Busoni, Sartre and the Next Project

 Good Lord. The Busoni Piano Concerto comes as a bit of a shock. You might think at the start it's going to be something like the Tchaikovsky but that's only its opening bid. I've never heard anything like it, it trascends the genre like the Gurrelieder goes beyond what one thought was a song cycle or perhaps even as Finnegans Wake, or at least A le Recherche, do the traditional novel.

It teems with musical ideas and in the fifth movement includes a chorus singing some far-fetched, extravagant words. I didn't know there was a piano concerto with a part for choir so if it ever turns up in a quiz, the answer is Busoni and you can thank me that you knew.

To be honest, it's a bit much for me, more than I can manage. Like the Shostakovich symphonies, Wagner opera, some of Mahler and the complete symphonies of Hovhaness, slightly less of it might be more than I can take on but it was worth buying just to find out about it.

I'll finish Iron in the Soul, the last part of Sartre's Roads to Freedom trilogy, tomorrow. There's been a little bit more of a sense of duty about reading than than most of what I read by now. Not having to read Vanity Fair for Victorian Lit, Paradise Lost for A level or Solzhenitsyn as part of a teenage obsession is as close to Sartre's idea of 'freedom' that I'm likely to get. I'm sure he's a fine fiction writer and that comes as a surprise for a philosopher, there are gripping passages in it and it is an important document of its time but I was forever distracted by wondering how it related to Being and Nothingness, how heavy on ideas it must be and how much of those I was missing. But it can be safely ticked off the list and it won't be taking up shelf space. The library can have them back. In exchange, I'll collect a couple of books on the story of Tamla Motown. Music is much better listened to that read about which is a shame for me with my increasing output of music writing.

The next project here is Sounds of the 60's and chapter 1 is shortly to follow, above.  The premise is that Tony Blackburn's R2 show of that name features 32 records in two hours, at least half a dozen of which each week are masterpieces.

I thought I'd compile my own show consisting entirely of 60's masterpieces. The shortlist soon went over 40 even without all those artists, only one track each, that I hadn't thought of and those I still haven't but I have a provisional playlist and will feature them here as the weeks go by. If I can write 500 words on each, that's 16 thousand words but if we then move on to Sounds of the 70's, then maybe The Rock Show and then soul, reggae and disco shows of my own making, that book on pop music I always wanted to write will emerge. I'll make it up, and possibly have to look some of it up, as I go along. It has to be said that I'm much better at announcing new projects than seeing them through to their conclusion but we can but try and see what happens.