Reviewing Whatever: CD

You can get reviews of the newest and hottest books, movies, and restaurants anywhere, but where do you go to hear about chain restaurants, library finds, several-year-old DVDs, or even tourist traps? Just because it's old or ever-present doesn't mean it's not new to you -- and you deserve to read the reviews in advance even then. So if it's new to me, I'll tell you what I think.

Who am I? I'm Laura, a married New Yorker and sometime cube monkey. Old posts follow me from being in a long term, often long-distance relationship, and through my engagement. They also follow me from when I lived in Philadelphia (where I grew up), and on several vacations, as my now-husband and I love travel and good food. As for occupation, you can go back to when I was in grad school, and watch me put up with periods of unemployment and cube-monkey-ism.

If you look over to your right, you'll see a Twitter feed. Feel free to follow me -- among other things, I post there when I post, and when I update old blog posts. And if you want to know a bit more about me, personally, check out my other blog at Life is (not) Boring -- or, if you're really patient with sporadic updates, check out my thoughts on writing at Writers Write.

And enjoy browsing! I'd love to know your thoughts on some of the things I've tried and shared -- especially if they've changed since I've been there. Thanks!

Posted in Attraction, Book, CD, DVD, Food, Housekeeping, Movie, Museum, Restaurant, Television, Theater, tour, Video by Laura | 0 comments

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Symphony of a Thousand

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Symphony No. 8
Composed by Gustav Mahler, 1906. Conducted by Antoni Wit, 2006.

You should know
I listened to part of this symphony in a class a few years ago and fell in love with it. I received the CD set for Christmas, and finally got around to listening to it.

So?
Oh, I wish I understood German, or that my Latin wasn't so bad. The music is absolutely stunning, but since I cannot understand the words, I had a hard time devoting my full attention to certain tracks. Also, I was listening on my laptop, which has good but not amazing speakers.

The Symphony is broken down, one movement per CD. The first part is the Veni Creator Spiritus, a Catholic hymn; the second is based on the final part of Goethe's Faust. I suppose I should be able to tell that purely from the music, as one does when one attends symphonies or operas (or inserts CDs of such into one’s laptop), but I couldn’t, quite. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it a lot, though.

Rating
Listen if…
…You like classical music but haven’t heard this yet, or you like really, really good background music. Also, if you speak German and want to help me out.

The rest of the Internet
Mahler's Wikipedia page.
The Symphony Wikipedia page.
Through this page you can read the original and translated lyrics.
A long breakdown of the symphony and various recordings.
Nathan's Daily Journal posts video of a performance.

Posted in 1900s, 2006, CD, Music by Laura | 0 comments

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Reviewing Whatever

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Symphony of a Thousand

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

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