autumnal meanderings

well... that certainly was a much longer break than i intended to take. an internet problem during the last week of july made a liar of me (see last para of previous post); with that self-imposed "deadline" missed, the urgency to finish what i was working on at the time passed... and vanished. as the weeks went on and august drifted into september, it got harder and harder to bring my attention back here at all.

is anyone still out there? i know i've alienated a lot of people... part of that is doubtless just my manner, at times perhaps overly aggressive and bloody-minded; and then again, part of it is that what i have had to say is very unpopular in certain quarters. my insistence on telling (what i perceive to be) the truth will never be very welcome in a world where the majority of educated people would rather swap comfortable, shallow falsehoods just to make sure that everyone remains on friendly terms and no-one gets upset. (i've never been any good at this game... and in all honesty i wouldn't want to be.)

there's also the difficult dilemma of the braxtothon itself: it's very time-consuming and requires a degree of tunnel vision; that sort of time and attention is hard to come by these days, for me... and it seems hardly worth it, when most potential readers are not prepared to endure anything like that much detail. still... whatever reasons i had for starting that project, i found different ones for keeping it up: i do it for myself, for posterity, and for the composer... as well as for the benefit of the tiny minority of people who actually want to study b's music closely (rather than just name-dropping him for easy intellectual cred).

those reasons all still apply, and i shall try to get going again after that long hiatus. to get me warmed up, before i even attempt to tackle the outstanding braxtothon entries i will (as stated previously!) be posting some vignettes, thoughts on various random recordings in rather less detail than the core entries. WARNING: one of these articles will also deal with a particularly prickly subject, that of sound quality vs musical content; i am well aware that this is one of the issues which got me (somewhat) ostracised in the first place, and if certain people see the piece in question they will presumably infer a personal attack... for what it's worth, i will say in advance that this is not my reason for examining this vexed question once again. no, but it's important, or so i feel: just in case there are still minds out there which are not already made up, it seems worthwhile to reassure them that the way of the audiophile is not the only way, and certainly not the one true faith that its adherents would have you believe.