Tag Archives: Something For Thursday

American classical music written prior to, say, Gershwin tends to not be terribly familiar to audiences, as much of what was written prior to that time was deeply indebted to European musical traditions; it took time for truly American musical … Continue reading →

In honor of the passing of Robin Gibb, here are the Bee Gees with “More Than a Woman”.

This was the song The Wife and I chose for our first dance at our wedding reception, fifteen years ago today. The weather that day was crappy — cold, rainy, and windy; days before, the Buffalo News had run a … Continue reading →

Here’s a jaunty march that I got to perform one year at the Bristol Hills Music Camp. Marches don’t always have to be bombastic things; this one is more charming than anything else. It’s the March of the Belgian Paratroopers by … Continue reading →

Sometimes a song is its own best comment. Here are the Chieftains and Rita McNeil, in a hauntingly beautiful rendition of “Come By the Hills”.

They were chunky, clunky ships. They looked cool at first, since they looked like something that should fly, instead of the capsules and LEMs that had looked like distended tin cans or crumpled bits of tin foil. They looked, at … Continue reading →

Russian Romanticism in music appeals to me on nearly every elemental level of my being, so it’s always seemed odd to me that I tend to have a hit-or-miss reaction to the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. There is some … Continue reading →

I read a news story yesterday that put me in the mood for this (and now I’ll need to watch the movie one of these days): the launch scene from Apollo 13. This is one of the most masterful sequences … Continue reading →

Here’s some off-beat music by John Williams, underscoring one of the best main credits sequences I’ve seen, to Catch Me If You Can. I need to watch this movie again….