Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Stu, who loves ya baby.

Kylie, emusic actually has a pretty decent collection of classical. Not sure how much time you've spent looking so you may already know this....I find it's best to choose by composer -Janacek's sinfonietta, a lovely piece as Derek pointed out, is available, just as an example. As long as you have some idea what you're looking for you often find it. It's mostly Naxos on emusic but that label is much better than it used to be.

And, pardon the rambling, but Janacek's other chamber music is outstanding - his solo piano music is somber and gorgeous, and his string quartets are among the finest you'll find. In fact, I would argue that a Best of the Czechs, from Smetana and Fibich down through Dvorak, Janacek, and Suk is about as good as classical music gets. Nothing like a downtrodden culture to create good art (though the Poles appear to have leaner pickings...well, other suppose there's Szymanowski, who also has beautiful piano music and fine symphonic work).

Starting to think about my best of the year as well, though it has mostly been a year of accumulating music from other periods, and a really low film-seeing year. I'm sure I have a few. Kyle - I saw Cache the other day and loved it. What a fantastic film.

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