"Everybody Hurts" - a very professional amateur choir performs

I just came across this extremely professional 'cover' version of the REM song "Everybody Hurts", sung by 32 High School kids from schools in Chapel Hill NC (USA) - it seems the REM group are just as impressed by their fine performance. Enjoy!



(Spotted in the Kenneth in the (212) blog here - "Glee!" indeed.)

Rather a cool music video

Enjoy!

عيناك خالد الشيخ

خالد الشيخ (Khaled El Sheikh)



- I've been listening to Khaled al-Sheikh's music for about 20 years. I'm posting this because of what is happening just now in Bahrein and various other countries in the Middle East.

الحزن لمنطقة الشرق الأوسط

A Joyous Christmas and a Peaceful, Happy and Prosperous New Year

My favourite composer is, by a long way, Johann Sebastian Bach so for my pre-Christmas message this year I'm going to feature two of my favourite pieces of music by Bach, one of which (the second) is rarely performed so there are not many recordings of it. The first is slightly better known, I think. Although I have little religious belief and much of Bach's compositions were written with religion in mind, I have no difficulty in reconciling this contradiction at all; Bach's works are sublime, whatever the motivation for them having been written.

Happy Christmas!


Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, BWV 112
(The Lord is my faithful shepherd)

(Unfortunately I have no information about the record label from which this video-clip is taken. My own recording is on the Joker label, reference SM1047 - see below for more information.)



Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe, BWV 185
(Merciful heart of eternal love)

(A 1951 recording of a performance by the Swabian Choral Society and the Bach Orchestra of Stuttgart - under the direction of Hans Grischkat - Renaissance label, serial number X36. My own recording is of the same performance, but on the Joker label reference SM1047, purchased in Casablanca in 1973. The record pressing from which the recording in this YouTube video-clip is taken also contains a recording of BWV 112, the first video-clip above, as does my own record, although they are on different labels.)


I hope you enjoy these pieces of music as much as I do.

Dear BBC: Can we have the Radio4 "UK Theme" back, please?

Just before the start-up of regular programming in the early morning on BBC Radio4, latterly as a break between the re-broadcast during the night on Radio4 of BBC World Service programmes and the start of domestic Radio4 programmes, a charming musical interlude comprising traditional songs from all four constituent parts of the UK was broadcast between November 1978 and April 2006, when it was 'axed' by the then Controller of Radio4, Mark Damazer, because he concluded that a vanishingly small number of people would have been listening at such an early hour of the morming and that, anyway, those who were awake or up and about would prefer a news summary. No doubt this is why about 6,000 people made formal complaints to the BBC, asking for it not to be 'axed' and/or to be re-instated?! It now turns out that Mr Damazer's decision was based upon flawed listener statistics. It seems that hundreds of thousands were in fact listening at that hour, so complaints from 6,000 is an unprecedentedly high number!

If you don't know what I am talking about, then you could do worse than spend 5 minutes of your life listening to a recording of the medley in question:



Mark Damazer is no longer Controller of Radio4, so I think his departure should be marked by the speedy return of this lovely music. Although it comprises traditional British songs it was in fact compiled by an Austrian refugee to this country in the late 1930s; perhaps it took someone originally from outside of these islands to encapsulate in music just what a wonderful country we have.

So, Dear BBC:
Can we have the Radio4 UK Theme back, please?

BWV 1052 - just because ...

J S Bach - Harpsichord Concerto No.1 in D Minor - BWV 1052

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Enjoy!

... and now, for something completely different

I often listen to BBC Radio3 for part of the morning and one of the first pieces of music being played there when I switched the radio on was this splendid music which I haven't heard for a while, so I thought I'd share it here. Enjoy!

"Rhapsody in Blue" - George Gershwin






- in keeping, perhaps, with this music the outside temperature here (in Nairn) at the moment is around -3 degrees C and the area is blanketed in a very heavy ground fog. The mood here right now, as I type this, is somewhat lighter as I'm now listening to J S Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (BWV 1047); J S Bach is far and away my favourite composer and has been really since I got a huge collection of old '78' records (largely pre-WWII recordings), mainly of his music, when I was 10 or 11 years old - what a wonderful gift to receive!

Vladimir Horowitz - Rest in Peace

Twenty years ago today Vladimir Horowitz passed away; luckily we still have many recordings available to us of his superb and sometimes idiosyncratic piano performances.

Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz 1 October 1903 - 5 November 1989 ~ Rest in Peace ~ Vladimir Horowitz plays "Träumerei" (Robert Schumann) Moscow - April 1986

Simplement parce que je l'aime!

One of my favourite popular songs ever; great rhythm, great words ...

Etienne Daho - Bleu Comme Toi




- I am of course this evening mainly enjoying the Last Night of the Proms, with my usual [large] box of Belgian Chocolates and this year a bottle of Prosecco; it's a little lighter than champagne - and I had a bottle of a very nice example of that (I buy a lot of my chanpagne and other wines from the Wine Society, of which I have been a member for over 30 years) a couple of evenings ago to 'celebrate' getting rid of my self-assessment tax return for 2008-2009 in advance of my departure for Spain next Wednesday for a month, so felt like something different this evening. (If submitting a paper return, it's got to be in by 31 October, although one may submit returns via the website until the final 31 January deadline, but I prefer to stick with paper, at least for now.)

In any case, I take an unashamed delight for one evening of the year in celebrating my 'Britishness', with music in recent years coming from all four member nations of the UK; even with our current odious Government this remains a great country and the Last Night of the Proms is a good focus for this, specially as it has for many years now enjoyed a wide international audience who seem to enjoy it as much as many Britons do - if the variety of national flags habitually waved in the Albert Hall and at the 'Concerts in the Parks' elsewhere in the UK is a guide.

Just music ...

Of all composers my favourite is Johann Sebastian Bach. I have rarely heard a piece of music composed by him which did not immediately enthrall me and 'take me out of myself'; the world really seems somehow a better place when one can listen to the musical genius of this man. I could have chosen many other pieces for this evening's post, but I hope you will agree that this performance of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor [BWV 565] performed by Ulrich Böhme on the Sauer organ in St Thomas Church, Leipzig (Germany), is a superb example of sublime music:



Unfortunately the recording above, whilst superb, is slightly curtailed at the very end, so I am embedding another very fine performance of this music, this time performed by Diane Bish on the organ of St Bavo Church, Haarlem (Netherlands). Enjoy!



I had a good session at the gym today (I wrote last week that I was joining a gym again after a break of about a year) and I feel good now, so I just wanted to spread a little of the joy that I experience when listening to Bach's music.

'Hallelujah' by Leonard Cohen

I much prefer classical music, but some more recent music is absolutely stunning and 'Hallelujah' by Leonard Cohen is certainly one of those. I first heard it, I think, at the end of the first series of The O.C. and I made it my business soon afterward to get a copy of the Jeff Buckley version, the one used in The O.C.

Jeff Buckley - very moving (soundtrack only)
... see him singing it here


Rufis Wainwright - a strong and very distinctive voice


Leonard Cohen - the man himself sings it


... and finally from The O.C. Season 1 Final