Music to remember

Today, is one year since my grandmother died.  Music is the language that means the most to me.  I started the day (midnight) by listening to some old standards (by Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, the Gershwins, Rogers and Hart) sung by Linda Ronstadt and Carly Simon.  I had first heard Linda Ronstadt's singing of these old classics on Richard Uuzounian's Say It With Music on CBC Stereo Sunday afternoons when in grad school.  I loved it and bought all three of her CDs (which I later gave to a fellow grad student, Joko, when he returned to Indonesia).  I had bought the 2 CD re-issue ('Round Midnight) to replace the ones I gave him.  When I was in San Francisco for the 1992 December AGU meeting, I walked into a record store and bought LPs Lush Life and For Sentimental Reasons as well as the 3 LP box of 'Round Midnight.  That's how crazy I was about this music!  Lorenz Hart wrote some beautiful lyrics.  Some of my favorites are But not for me (Gershwin), Little Girl Blue (Rogers and Hart), It never Entered My Mind (Rogers and Hart), Skylark (Carmichael).

Then I listened to Strauss' Beim Schlafengehen with Lucia Popp.  That was followed with Beethoven's 3 last piano sonatas with Maurizio Pollini.

I borrowed Simone Dinnerstein's CD The Berlin Concert from the library yesterday and listened to it this evening.  She plays Beethoven's Opus 111 much more romantically than Pollini does.  I love the fullness of the recording.  Not too bassy like Kovacevich's newer Diabelli recording.  Very enjoyable indeed.