Random things

I'm back, not that I ever left, but I have been busy. My NCAA bracket got smeared, but I finished higher than a lot of guys. I picked UConn, like I do every year, but that didn't work out so well. I was in Indianapolis yesterday (i.e., Thursday, but it's very early Saturday morning, so it doesn't count), downtown is nuts. I suppose the Final Four will do that. For various reasons, I had to go to Monument Circle. The concerts that they're planning there closed off the place and made an enormous mess. I digress.

1. OOP recordings of important performances annoy me to no end. I understand the "business" part of "classical music business," but some of these things are far too important to keep locked away in a vault somewhere. The classics series of the various labels are nice, but there should be a more programmatic release system in place. In other words, DGG needs to rerelease the audio recordings of Boulez' Bayreuth Ring. At the risk of being macabre, I get the impression that a Boulez retrospective is a-coming with some speed.

2. When my Celibidache Bruckner 4 came, a neighbor of mine had to sign for it. I cannot imagine how grossly disappointed he would have been had he tried to abscond with it. That having been said, I don't mind this Daniel Powter fellow. Inoffensive pop music, a little pretentious to be sure, but sitting around mooning over Mahler isn't exactly populism at its finest.

3. Only a month until the Boulez M2.