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[singdaw]

PAGE TWO!!

[singdaw]

Good morning, friends.

[singdaw]

LOVE the illustration, DR elmore3003!

[singdaw]

.

[singdaw]

Who decides these things?

[singdaw]

Hope your stamina returns soon, DR vixmom. No fun.

[singdaw]

DR John G., perhaps you should whip up a purple sweet potato pie.

[singdaw]

Really enjoying reading all the comments about Ormandy.

[Ginny]

Tuesday morning greetings!  Busy day yesterday and I’m enjoying some time in the slow lane today.

[Ginny]

DR Elmore, Jeremy has perfectly captured the Hilary Knight vibe you were looking for!  My favorite is the passed-out pigeon.

[ChasSmith]

The first classical recording in the house was somebody’s Beethoven Fifth on 78s. I have no idea whose it was. When we got our first record player that had all four speeds, we branched out a little bit, but it wasn’t until my dad brought home the Mercury recordings “Bach on the Biggest” and the Gershwin Concerto in F (Eugene List) that acquiring classical recordings started becoming a thing for me. Those were unfortunately the mono pressings, but I would eventually discover the wonders of the stereo.

Later, through the record club, I played the Ormandy Grand Canyon Suite to death, and then I discovered his Carmina Burana which sent me over the moon. I got to his recording of the Miraculous Mandarin Suite much later still, and I do love that one.

I also joined the RCA club for myself, just to branch out and be different, and the Fiedler recording of the Concerto in F was another major thing for me in the Gershwin department. And then there was Skitch Henderson’s Porgy and Bess. When I discovered London recordings, in addition to the G&S operettas, I loved Ansermet’s Nutcracker.

[Ginny]

TOD - our family acquired a stereo in 1959 because my mother liked the walnut cabinet that contained it.  My father bought a Reader’s Digest 12-record set in a cool box in a slipcase with a Renoir painting on the cover. 

Then, when I was in college all my music major friends gave me a recording of the Cleveland Orchestra that included Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.”

[John G.]

Good morning, all.

[John G.]

DR John G., perhaps you should whip up a purple sweet potato pie.

Since sweet potatoes can give me kidney stones, I think I will pass. But Pi Day is approaching.

[ChasSmith]

We eventually got the stereo “console”, and a few of those Reader’s Digest sets, too, DR Ginny.

[ChasSmith]

Several of those sets, actually. I went for the classical, and my mom and dad had to have the big bands ones.

[Freddie]

Energy vibes for vixmom!

[Freddie]

I got Jeremy's latest batch of illustrations this morning. They're quite delightful.

Terrific illustration, elmore!

[Freddie]

TOD:  In terms of records, what stands out in my mind is Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite.  I wrote a school report about it.   

[Freddie]

But there must have been some before that.

[Freddie]

There must! 

(a Doris Day reference)

[Ron Pulliam]

I got Jeremy's latest batch of illustrations this morning. They're quite delightful.

[Ron Pulliam]

Today is Tuesday, eh?

That means I have an afternoon appointment at my allergy clinic in North Augusta.  Should be a good visit since I have been feeling much better since startig my Dupixent injections.

[John G.]

When I was younger, my dad’s family would have an annual reunion. It would always cause total war between Mom and him. One year, she stayed home and the rest of us went. On the way home, we stopped at a drug store, and he found a cut-out record with German writing on it. It was his version of a peace offering. He left the 49-cent price tag on it and proudly presented it to her.

She laughed. An ugly, cruel laugh, as I recall. I was about 7 at the time.

He had bought her Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, or children’s death songs. We were forced to sit inside on a hot August afternoon and listen to the whole thing. We hated every last second of it, feeling it was our death song too.

And that was the first time I remember classical music coming into our house.

[John G.]

I like it now, but not then and not in an un-air conditioned house.

[Ron Pulliam]

TOD:

It's hard to say what my first exposure to classical music was unless it was the William Tell Overture while watching "The Lone Ranger" on Saturday mornings in the 1950s.

Of course, TV featured classical music in a lot of newscasts, etc., but I never knew what I was hearing.

My first recording was of some Strauss waltzes.  My mom picked up a bunch of cheap recordings on LP after I got my first hi-fi.  I was fascinated by them, but had no way of measuring the performances.

In band in high school, the first classical music we performed that grabbed my attention was a movement from Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg".  It was complicated, complex and thrilling even when heard through "band ears".

As an adult, I have to say there are two recordings that were my first major loves of classical music:  Sir Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations" (and, of course, his "Pomp and Circumstance" was something I had heard many times as a youngster attending and playing in the band for graudations); and Puccini's "Turandot", with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti.  I had purchased the opera on LP (a boxed set) in the exchange in Vicenza, Italy.  Took it home, grilled a steak on a hibachi on my balcony, opened a bottle of wine and listened to the entire recording.  It took (and still takes) my breath away,

That was the beginning, but no end is in sight.

[John G.]

Very interesting photos of a production of Sunday in the Park with ballet dancers:

https://playbill.com/article/photos-take-a-look-at-graham-phillips-and-talia-suskauer-led-sunday-in-the-park-with-george

[John G.]

Discuss it amongst yourselves.

[John G.]

One photo recalls Chicago: No. 17, the spread eagle

[John G.]

On we go …