In my teen years in the 1950s I had only around 14 LP records; mainly Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. I played my collection over and over again and, to this day, I find it difficult to go back to many over-familiar works from that period: the Beethoven symphonies and concertos, the symphonies mainly with von Karajan and the Philharmonia, the Beethoven violin concerto with Bronislaw Gimpel mainly because it was on the cheaper Vox label and the LP also contained the F and G major romances for violin and orchestra. I used to play the romances on my violin (Gimpel played them even better than I did).
My father was a professional double bass player all his life. For some reason, I am a thoroughly treble clef person. A big part of my listening is to violinists and sopranos, and my principal reason for compiling this blog is to remind myself of the good things on my shelves to be listened to again. With such a large collection, one can simply forget things that have given great pleasure in the past. I didn't have such problems in my teen years with my collection of just a few LPs.
For sopranos and mezzos I love especially: Simone Kermes, Sabine Devieilhe, Carolyn Sampson, Joyce DiDonato, Véronique Gens, Maria Callas, Sandrine Piau, Diana Damrau. My violin loves are well documented throughout this blog.
And just for this blog: my favourite cuisines (in alphabetical order) are Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Thai, and Vietnamese. My favourite FRESH foods are crab, Dover sole, lobster, scallops, oysters, whelks, squid, mussels, rump steak, veal chops, duck, spaghetti al ragù, spaghetti alle vongole. All very un-English, I'm afraid.
No comments:
Post a Comment