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I think it begins with Beethoven, who died after completing his Ninth. Mahler, I’ve read, was so disturbed by the thought of a Ninth, that, after completing his Eight, he tried to dodge The Curse by writing Das Leid von der Erde. But, oh, The Curse can’t be so easily duped: Mahler finally completed a Ninth, but died while working on his Tenth. Gotcha! And we all know what happened to Bruckner. There are at least a dozen other examples, each disputable, surrounded by some level of uncertainty. But, hey, a curse is always good for the history buffs and storytellers. And, as much as anything else, The Curse is what got me interested in Philip Glass’s Ninth.

So, dear Curse, I thank you.

The Little Monster himself, Keven Lee (son of Head Monster Noel Lee), jumped out on his own to start a new low-cost headphone company: SOL Republic. Their first headphone, the Tracks is a bit of a mixed bag, but quite interesting nonetheless.

Let's have a look and listen...

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Links:
The MOG May 2012 Playlist: Inflections

The Spotify May 2012 Playlist: What is a Song?

The May 2012 Playlists were a tough one to make at first. I was having technical difficulties with MOG. Whenever I paused Carolin Widmann and Alexander Longquich’s Schubert performances, the playback buffering would freeze and restart from the beginning of the album. MOG resolved this issue internally, as it was not happening the next day, but it was nevertheless frustrating. I could not get up to pee without having to restart the Rondo in B Minor, D. 895, Op. 70. First-world problems.

Equally adept at all three disciplines, Fischer-Dieskau became perhaps the most recorded baritone in history. There was a period in which nary a month went by without another LP from Fischer-Dieskau on which he sang either solo or in ensemble. Even today, when so many recordings have gone out of print, and large number of LPs have never been remastered for CD, arkivmusic.com lists no less than 490 titles that include Fischer-Dieskau's voice. The most recent release, a four-SACD remastered compilation of some of the monaural Schubert lieder (art song) recordings he made with pianists Gerald Moore and Karl Engel early in his career, became available on the website on May 8. Its 39 performances are but a fraction of the Schubert recordings he made in his five decades before the microphone.