Not long ago, I got to know Delos Director Carol Rosenberger after she had read my program notes for the company’s recent release offering pianist Andrew von Oeyen’s spectacular performances of Franz Liszt’s piano masterpieces. She approached me with a welcome invitation to furnish notes for next week’s release (Felix Mendelssohn’s complete music for cello and piano). That project entailed not only highly enjoyable listening and writing experiences, but the even more pleasurable process of working directly with Carol for the first time. And it wasn’t long before we both realized that – philosophically and musically – we are kindred souls.
So color me tickled pink when Carol asked me to assist her by writing (and providing general literary oversight) for the Delos Insider – which I already think of as a very classy blog. While you’ll get to know me better as I go along, let me tell you up-front that I’m on a one-man crusade to take the “stuffy” and “elitist” out of classical music. So don’t be surprised at my often informal commentary or my penchant for what I can only describe as my “irreverent reverence” for musical art.
That said, I’m delighted to humbly offer this post for your consideration and reading enjoyment. And what better way to dig deeply into the Delos Insider than to tell you all about one of my all-time favorite CDs from Delos (or from any other label, for that matter): guitar sorcerer Paul Galbraith’s glorious go at J. S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, in his own transcriptions for the unique eight-string guitar of his own design. As you’ll soon see, this precious Delos Double and I go way back.
I had been running the classical room at Charleston’s (SC) now-defunct Millennium Music store for around a year in 1998, when this blockbuster album hit the streets amid an avalanche of critical acclaim, soon to be backed up by a Grammy nomination and chart-topping ballyhooing in Billboard magazine. I lost no time in ordering it in quantity, for use in one of my in-store listening stations. And, curious as to what all the fuss was about, I took a copy home with me the day it arrived. And it blew me away completely – such that I ignored everything else in my life that evening, so that I could listen to both CDs several times through and devour the program notes.
You should know that I approach Bach’s music with a missionary’s singular zeal and devotion. As a pianist of sorts and a semi-pro church singer, I’ve played and sung his music constantly over the years. No other composer seizes and dominates my musical consciousness like he does. No matter what else I happen to be doing, it comes to a crashing halt whenever his music “intrudes” – particularly if it’s well-performed. I’ve been known to stop speaking in mid-sentence, or to pull my car off the road to a sudden stop when his creations assail me. That’s because no other composer stimulates on so many different levels. Hardly any aspect of my being goes unstirred – to include my sense of beauty, my intellect, my heart, and the deepest spiritual recesses of my soul. I find that there’s no more “complete” listening (or performing) experience to be found anywhere than in Bach’s music.
–Lindsay Koob
(To be continued in the Delos Insider next week)
Listen to samples from Paul Galbraith’s J.S. Bach: Sonatas and Partitas in our 36-for-36 post “The Remarkable Paul Galbraith.”