Bach Cantata BWV 7: Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam
The second cantata contained on Volume 1 of John Eliot Gardiner’s series of Bach Cantata recordings is number 7: Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam. The long opening chorus has an average, repetitive string line. I first thought movement 2 was an unmemorable bass aria, but it reveals itself to be very good upon further listening. Movement 4 is a tenor aria with violin accompaniment. Movement 6 is a fairly short alto aria with a good oboe d’amore line for accompaniment. The cantata ends with a typical chorale.
I have only heard the one performance by Gardiner of this cantata, but I wonder if Gardiner underplays the instrumental accompaniment somewhat throughout this performance, even though the score calls for limited accompaniment, such as in movement 2 where only continuo is called for.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
Bach Cantata BWV 167: Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe
Cantata 167, Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe, begins with a seemingly familiar yet short string melody with a good tenor aria. Maybe the string melody is a parody of some other Bach work that I am not aware of or maybe the melody simply sounds like a classic example of an elegant Baroque melody which makes it seem familiar to me. Movement 3 is a long duet for soprano and alto, which might have been better served by being cut slightly shorter than its 8 minute length. Movement 5 is an average chorale melody but with a really good driving oboe/horn/string line. Movements 1 and 5 are clearly the standouts of this cantata.
I have heard versions of this cantata by Harnoncourt, Leusink (on Brilliant Classics), and the aforementioned recording by Gardiner. Harnoncourt begins the piece at a snail’s pace, and his boy sopranos can’t hold up to any competition in the duet, but he ends with a strong, grand chorale. Leusink isn’t bad at all and takes a rather straightforward approach, which includes a soprano and a coutertenor in the duet. Gardiner takes the opening the quickest and the duet the slowest (with two female singers) and naturally finishes strong in the chorale. Track 1 from Gardiner, track 3 from Leusink, and track 5 from Harnoncourt would make a nice pairing.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
More Bach Cantatas
John Eliot Gardiner is without a doubt my favorite conductor. Everything I have heard conducted by JEG has been top-notch. His soloists are always some of the best in the business, his instrumentalists are always first-rate, and he is a master at conducting a choir. His specialty happens to be the repertoire that I most enjoy: the Baroque. So I was pleased to hear that he would be forming his own music label, Soli Deo Gloria, in order to issue the complete recordings of his Bach pilgrimage from the year 2000 after DG decided to cancel plans to issue these recordings. The next entries in my series of Bach cantata reviews will focus on the six cantatas contained in Volume One of these CDs, recorded in the City of London. Over the next six days beginning tomorrow, I plan on presenting brief reviews of each of the six cantatas contained on Volume One of Gardiner’s Bach Cantatas.
Baseball Prospectus released today!
The day that pitchers and catchers report to spring training no longer holds its place as the most significant date in February regarding baseball. Pitchers and catchers reporting is some nebulous event that takes place in the ether that is the Florida swamps. Those feelings once reserved for that day have been surpassed by the day that Baseball Prospectus is released!
Even though BP is officially released today, I am slightly disappointed to find that the copy I ordered through Amazon isn’t scheduled to arrive until Friday – four days after the release date. I have never pre-ordered something from Amazon before, but I had always assumed that when you pre-order from Amazon it would arrive on the day it is released, not simply ship on the day it is released.
Antivirus Software
One of my goals when beginning to use Windows Vista was to install as little software on it as possible. This included antivirus software. I had been paying McAfee about $30 a year for a number years and had finally decided that having antivirus software was more trouble than it was worth. I grew tired of having the McAfee software check for, download, and install new virus definitions each time my computer booted up, hogging up all the CPU and constantly hitting the hard drive. I grew tired of the antivirus software conflicting with other software. I grew tired of it interrupting what I was doing to ensure nothing suspicious was happening. I have always set my antivirus software to alert me if it finds a virus, and in the 12 years I have been using either Norton or McAfee at work or at home, I have never gotten a virus or other malware that the software has caught. The only malicious software I fell victim to was the SQL Slammer worm that hit about 5 years ago. I was running SQL Server 2000 and didn’t have the latest service pack installed. Norton Antivirus did nothing to prevent it. That was the only time in my 12 years of using antivirus software that I have ever had any kind of malicious infection.
I don’t think that I have simply been lucky to have never been infected with a serious computer virus. I think it has more to do with being aware of how malware spreads and then limiting the behavior that causes these things to spread. An attitude of suspicion helps as well. If there is anything that I suspect can cause or contain a virus, I simply don’t do it. This includes the following rules:
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Do not open email attachments unless you are 100% certain of the content. This may mean that you may miss some funny jokes or other stuff that people send you in attachments, but in the long run your computer will be safer for it. I once got an email from a friend with an attachment called “hello.exe” with the only text of the message saying “This is fantastic!” I was suspicious. So I just deleted the email. When I later asked the person what that email was, he said he sent me no such thing. It was evident that he got infected with one of those viruses that spread by emailing to everyone in your Outlook contacts.
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Do not engage in any kind of activity that can in any way be considered legally or ethically questionable. While I am a big believer in freedom of speech and expression, that freedom sometimes comes with a price. And in today’s day and age, that price is sometimes computer viruses. Something as seemingly innocent as websites that publish music lyrics are notorious for containing malware.
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Don’t download free software from the internet unless you are certain of the content or fully trust the source. Things such as free games and screen savers often have lots of extra software associated with them that is at best just adware and at worst contains viruses.
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Stay up to date with the latest versions of your Microsoft software, most importantly the operating system. I learned this one the hard way and could have avoided getting the SQL Slammer worm if I had only installed the latest Service Pack at the time. Microsoft releases updates and Service Packs for a reason.
One final note is that I do not want to take any more drastic measures than those outlined above. I don’t want to disable any functionality in my browser, such as restricting internet security or disabling javascript or ActiveX controls. I want the full functionality that Windows can provide. This means using Internet Explorer. I want to run everything as an administrator and I have turned off the User Account Control in Vista. Even with all that, TrendMicro’s free online antivirus scan (HouseCall), confirms that “no threats were found” on my computer after over a year without having used any antivirus software.
Reviews: 2112 by Rush and Anthem by Ayn Rand
More of a short story than a book, Anthem by Ayn Rand is the story of a dystopian future similar to George Orwell’s 1984 or George Lucas’s first film, THX-1138. Anthem is also the inspiration for the song “2112″ by Rush.
If you are familiar with the song “2112″ by Rush, then you know the basic story of Anthem. If you are not familiar with “2112″ then you should go and listen to it. What could be better than a song with a science fiction plot about freedom, individuality, and the beauty of music set to 20 minutes of rockin’ guitars? Anthem is 2112 without the music, guitars, and heavy science fiction. Ayn Rand’s story is about the socio-political aspects of life in a future where technology and individuality are banned, and the story of one man who discovers both technology and individuality.
I believe I enjoyed Anthem more having already been exposed to the basic ideas of it from listening to “2112.” Alternatively, that means that I think I would not have enjoyed Anthem as much had I never listened to “2112.” And I also believe that words set to music can express things much more effectively than words alone, as the words in “2112″ state:
“Listen to my music
And hear what it can do
There’s something here as strong as life
I know that it will reach you”
Those words have a greater impact when you are listening to the music and hearing what it can do.
Rating for 2112: 9 out of 10.
Rating for Anthem: 8 out of 10.
Music review: Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance
The song “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance forces me to break two of my own rules/preferences when it comes to reviewing music. First, I do not like to take songs out of the context of the albums that they are a part of, even though I am doing that more and more lately (see The Album Is Sacred). Second, I prefer not to judge a piece of music upon my early experiences with it. I like to let the music stew and settle in my mind, then forget about it, then come back to it to find out if my original impressions still remain.
But “Welcome to the Black Parade” is so good that I feel the need to express my early impressions of it without waiting to find out what I will think about it a year from now. The song starts out innocently enough with somewhat child-like lyrics with little accompaniment. From there the song steadily grows into a wall of sound that at times seems almost to be an homage to the influences of My Chemical Romance yet still shows the brilliance of their own songwriting.
The biggest and most obvious influence is Queen, with the build-up of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and a guitar part that Brian May himself could have played. But there are thousands of songs by bands who were influenced by Queen, Pink Floyd, and Smashing Pumpkins yet none of them (that I have heard) can match the emotion and intensity of “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Cries of “We’ll carry on” ring throughout the song building the tension and giving it some sort of chorus, building to a crescendo and release of tension on the lyrics “Do or die…”
Many songs that I think are great follow a pattern similar to “Welcome to the Black Parade” of starting out calm and slow then build tension through much of the song to reach a final climax at the end: “Stairway to Heaven,” the aforementioned “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “November Rain,” “One” by Metallica. I’m ready to add “Welcome to the Black Parade” to that list of great songs.
Congressman Bob
I didn’t watch all of the congressional hearing yesterday involving Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee, but I saw the nearly half-hour of highlights on SportsCenter. The biggest thing that now strikes me is the fact that it might be possible that both men are telling the truth as they believe it. I don’t necessarily believe that, but I have to admit it is a possibility. Clemens admits that McNamee injected him on multiple occasions. The disagreement is about what the substances in those injections were. McNamee says it was HGH and winstrol, Clemens says it was B12 and lidocaine.
So if I were one of the Congressmen at the hearings yesterday, I would have asked the following questions to each man to try and get closer to the heart of the truth:
- Did you ever inject/were you ever injected by the other party?
- What was the substance being injected?
- How many times and approximately when did said injections occur?
- Can you describe the circumstances around the reasons for the injections and any conversations that took place before the injections?
The last two questions obviously wouldn’t be meant to get exact dates and word spoken, but my thinking is that you don’t just walk up to someone and inject them. There has to be conversations and discussions about what is being injected, why it is being injected, and how it will be injected. I think if that last question could be sufficiently answered, we’d know a lot more about the truth of the situation.
Comic book review: Civil War: Black Panther
Intrigued by his appearance in the Illuminati special in The Road to Civil War, I decided to read the Civil War: Black Panther trade paperback, collecting issues 19-25. I knew little about the Black Panther before reading this book and after reading this book, I still don’t even know what his powers are (does he have any?) The story is how he and his new wife Storm, formerly of the X-Men, as rulers of the fictional nation of Wakanda traverse the globe meeting other super-powered beings (Dr. Doom, Namor) to provide prospective on America’s superhuman registration act as passed in Civil War.
Ultimately, Black Panther’s story has little relevance to the main Civil War story and could have been skipped. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that a good story could have been told despite of that fact, but in this case it wasn’t.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10.
Cheap Eats New York: Part 3
Jean-Georges Vongerichten is one of the top chefs in the world, owning six restaurants in New York City. His signature restaurant, Jean Georges, consistently receives the top ratings by any critical standard, including 4 stars from the New York Times and 3 stars from the Michelin Guide. So I wasn’t expecting to dine at one of his restaurants on the cheap. But that is exactly what happened on my first visit to Spice Market, Jean-Georges’ NY Times 3 star Southeast Asian inspired restaurant. The condition of it being cheap is that I went for lunch.
It is not unusual for a restaurant to lower its prices for their lunch menu, but the Bento box lunch special at Spice Market was a downright bargain. Served 7 days a week (not just Monday through Friday as some lunch specials might be), $16.50 got me a butternut squash soup, green papaya salad, 2 small skewers of the meat of my choice, a piece of cod, and a cup of ice cream. Needless to say with Jean-Georges, the food was all excellent. While I haven’t been to every one of them, I can’t imagine finding a better deal at any other NY Times 3 star restaurant.
