Aside from my pile of book-related Weimar Republic CDs, I'm listening this weekend to 1) Shostakovich's Hamlet film score, new from Naxos, sounding like the great man's 21st or 22nd symphony; 2) the collected works of Blatz, which former frontman Jesse Luscious graciously mailed to me after I plugged Blatz in The New Yorker; 3) eighth blackbird's Beginnings, a bewitching disc of pieces by youngster Daniel Kellogg and veteran George Crumb; 4) Dylan's "Most of the Time" (Christopher Ricks' book sent me back to this; the key version is not on Oh Mercy, but on the unofficial Genuine Bootleg Series vol. 2); 5) Björk's newish Live Box. The books of the moment are Michael Chanan's Musica Practica, which I should have read years ago, and Halldór Laxness' Independent People, which I should have finished months ago. No concerts on the immediate horizon, though I hope to catch the Henry Cowell concert at American Composers Alliance on Friday. Tonight I will be sampling Theatre in the form of Sex*But at the Fez; this should be funny, but I'm not an objective onlooker.
Scary old Bruckner symphonies courtesy of William Berger.
