There's a fantastic new two-SACD/CD set of a demonstration-quality live recording of a rather obscure work you really should get to know, not only for its own merits, but also for what I believe is its underappreciated but major influence on music and on popular culture. The piece is by 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg, but trust me&#151;it's more than "listenable." It (or, at least, the music on the first disc) is beyond engaging; it is compelling&#151;a revelation, even. The work is <I>Gurrelieder</I> (Songs of Gurre), Gurre being a castle in medieval Denmark that was the setting of a real-life doomed love triangle, the story of which has since loomed large in the moodily brooding artistic consciousness of Danes. The 19th-century Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen wrote a collection of poems based on medieval legends, including this one, and a German translation by Robert Franz Arnold provided Schoenberg's dramatic texts.

There's a fantastic new two-SACD/CD set of a demonstration-quality live recording of a rather obscure work you really should get to know, not only for its own merits, but also for what I believe is its underappreciated but major influence on music and on popular culture. The piece is by 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg, but trust me&#151;it's more than "listenable." It (or, at least, the music on the first disc) is beyond engaging; it is compelling&#151;a revelation, even. The work is <I>Gurrelieder</I> (Songs of Gurre), Gurre being a castle in medieval Denmark that was the setting of a real-life doomed love triangle, the story of which has since loomed large in the moodily brooding artistic consciousness of Danes. The 19th-century Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen wrote a collection of poems based on medieval legends, including this one, and a German translation by Robert Franz Arnold provided Schoenberg's dramatic texts.

<B><I>The Incredible String Band</I></B><BR>
Hannibal HNCD 4437 (CD only). TT: 45:15<BR>
<B><I>The 5000 Spirits or The Layers of the Onion</I></B><BR>
Hannibal HNCD 4438 (CD only). TT: 50:06<BR>
<B><I>The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter</I></B><BR>
Hannibal HNCD 4421 (CD only). TT: 50:12<BR>
<B><I>Wee Tam &amp; the Big Huge</I></B><BR>
Hannibal HNCD 4802 (2 CDs only). TT: 87:49<BR>
<B><I>Changing Horses</I></B><BR>
Hannibal HNCD 4439 (CD only). TT: 50:24<BR>
<B><I>I Looked Up</I></B><BR>
Hannibal HNCD 4440 (CD only). TT: 41:30<BR>
<I>All above:</I> Joe Boyd, prod.; John Wood, eng. AAD.

Not too many years ago, high-fidelity movement was being hailed from all quarters (and many halves) as a revolution. In the sense that it took the country storm, and made billions of dollars for many entrepreneurs during heyday, it was indeed a revolution. But now the public has grown tired of high fidelity and is turning other electronic diversions&#151;video, video games, and computering. And what, as of this summer of 1982, do we have to show for the high-fidelity revolution?

Not too many years ago, high-fidelity movement was being hailed from all quarters (and many halves) as a revolution. In the sense that it took the country storm, and made billions of dollars for many entrepreneurs during heyday, it was indeed a revolution. But now the public has grown tired of high fidelity and is turning other electronic diversions&#151;video, video games, and computering. And what, as of this summer of 1982, do we have to show for the high-fidelity revolution?

The Vivian Girls’<br>
perceptive Cassie Ramone<br>
reads <i>Stereophile</i>.

Exactly six months after we’d seen them perform in Puerto Rico, at that strange island bar, Bamboo Beach (see “Records to Die For,” February 2010, pages 71-72), the <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/when_im_gone/">Vivian Girls</a> performed on Saturday night, this time so much closer to home, at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. I bought tickets for the whole crew&#151Rizzo, Fritzy, Papi Chulo, Fuzzy, and Tigga&#151so that, together again for the first time since that memorable trip, we could <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/what_happened_in_puerto_rico/… the magic</a>. We ate well, drank too much, laughed, danced, and sang along as the Vivian Girls burned through their energetic set.