I love music.

I write about the music I like and have purchased for the benefit of better understanding it and sharing my preferences with others.

How much time?

How much time do you devote to listening? And I do mean, serious, unadulterated listening? In academia, we called this "active listening." Do we have enough time in life to enjoy recordings? Running out of room I'm making great progress on my CD scanning project--re-ripping CDs, and scanning their covers for inclusion in iTunes, but how many really get a good, serious spin? Tonight I decided to focus on Concerto Italiano recordings, after reading a piece/interview with Alessandrini, the director. He started his Concerto Italiano, evidently, with Fabio Biondi. I much prefer Biondi's readings, but CI can be elegant and a little less intense. I had a good discussion at work recently about listening to music, and multitasking. A colleague reported always doing school work as a child with music or television. We today both manage multitasking well, but I still think the quality of my work improves without distractions. Listening to good music, like this track of CI performing a Bach cantata sinfonia (from the A Portrait CD), only grabs my full attention, and writing/concentration is all lost.

Mac Daddy

Corelli: Sonata for Strings, Volume 4