Sunday night chat

[Beef Oven]

try to keep up Beefy, ER has had his week off.
you have had your senses set off centre bt GGs electro recommendations, I think.

You try to keep up after a bottle of London Gin, diet Lilt and DrGG taking me out of my music comfort zone

[Alison]

... I always thought Samuel Johnson's "Marriage has many pains, but celibacy no pleasures" far too glib.

I have found pains and pleasures in marriage, and pains and pleasures in celibacy. All depends on where you are in life, and where other people are...

Thanks for that. Never married, I can confidently say I found much greater pain in relationships than being single. Don't think there's ever been a thread on this subject !

[teamsaint]

You try to keep up after a bottle of London Gin, diet Lilt and DrGG taking me out of my music comfort zone

That is a fair enough set of reasons.
Excused !!
i certainly admire a man who orders a gin and diet lilt at the bar.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for that. Never married, I can confidently say I found much greater pain in relationships than being single. Don't think there's ever been a thread on this subject !

[cloughie]

Hmmmm Strauss and Wagner.
I don't listen to a lot of either composer.
I have a handful of Strauss cds,Alpensinfonie,Heldenleben and one or two of the other tone poems,all Karajan recordings,but that's about it.
I enjoy listening occasionally.
Wagner ring cycle,I bought the Bohm set few years back because I felt I should own one,only ever dipped into it.
It's on my list to have a listen to the whole lot,when I retire,or win the lottery.

Other than a few RSt songs - Four Last and some of the others that Fliss, Kiri, Anna Schwalemwilms and others sing well most of my Wagner and RSt preferences come without words - Parsifal Prelude and Good Friday Music, Lohengrin Prel Act 1, Tristan Prel&Liebestod and Heldenleben . Like you I got a ring set - Solti's in my case - which I have only browsed - sometime I'll have an extended listen!

[Alison]

Dash it, can't find DSCH 10 on CD.

Diverted to BBCSO at the Barbican last Friday.

Houghy making a better job of the second PC under James Gaffigan.

[Petrushka]

Never married, I can confidently say I found much greater pain in relationships than being single.

That just about sums me up too, Alison.

[Serial_Apologist]

After listening to Richard Strauss, my head always feels analogous to my stomach after eating suet pudding.

[Petrushka]

ER & ts: If you find a Wagner opera too long to digest in one go, try playing one Act a night as I do nowadays. No Act is longer than a normal concert. Trouble is it gets rid of three nights listening but you do get the long intervals to ponder on what you've heard. Beware though it's seriously addictive stuff!

[teamsaint]

ER & ts: If you find a Wagner opera too long to digest in one go, try playing one Act a night as I do nowadays. No Act is longer than a normal concert. Trouble is it gets rid of three nights listening but you do get the long intervals to ponder on what you've heard. Beware though it's seriously addictive stuff!

well, that is no doubt excellent advice, and much appreciated. i may do just that.

Actually , if i put some on my mP3 and went off to the cricket,that might help !!

[EdgeleyRob]

ER & ts: If you find a Wagner opera too long to digest in one go, try playing one Act a night as I do nowadays. No Act is longer than a normal concert. Trouble is it gets rid of three nights listening but you do get the long intervals to ponder on what you've heard. Beware though it's seriously addictive stuff!

Thanks Pet,been meaning to do that for a long time.
Trouble is I keep getting distracted,by for example rarely heard Russian Symphonies,prompted by Suffolkcoastal's symphonic journey,now they are addictive.

[Alison]

Let us know when you've reached Symphonia Donestica, Sainty !

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

ER & ts: If you find a Wagner opera too long to digest in one go, try playing one Act a night as I do nowadays.

This was how the Wagner bug caught me, back in the early '80s when the Boulez Ring cycle was broadcast on Saturday nights on BBC2 an act a week. Then I learnt how to drive, and got cassette tapes of the Operas to play in my car in the journeys from London to relatives in Lancashire - Bernstein's Tristan, Gerdes' Tannhauser, Bohm's Dutchman, Jochum's Lohengrin - made the driving very rewarding! Then there was Karajan's later Rosenkavalier - the final Trio coinciding with the point I left the M6!

Beware though it's seriously addictive stuff!

Well - what's the point of a trivial addiction?

[gurnemanz]

ER & ts: If you find a Wagner opera too long to digest inox one go, try playing one Act a night as I do nowadays. No Act is longer than a normal concert. Trouble is it gets rid of three nights listening but you do get the long intervals to ponder on what you've heard. Beware though it's seriously addictive stuff!

Well into May of Wagner's 200th and I haven't even started the Wagner's Vision Bayreuth box yet. I built up a log jam of oversized box sets at the end of last year (Bernstein, Toscanini, Wagner's Vision and several others) and vowed I would not buy any more CDs until I had done them justice. Immense restraint has been required and a cautious approach to the Bargains thread, but so far I have kept to to that vow. I'm up to T in Bernstein Symphonies and really enjoyed Tchaikovsky 1 and 2 today.

[amateur51]

... I always thought Samuel Johnson's "Marriage has many pains, but celibacy no pleasures" far too glib.

I have found pains and pleasures in marriage, and pains and pleasures in celibacy. All depends on where you are in life, and where other people are...

Is not Johnson's primary error to regard being unmarried as necessarily being celibate? Methinks the good doctor is talking through his hat