Dave Orea asks:
>Have you already thought in wich CDs would (or will) be the most
>delectable Christmas present to yourself?
None.
Though I don't have 50 recordings of Mahler's 9th, consider my collection:
Debussy rarities lean against Glazunov rarities, Bax sups with Brahms,
Strauss with Suk, Mozart with Medtner (well, actually I sold my
Medtner)....and I'm one of those provincial types! Like most consumers
nowadays, (with the advent of the indestructible CD), I'm not spending
my money replacing the core stuff on record--which gave me the luxury of
branching out. But now I'm at the point in which Norman Lebrect, author of
"Maestro Myth, etc; calls "saturation." (I know there is plenty of Bach and
Haydn out there left for me to spend my money on, but their aesthetic just
hasn't taken yet). Lebrect sees this as another nail in the coffin of CM.
What I *have* been doing though, and this is a silver lining Lebrect
may be missing, is spending my money on more *live* music. The Takacs
Quartet came to Davis, CA; Gatti and the Royal Philharmonic are coming to
Sacramento, CA; and of course there is MTT in San Francisco! I've never
taken in so much live music in my CM life.
No CD's for Christmas? Yeah, right. But as my excitement for recorded
music has gradually subsided, I find myself attending more concerts, and
what could be more gratifying to an orchestra accountant than that?
John Smyth
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