[creekster]

I liked Tchakovsky a lot when I was younger, but have gravitated to Beethoven more over time among the romantic era composers.

On balance, however, Bach is the master for me. His work transcends conscious perception and connects with something spiritual and mysrtical that is very difficult to articulate.

The other night we went to the SF symphony to hear a program of all Mozart. This was a family oriented production (although unlike us, very few people acutally brought childern, to my surprise; must be a San Francisco thing). A feature of this concert series is that the conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, talks about each piece beofer it is played in an informal but informative way. At one point he told this very long, involved joke, which was sort of amusing. But the part that I liked was one of the set-up lines. In the joke a musician dies and gets to heaven where he meets St. Peter. He asks St. Peter how all the great compsoers are doing in Heaven. St. Peter says they are doing very well. As an example, He says that Bach is living with his two wives and all his children and that he has taken to compsing 1000 voice fugues. St. Peter then comments that no one else really understands them but God seems to enjoy them quite a bit. The joke goes on to a punchline about Mozart having weekend passes to hell. Not a great joke, but I thouhgt it amusing and insightful that Bach was considered a composer of such quality and complexity that the comment that he might write music that only God would understand and enjoy could bne used as a premise for a joke among serious musicians. Very appropriate from my point of view.