December 2012 - Classical Music

Beethoven - Piano Sonata No.24
Bridge - Five Entr'actes from 'The Two Hunchbacks'
Bridge - Coronation March
Dvorak - String Quartet No.9
Faure - Dolly
Faure (arranger) - Il est né, le divin enfant
Liszt - Dante Symphony

And that was it. Oh dear.

Look, December is a funny month. As already mentioned in this month's pop entries, there's Christmas preparations, not to mention pre-Christmas parties. And... well, looking at what I listened to in December 2011, I'm about to look stupid for saying this, but this time around I just wasn't in the mood for the exploration of new serious music. Mentally, I had switched off from this kind of thing.

I don't even really remember much about what I did listen to, to be honest. Not even something has large as the Dante Symphony.  Essentially it was 2 of Liszt's mildly interesting symphonic poems strung together.  Oh dear, should I be saying such things?

I think the Dvorak was nice...

Year in Review

Only 324 different recordings listened to this year, compared to last year's 438.  That's rather surprising to me.  Both the pop and classical numbers are down.  Did I actually listen to less music? That honestly seems unlikely! Did I spend more time listening to the same things repeatedly?  In the case of the classical music I find that plausible because of how much new music I bought, but then I bought lots of new music the previous year as well.

Yes, okay, this year I bought even more - but more importantly perhaps more of it was tougher or more challenging music.  As much as I adore Holmboe, most of his pieces take multiple listens to digest.  With Bach's cantatas I was unearthing an entire new genre, and the mere fact that both my Bach and Faure purchases were vocal meant I had to find time to sit down and read as I listened.  My German is from years ago in high school and my French is almost non-existent.

I'm generally pretty happy with the results, though.  I'm not sure how many personal favourites I've unearthed, but the gambles I made with new music have tended to pay off.

I just have to keep going until I get through it all at least once...