What are you listening to now?

Relaxing after a hard afternoon rehearsal with:

Frequency Drift - Personal Effects & Afenginn - Akrobbakus


Edited by Ricochet - November 22 2008 at 15:27

^^how can you say the 9th will never leave the top spot, if you've never heard the other 8?...

fandango wrote: ^^how can you say the 9th will never leave the top spot, if you've never heard the other 8?...   the 9th is marvellous, but its quite...erm, American... 7 & 8 are remarkably underrated imho...   yes, its funny about Dvorak's symphonies... unless Bruckner, Brahms, Beethoven or Mahler, there just aren't loads of symphonic versions to buy.  When I was your age, I nearly wore out a Philips cassette of Sir Colin Davis and the Amsterdam Concertgebeuw (?) perfoming Symph 7&8...I think it was my most played classical record, which I used to put on between Rush & Def Leppard...

I can say it because it constantly takes my breath (as a symphony I mean, imagine really great interpretations of the symphony!), but, simpler, it's one of my favorite symphonies (aka of all the symphonies). Hard for a symphony to pawn so many other symphonies, and be in the end defeated by a younger (oops, theoretically, older ) sibling.

of course it's American, it's got a big subtitle called "From the New World" and it captures the American influence, given Dvorak's late contact with the continent. 

I haven't heard the other 8, true, but since Dvorak considered his first 4 symphonic failures, I guess the chances of 9th being utterly the best suddenly increased...

I haven't searched too deep in Dvorak recordings, but you may be right...I have Beethoven's Symphonies (all of 'em) with 6 different orchestras and conductors; I record, collect or note down any Mahler Symphony played by anyone (even by me in the bathtub, conducting the duckies), I even started giving grades to the interpretations. In contrast, I only have six recordings of Dvorak's Ninth. 


Edited by Ricochet - November 22 2008 at 15:52

Bern wrote:

You forgot the album.

Ricochet wrote: I can say it because it constantly takes my breath (as a symphony I mean, imagine really great interpretations of the symphony!), but, simpler, it's one of my favorite symphonies (aka of all the symphonies). Hard for a symphony to pawn so many other symphonies, and be in the end defeated by a younger (oops, theoretically, older ) sibling. of course it's American, it's got a big subtitle called "From the New World" and it captures the American influence, given Dvorak's late contact with the continent.  I haven't heard the other 8, true, but since Dvorak considered his first 4 symphonic failures, I guess the chances of 9th being utterly the best suddenly increased... I haven't searched too deep in Dvorak recordings, but you may be right...I have Beethoven's Symphonies (all of 'em) with 6 different orchestras and conductors; I record, collect or note down any Mahler Symphony played by anyone (even by me in the bathtub, conducting the duckies), I even started giving grades to the interpretations. In contrast, I only have six recordings of Dvorak's Ninth.

febus wrote: TGM: Orb wrote:   Some very good songs on this one, especially the closer'' in the black room....''' sounds like great VDGG, some other rather kind of dull!..but a good album anyway!

Personally, I consider it a masterpiece. Five distinctive singer-songwriter pieces with unusual feels, an interesting acoustic sound and superb vocals, a stabbing progressive-punk piece, a monstrous Van Der Graaf Generator song and German Overalls, which basically defies classification. The lyrics are simply incredible. The production is probably awful from a technical standpoint, but that only lends further intimacy.

Can you believe that despite my affinity for the Scorpions I have never heard anything from UFO?