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 Post subject: Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto
PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:57 am 
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Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:33 am
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Driving home from B-52 following Showdown, Glory Daze, and a Countdown, I tuned into KSJN 99.5, the local NPR station, in time to hear the end of the 2nd movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2, and right off I could tell that this was the best rendition I'd ever heard. Already I was regretting that my drive home was only 0.9 miles. Arriving too soon, I turned KSJN back on in my bedroom, before I turned on my desktop to post this. God, what fabulous music! How magically rendered!

The Golden Horde, who torment the southern tier of MSP Buzztime sites with their numerous perfecto's, decided to wear down the playmakers at the Tailgate Cafe in advent of Team Beth this evening. Well, the joke was on the Golden Horde. The Tailgate's transmission had partially collapsed (showing the Channel 2 sports quiz but not the Channel 1 Lunchtime quizzes, on which the carnivorous Horde are accustomed to feast). I was forewarned.

The upshot? I called the Tailgate, and they've requested a technician. And then four of us grouped up at B-52. SPOON, NCYCLO, DOTCOM, and GONE D. We were regrettably opposed by TIARA and HOBBS. Following months of experiment, TIARA and HOBBS have decided that TIARA's laptop works better than HOBB's voice-activated smartphone, in a realm described to me as 'borg'.

There was some kind of Showdown League going on, which the Tailgate was unable to finish. No big deal. But I wish to apologize to any group who finished below B-52's 12th in the Valentine's Day Showdown. That's where we finished, our two highest scores provided by TIARA's laptop.

TIARA and HOBBS are, by any standard of beauty you may imagine, unusually homely specimens. It happened that I ambled out of the Men's Room at B-52 while TIARA was complaining to the hostess, the least powerful individual in the B-52 hierarchy, that she couldn't reserve her usual table.

Rounding on her, I whispered, "I'd like to congratulate you on your victory tonight, if only you didn't cheat."

"Oh!" TIARA smiled brightly, receiving my insult as a compliment. "My husband knows some really unusual stuff!" Yeah, whatever.

And here I thought he was her father. What was Iceberg Slim's famous phrase? "Ugly enough to break daylight with her fist."

The rendition of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2 which I was hearing, was performed by Krystian Zimerman, a Polish pianist, conducted by a Japanese maestro, Seiji Ozawa, in conjunction with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

If that rendition doesn't raise the hairs on the back of your neck, you're dead to music.


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 Post subject: Re: Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto
PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:14 am 
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King or Queen Postsalot
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Thanks for the update. Things seem to be interesting in your neck of the trivia world.

And yes, Zimmerman's performance of Rachmaninoff's 2nd is transcendent. No matter how many times I hear the piece, I never get tired of it.

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"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."


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 Post subject: Re: Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto
PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:07 am 
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Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:33 am
Posts: 710
I hate to be a nit-picker, ANON, but I think Zimerman's name, with typical Polish economy, is spelled with only two m's. One cures the cabbage, but pickles its heart.

Somehow I'm reminded of George Perec's send-up of existential fiction in the novel, "A Void." The hero, if you will, Anton Vowl, feels that there's something missing from his life. Miraculously translated from the French by Gilbert Adair, neither the translation nor the original contains the letter "e."

Later on, Perec wrote a long short story, alternately published as "Le Resestente," or as "The Exeter Text," about a gang of thieves, whose current heist degenerates into an orgy. "I had all these e's lying around," Perec complained. "I had to get rid of them somehow." Sure enough, there are no other vowels in this lurid tale but the ubiquitous "e."


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 Post subject: Re: Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto
PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:48 am 
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It was a nit worth picking--you are indeed correct. That ought to teach me a lesson about typing these things in haste.

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Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."


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