Archive
Category: Resources
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Dvorák: The Symphonies
For decades, there were only three complete collections of Dvorák’s symphonies: this one; Rowicki’s with the same orchestra; and Kubelik’s with the Berlin Philharmonic. Kertész offers the most rustic, gutsy interpretations of all. Famous for his dislike of rehearsals, he allows the London Symphony to make a much rougher sound than his colleagues tolerate, and… Read more →
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Anton Webern: Complete Works, Opp. 1-31
This collection presents all Webern’s works with opus numbers in chronological order, allowing listeners to scrutinize the inner workings of this influential composer’s intense, compressed style from the lush Passacaglia to the starkness of his late vocal works. A broadcast recording of Webern conducting a group of Schubert Dances makes a lively bonus. –Jed Distler Read more →
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Schubert: String Quintet in C, D. 956
When not composing songs, Franz Schubert was most at home with chamber music, not because he was a miniaturist, but because his most profound thoughts were most readily contained by smaller, more concentrated ensembles. His Quintet in C–by far the great work ever written for a string quartet with an extra cello–shows him at his… Read more →
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The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer
John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of “A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw’s daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling… Read more →
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The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2)
In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves — including one Jack Shaftoe, aka King of the Vagabonds, aka Half-Cocked Jack — devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues — a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver … nay, gold … nay, legendary gold. In… Read more →
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Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
In Quicksilver, the first volume of the “Baroque Cycle,” Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch’s message conveys, is key to resolving an… Read more →