Good Night

Post Midnught Classical Gas

Is classical music having a millennial moment? In March 2019, the streaming service Deezer reported a 270% rise in the number of subscribers to its most popular classical music playlist, with 43% of those new listeners being millennials. BBC research also shows that young people are increasingly seeking out classical music online to relax, focus and energise.

So here are a few modern ones which I enjoy.

Bang on a Can All-Stars: Reeling (Julia Wolfe)

Gavin Bryars - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

John Dowland - Flow My Tears

Flow my Tears is an ayre by the accomplished lutenist and composer John Dowland.
Originally composed as an instrumental under the name Lachrimae pavane in 1596, it is Dowland's most famous ayre, and became his signature song, literally as well as metaphorically: he would occasionally sign his name "Jo. Dolandi de Lachrimae"

Paul Agnew (Tenor)
Christopher Wilson (Lute)

Serpentwithfeet - Four Ethers

Written and Produced by serpentwithfeet
Additional Production by The Haxan Cloak
Mixed by The Haxan Cloak
Mastered by Heba Kadry
Artwork by Elliott Brown Jr.

Isn't that track awesome and is based and sampled on this-

Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique - March To The Scaffold

Herbie Hancock - Ravel Concerto For Piano & Orchestra

Yes - Herbie jazz man and funkmeister of the Headhunters does classical.

Enjoy.

Tracey Thorn

From 2018 an interview with Tracey Thorn.

Good Morning

Read On And Stay Calm

A dull and overcast day. Cumulus clouds and the potential for some rain. Sun occasionally and timidly peaks out from behind the cloud, only to be rebuffed by the wind.

So, I have been holed up with my head stuck between pages of another book that I cannot put down. I am driven. Page upon page consumed in a sense of osmosis and logophilia. I am beginning to think I should have increased my book challenge to beyond a hundred now. I am the centurion bookworm.

Book 41 - Anthony Gottlieb "The Dream Of Enlightenment"

Anthony Gottlieb "The Dream Of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy" (Penguin)







What has the Enlightenment ever done for us? This is an important question and the title of the last chapter of this book. My biased answer would include human rights, democratic government, personal freedom, and separation of church and state. I think it is no great exaggeration to say that the Enlightenment marks the beginning of a sea change in thought that rejected tyranny, acknowledged the rights of common people, and helped create the intellectual environment that made our modern world possible.

In this relatively short book (244 pages not counting notes), Gottlieb summarizes key points of the Enlightenment's greatest thinkers: Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Pierre Bayle, Gottfried Leibniz, and David Hume, with due mention to others who supported or opposed them. It shows how these philosophical pioneers began to question convention, challenge authority, and propose alternatives. Some of their ideas may seem strange, backward, or even outrageous to us now, but they were constrained by the knowledge and beliefs of their time, as we all are. Unlike today, or at least not to the same extent, they also had to be cautious of the authority they were calling into question. The fact that we today can more freely express our thoughts without undue fear of reprisal is also, I think, a lasting gift of the Enlightenment.

Gottlieb's writing is clean, precise, and easily comprehensible. The philosophers he has chosen, and the points he selects from each of them, are appropriate to the subject. I recommend this to anyone interested in cultural evolution and the progress of human thought.

Read On And Stay Calm

On the whole, it was a dull and overcast day. Cumulus clouds and the potential for some rain. Sun occasionally and timidly peaks out from behind the cloud, only to be rebuffed by the wind.

So, I have been holed up with my head stuck between pages of another book that I cannot put down. I am driven. Page upon page consumed in a sense of osmosis and logophilia. I am beginning to think I should have increased my book challenge to beyond a hundred now. I am the centurion bookworm.