Before leaving Ann Arbor, Ethan and I spent a long hour and a good chunk of cash at Encore, one of the world's more amazing record stores. Ethan has a full report of our takings at his blog. The photo above shows part of the hoard distributed on the back of our trusty Chevy Cobalt. I'm holding the score of one of Boulez's Improvisations sur Mallarmé, which I found tucked among the LPs.
Other happy discovery was this set of beautifully designed American Recording Society 10-inch discs, most with Dean Dixon conducting:
I'm particularly keen to check out the Short Symphony of Howard Swanson, an African-American composer who lived from 1907 to 1978. I have a few shorter pieces and songs of his, but nothing longer. Virgil Thomson raved about the symphony in the New York Herald Tribune: "Its communication is personal feeling, its linear texture is suave, graceful, subtly modal. Its melodic material is highly curvaceous. Its dissonance content is high, but lower than saturation." What could be better? I also couldn't resist picking up something from this category:
And this Peter Maxwell Davies LP was a must-have:
We then hit the road to Kalamazoo, blasting Schnittke's First Symphony. In the dressing room at the Dalton Center, we found a pile of music belonging to Jonathan Biss, who had played in the hall the previous day. Ethan, in an impish mood, wrote crazy fingerings all over the Mendelssohn edition. Expect disaster at Maestro Biss's next recital. (Just kidding.)
Once again, we wowed a capacity audience:
In all seriousness, many thanks to all those who came out to see us along the way. We're hoping to revive the show in a year or two.
