Random Remarks from Recent Listening

Having that swing, it meaneth much. When leprechauns drop acid, do they think they see people?

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions) 

Violence does not spring from a vacuum. It’s born out of other men’s violence. It gets nurtured and it grows in a soil of prejudice and of hate and of bigotry.

 — Rod Serling

 I haven’t listened to Schnittke’s First Symphony since before my stroke. I hadn’t forgotten the fact that the piece is one hell of a wild ride, but I’d forgotten some of the stops on the trip. I certainly never before recognized the quotation from “Papa’s” “Farewell” Symphony. The symphony is one possible result if Mahler had been alive in 1969 and dropped acid.

Franck is a relatively recently acquired enthusiasm which I have not yet reported on the blog. The Great Performances (I remember buying a few LPs in that series back when) reissue of Leon Fleisher playing the Symphonic Variations, the Rakhmaninov Paganini Rhapsody and Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso was a gift from my friend Dan.

Another such gift was a disc of André Previn and bassist David Finck playing Gershwin. I am surprised neither by the programming nor by the excellence of the performance, only that the disc was issued by Deutsche Grammophon.

Another surprising enthusiasm which blind-sided me has been Rimsky-Korsakov’s Antar, which really ought to be as widely played as Scheherazade.

The odd flashes of musical wit in the soundtracks of Escape from Planet of the Apes and Conquest of Planet of the Apes have been no small part of the enjoyment of finally getting around to watching those old movies.