response 30 of 122:

Dec 15 22:28 UTC 1998

  Judging from the condition of many discs I've checked out of the 
  Ann Arbor public library you're not the only one who doesn't worry
  about scratching them..

response 32 of 122:

Dec 16 06:49 UTC 1998

Call me an old fogey, but I'd highly recommend the "classic" Blood, Sweat,
and Tears and Chicago albums.  The Moody Blues did some nice stuff also.

response 34 of 122:

Dec 16 16:00 UTC 1998

Well, we got to the library ten minutes before closing, and I tried looking
in the electronic catalog for the various suggested categories and titles.
Found Never a Bride but nothing else except for some plain dulcimer Christmas
music, and they were closing before I figured out how to locate Never a Bride
on the shelf, so I got out some classical music from Iran and some harpsichord
music and some other folk and classical music and went to Borders.  First time
I ever actually walked into their music dept.  I figured out how to use their
touch screen after a while, and after several tries realized that Rasputina
is a performer and Never a Bride an album (you have to do three separate
searches for song, album, and performer) and guessed at the category (I think
it was rock).  They had Rasputina and Dead Can Dance but not Never a Bride
(no longer published, since 1995) and lots of folk music but not the
recommended Scandinavian stuff (only the nonrecommended band).  I then figured
out how to use the listening areas (first two were apparently broken) but
could not hear much over the loud and insistent background music.  Listened
to a few things randomly in a few categories until the noise drove me away.
Does anyone actually go to Borders to buy classical music?  They don't seem
to play anything that is not mainly loud percussion.
        I will look for Never a Bride at the library, and perhaps Ken would
not mind taping me a few things, and the library might want to order some
Scandinavian folk music.
        We have a book out currently with several pages cut out of it, all of
them seem to be scantily clad women (judging from the smaller BW versions of
the same things near the end).  You would think they could have just bought
a Playboy magazine rather than cutting up a photography book.

response 36 of 122:

Dec 17 03:41 UTC 1998

Many classical music lovers also love movie music.  Bernard
Hermann, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith.  Did you know that
Rudolph Steiner, who composed the famous Gone with the Wind 
theme, also composed the famous theme to A Summer Place two 
decades later?  Did you know that the music for Our Town, 
The Red Pony, and Something Wild was all composed by Aaron 
Copland?  Or that the music to the movie Scott of the Antarctic 
was made into a symphony (Sinfonia Antartica) by its composer, 
Ralph Vaughn Williams?  Leonard Bernstein wrote the music for 
On the Waterfront, but *Elmer* Berstein wrote the celebrated 
jazz-influenced score to The Man with the Golden Arm (among 
many others).

response 38 of 122:

Dec 17 11:19 UTC 1998

Prokofiev also wrote movie music.  The one that comes to mind (in the
suite drawn from the score) is _Lieutenant_Kije_.  (I've never heard the
original score played, just the suite in various arrangements ...
starting with *playing* it in jr. high school band.)

response 40 of 122:

Dec 17 12:02 UTC 1998

...which, according to IMDB, was composed by Leonard Rosenman, who
also did the music for Rebel without a Cause, Star Trek IV: the
Voyage Home, and many other movies.  His most famous scrap of music,
however, is the "doo-doo-doo-doo" Twilight Zone theme.

response 42 of 122:

Dec 17 21:02 UTC 1998

Not only Star Wars, but also Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark,
Jaws, ET, Close Encounters, Jurassic Park, and many other
blockbusters I've forgotten, I'm sure.  Williams' style always
sounds British to me, like a more tuneful Malcolm Arnold.  Even
his earliest "Cowboys" music, when he was still Johnnie Williams,
has this quality.

response 44 of 122:

Dec 18 01:43 UTC 1998

This is drifty, but I just found out that Margaret Hamilton was
in *two* of the three Copland-scored movies mentioned above.
(She wasn't in Something Wild, not surprisingly.)  She looked
a little bit like Aaron Copland.  Hmmm....

response 46 of 122:

Dec 18 21:39 UTC 1998

Oops, faulty memory again - I'm merging two different people into one.
The "Twin Peaks" composer isn't Morricone, it's Angelo Badelemati 
(spelling probably mangled). So count both of those dudes as among my 
favorites.

response 48 of 122:

Dec 19 04:57 UTC 1998

Don't forget to check out the TV/movie soundtracks item while you're on this
thread.

Nino Rota is nice.  I learned "Love Theme From The Godfather" for classical
guitar and fell in love with it before I heard the actual recording, which
features a mandolin instrumentation.  A mandolin has to be played
differently-- the strings fade away quickly when strummed or plucked, and
therefore must be played repeatedly to compensate for lack of reverb.  So the
piece had a slightly different flavor on a classical guitar-- I have to use
an occasional vibrato, especially on long notes, instead of the trill-like
manner in which the mandolin is played.  It's still nice.

Speaking of classical guitars and classical music and rock n' roll, the
former leader of the band Deep Purple plays classical guitar now (but no
lute.)

response 50 of 122:

Dec 19 14:35 UTC 1998

Ritchie Blackmore was into classical music even during Deep Purple's early
days. I remember reading an interview in which he pointed out that one of the
chord progressions used in a DP song was lifted from Bach.

response 52 of 122:

Dec 20 23:21 UTC 1998

Try Loreena McKennet. Contemporary folk, magical stuff. I got hooked on her
background music for "The Burning Times." She has a new tape out. Canadian,
based in Stratford.