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November 15, 2016:

ALIGNING THE PLANETS

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am aligning The Planets and having fun doing so. As I mentioned, I’m going through several performances of The Planets to see which I like best – there have been a huge number recordings of this incredibly influential music, way too many to even think about, let alone listen to, although one insane chap on the Internet has given his thoughts on over thirty of them, I think, maybe even more. Thus far I’ve heard three – two or three more arrive tomorrow although I must say that Amazon has been really bad about missing guaranteed delivery times – they’ve actually given me an extra month of Prime for free because I’ve had to complain three times in one week.

Thus far, of the three, nothing has changed – William Steinberg and the Boston Symphony Orchestra is the clear winner. The Leopold Stokowski version, while interesting as the first stereo recording of the work, is just too weird and idiosyncratic, as was Stokowski’s wont, and an overly dry acoustic doesn’t make for a pleasant, magical, or mystical listening experience. The other version was by Sir Adrian Boult, close personal friend of the man who composed The Planets, Mr. Gustav Holst. He made no less than five recordings of it – I think the one I heard is the third of his recordings. His best is apparently his EMI recording of the late 1967 – the one I listened to was released in 1960 on the Westminster label. I’m far from a person who sits and analyzes every note being played or for mistakes, like I would even know what mistake was being made. No, I sit and let the music wash over me and the performance either gets to me or it doesn’t. But I have to say this performance is surprisingly ragged and not very well played – there are obvious intonation problems with some instruments, places where the orchestra literally seems to fall apart – I was not quite prepared for what I heard and it’s not a performance I need to hear again, although the remastered sound is interesting. However, I’ll definitely keep the CD as the two companion pieces are Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves and Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis – they, too, were originally released on Westminster and that was the LP I had when I was in junior high school, albeit in monophonic sound. And because those were my first they remain my favorite performances. The Steinberg has beautiful, detailed sound and I love the performance. One thing I will warn you of – it was released twice, the first time on a budget-line Deutsche Gramophone release, coupled with Lux Aeterna. The newer mastering is miles better, and there it’s coupled differently, with Richard Strauss’ Thus Spake Zarathustra. Thus spake me. Today I should have the Bernard Herrmann version, which was very popular in its day, and also the performance that gets high marks from everyone, by Charles Dutoit. I think I may have one other coming, but I can’t remember.

Yesterday wasn’t too bad a day, no real miracles arrived, but no disasters either, for which I’m always grateful. But hey, we do need them miracles so send your really strongest most excellent vibes and xylophones for major miracles aplenty. I got just under eight hours of sleep due to not being able to fall asleep for an hour. Once up, it was the usual morning things – answering e-mails, printing out a few orders (I have some rare CDs up on Amazon including the rarest CD soundtrack of them all – Blood In, Blood Out by Bill Conti. It was to have come out on Varese Sarabande but at the last minute the studio changed the title of the film to Bound by Honor and the release was pulled and cancelled, and all that remained at Varese were a couple of boxes of CDs, maybe fifty to a hundred in all. Of course I got one for myself and sold a few other copies I took with me when I left – they all went for very big money, but the copy I put up is the most reasonably priced anywhere), and then I went and had a Chinese chicken salad and a bagel, then came home, since no packages had been delivered.

Once home, I wrote some liner notes, finished half of them, all the while making my way through the Mahler symphonies – yesterday I heard the third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and the ninth is playing as I write these here notes. Then I had a couple of telephonic conversations, then picked up a couple of packages, came home, did a two-and-a-half mile jog, finished the liner notes and sent them to the person who’ll be adding the credits and we should be able to announce next week, hopefully. I also read most of the script I needed to read and I’ll finish the rest this morning before I leave for my lunch meeting.

Today, I’ll be up by ten, I’ll finish reading a script, then I have a noon-thirty lunch meeting with Richard Sherman and a writer friend of his. I’m looking forward to that very much. Then I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll jog at some point, and do other stuff that needs doing. I got a UPS notice that a package is coming today so I electronically signed for it so they can leave it – it will be a screener, but for which movie I know not. If it’s something I’m interested in I’ll watch it.

The rest of the week is meetings and meals, a work session on Thursday, perhaps a lunch on Friday with dear reader Jeanne, then on Saturday and Sunday we record Kay Cole’s CD.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, read, lunch, hopefully pick up packages, jog, listen to music, and perhaps watch a motion picture. Today’s topic of discussion: I’ve been craving pie – what are your favorite pies – and what are the best pies in London – I mean, what are the best pies you’ve ever had? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I will keep aligning The Planets.

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