Book II of the Well-Tempered Klavier by J.S. Bach, recorded by the incomparable Glenn Gould. I was looking for a specific fugue to share, but decided to serve up the whole lot direct from YouTube. It is well worth 1 hour and 44 minutes of your time.
A little piece of perfection for this Thursday in late March.
“The Lark Ascending” by Ralph Vaughan Williams, performed by the excellent Hilary Hahn, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis:
Some beautiful, calming music before the approaching storm of Prime Minister’s Questions and George Osborne’s 2013 budget.
The “Cheers” chorus from Act 1, Scene 3 of the excellent opera “Nixon in China” by John Adams:
I’ll be heading to see this at the BBC Proms festival in London in a week or so. Excellent stuff.
“Midnight” from the Cinderella Suite by Sergei Prokofiev:
An excellent and dramatic depiction of the clock striking midnight at the ball.
I had the pleasure of seeing the London Symphony Orchestra perform the entire ballet score at their recent BBC Proms concert the other night – as usual, they were on top form, particularly the woodwind section and the excellent and surprising offstage brass ensemble that played from the balcony during one particularly exciting section.
A review of the performance can be found here.
The murder scene from the opera “Otello” by Guiseppe Verdi, sung here by Charles Craig (Otello) and Elena Souliotis (Desdemona) in a 1969 performance recorded in Naples:
My favourite opera of all time, and an excellent rendering of the climactic scene from the final act here, as Desdemona pleads for her life in the face of an implacable, enraged, jealous Otello.
Semi-Partisan Politics 