In pursuit of mental health, while I am driving in the car I have gone to a new format.
It is All Mozart, All the Time!
I have a huge collection of Mozart CDs and I just grab one and go. That is the game. I have not turned on the radio for weeks. Not for one second. You get used to the radio, you know, these talk shows and stuff. No more. No more classical station either. No radio.
This rule will not be violated!
The Mozart is proving an adventure. You have to be choosy about what you listen to in the car because you do not want to get into an accident such as could happen if you are listening to something you love too much, or something too intense. I listen to serenades, cassations.
However. The other day I wound up with a Piano Variations disc.
It is funny, here I have been listening to Mozart my whole life and yet here is some music I do not know. This one set of variations especially captured me. Well, I love everything on the whole disc. But the first one, that set amazed me. It sounded like Beethoven. Then it sounded like Schubert. At the end of it I just sat there in the car and I said out loud, "That was the most insane piece."
I had an idea what piece it could be, and I was hoping it wasn't because the title is ungainly. However sure enough, I was right. It was the variations on a Gluck aria called, ahem, "Unser dummer Pobel Meint."
That piece needs rebranding!
Can't we call it "Variations on a Theme By Gluck"?
The disc I was listening to in the car, Daniel Barenboim played it. There is this one variation that, I love how Barenboim plays it. It is ethereal and so beautiful.
No other pianist does it justice that I can find. The Wilhelm Kempff at the top of this post, it's good, but he gallops through it. As does Andras Schiff. I'm not saying anybody is right or wrong, however I go with the Barenboim version hands down. Nice job, Mr. Barenboim, sir!
Mozart, he just never disappoints you, you know? It makes me think of a big house. You think you have seen it all and then you open a door and there is a whole new wing you never knew existed.
I was right about him when I was a kid. Did I recognize quality or what?
He brightens every day of my life!
