Week 1: Boosters, Playlist and Goldberg Variations

The experiment has been well received in its early days and I believe there will be more and more guest posts as the year goes on.

The Hampshire College Alum office was nice enough to throw me a Facebook post and tweeting has been useful as well.

While I am thinking of it a list of composers and pieces I focused on in the first week

Glenn Gould and Simone Dinnerstein (Thanks Jer) performing Bach: Goldberg Variations

Now, hearing the name Goldberg Variations on Bach I never would have thought that this could refer to a performer from the late 1700's. When I hear Goldberg Variation (I am Jewish and much of my humor is as well, please follow this link if you are interested in where I am coming from) I think of my Fathers jokes or some sort of modern accounting terminology, not 18th Century pianists.

It was important for me to hear Gould's 1955 recording versus Dinnerstein's 2007 recording. Both are beautiful but the subtle differences are just as interesting as the less subtle ones. I truly enjoyed the music and am enjoying compositions for solo piano.

Martín Codax Cantiga de Amigo (Performances available via last.fm)

Yo-Yo Ma performing Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello

Perlman performing Paganini 24 Caprices

Various pieces by Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Dvorák, Mahler, Prokofiev, Ravel, Satie and Shostakovitch

Pandora and Last.FM have been really useful. I recommend both services for exploring Classical music!

Thanks for all the support - Jeff