti Lorenzo

I’m not altogether sure if this dish is really my invention or not; it’s a gloss on Fettuccine Alfredo. It’s a lightly-sauced spaghetti with a spicy variant on an Alfredo sauce; typically I make it with a very small amount … Continue reading

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Klemp

Discographic Indian summers came to two of the 20th century’s greatest conductors: Arturo Toscanini and Otto Klemperer. Of the two, it was Klemperer’s late efflorescence that bestowed the greatest posthumous blessing, given that Toscanini would have been remembered whether he … Continue reading

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