Classical music retailer Arkivmusic.com is making available for download this holiday season four CDs from John Marks Records: the three Rejoice! A String Quartet Christmas CDs and Songs My Mother Taught Me, from violinist Arturo Delmoni and some of his friends.Click through for a free FLAC download.
The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece, by Eric Siblin (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2009); hardcover, 318 pp. $24.
In his lifetime, J.S. Bach (16851750) was an obscure figure. He never lived in a major city, he didn't work in the musical formoperathat in his era could propel a composer to stardom, and his style seemed antiquated to many. Bach saw a mere nine of his compositions published; when his consummate masterwork, The Art of the Fugue, appeared the year after he died, it sold just 30 copies.
Eric Siblin includes these and countless other facts in The Cello Suites, a book that will fascinate anyone who loves Bach's music. He notes, for instance, that Bach's four musical sons kept his work in circulation, that Mozart was mightily impressed by a motet he heard at a Leipzig church, and that the 12-year-old Beethoven raised some eyebrows when he performed The Well-Tempered Clavier in Vienna.
Born in January 1941, Don van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, died Friday, December 17, 2010, of complications related to multiple sclerosis.
Even though he gave up music in 1982 (beginning a successful career as a reclusive artist until hampered by the onset of multiple sclerosis), Captain Beefheart left an important and influential musical legacy.
Great Britain is dreaming of a silent night. A new recording of John Cage's controversial piece, “4'33",” stands a good chance of becoming Britain’s best-selling single during Christmas week. (Woo!)
