Beethoven Symphonies and Piano Concertos sets

As is my want on this blog I do sometimes talk about music rather more than on the second blog to the point of having a series of entries I add to.

Beethoven was mentioned here in January 2018 this very week with the mention of older set of recordings reissued  but however good or notable the playing on it was there's no getting away from the improvements in recording in sixty odd years.

Thus I was on the lookout for a really good modern set of his symphonies where upon I found this set recorded between 2004 and 2008 in a inexpensive super audio cd box set by the acclaimed Scandinavia label Bis.

Performing Beethoven is controversial today some with taking issue with any modern instruments preferring period ones and sometimes adopting so-called Historically Informed Performance ideals and those who still hold with the late Victorian "Big Band" style with a lot more players adding more "umph".

This set takes a middle course using modern instruments but in a smaller scale for works whose earlier ones have more in common with Schubert and Mozart's but adding the odd vibrato.

I find this does help to de-clutter the sound not always helped on some older recordings by the acoustics of the venue so you here more of each note being played and here it has a freshness to it I hadn't experienced since buying André Cluyten's symphony cycle on EMI as a boy but with excellent modern sound.

The Pastoral symphony is well done taking a leisurely alert spring stroll through the countryside rather than either a brisk walk as in Herbert von Karajan's 1963 set or sounding 'plodding'. 

This was always the strong point of Cluyten's set for EMI of the same era - he just got it right.

I hadn't got around to doing anything about getting a sacd set of the Piano Concertos bring reliant on my remastered regular DG cds of Wilhelm Kempff's mid 1960's stereo set.

In October of last year Chandos, the Essex, England label issued a new three sacd set by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet playing he piano and directing the orchestra.

I feel a more chamber music style of playing fits these rather poetic works allowing you to focus more on the score following the music and this set received universal praise upon issue  to which I would agree with.

Technically it sounds really clear taking full advantage of what this format can offer and like the other set is in both stereo for regular cd and sacd layers and for those whose equipment can handle it, surround sound on sacd.

These two box sets have provide me with a renewed appreciation of Beethoven's music being hugely enjoyable and should provide me with much pleasure for a long time.

I also got this disc of two of his sonatas's the pianist of the moment,Yevgeny Sudbin.

The school age sissy

Something I do care a lot about are children, specifically those assigned as boys at birth who find everything connected around gender doesn't actually feel anything like them not least because I was one.

In my day the dividing line between acceptable boys behaviour, mannerisms, dress and interests and that of girls was heavily policed both by boys and girls in the playground, organizations, and adults such as parents, teachers and medical professionals.

Parents would berate, remove items deemed unsuitable, physically punish, teachers tended to ridicule you in front of your peers and some medical professions co-operated with enforced gender norm programs making some of us who were more gender questioning wear boys items, removing anything girls had least we become "sissies"

Equally girls could find themselves forced to wear dresses against their wishes, prevented rom doing things like climb trees.

The thing really was deep down, we are what we are having our own sense of gender identity, how we see our own gender roles and how we feel best gender presenting.

I feel "boys" who don't wish to wear traditional boys school uniform should have the option to wear girls and equally any "girl" should have the option to wear that of boys so long as you're fairly consistent over it and where possible able to share in games and PT with those you feel more comfortable with in non competitive settings.

That was all this sissy wanted in school and in scouting.

Not to change the "culture" of any group nor to usurp the majority groups own identity but to able to join in as I am.

Tammy always existed but was discriminated against, humiliated  and denied what was right for hur and in 2021 stands up for children today facing similar situations.

Play

 I've never understood it, but at some point in their lives most people exchange the word playing for hanging out, or something similar. If they are doing an activity that is usually called playing when you're chronologically a child e.g. drawing, putting together a puzzle, or looking at dolls/action figures, they'll say that instead of the word. Why?

Why is playing a thing that only children do? Animals such as dogs and cats play throughout their lives and nothing is wrong with it, so why are we humans restricted from it? Why can't I say "I was playing in my room" without it being taken as weird or dirty?

What's even more absurd is that I actually came across an article talking about adult versions of playing e.g. replacing crayons with fancy paint and play doe with a sculpting class. Like, excuse me? Why should I have to adultify my play, even going so far as to call it something other than playing? 

I just don't get it! Why does society want us to stop playing? I have a feeling if grownups were allowed the privilege of playing the same as as us kids, they would be a lot less grumpy.

I go out at mid morning and lunch time because I need a "playtime" where I can do anything from running around, going on a swing to imaginary play pretending to be a secret agent on the run.

There's no need to coat it in adult contexts like "team building" because it's just people you share space with playing whither you are in an office or at school.

I just call it for what it is: Playing.

New Year Thoughts

It is the New Year so we often look at the old year and what we wish for the new  and to me outside of an end to Covid it is really a better and wider understanding of what being LSG is.

The extent to which and to what those of us who do dress and may be feel more like a feminine boy are regarded in society is at one level a personal thing.

For some it is little more than a sense of re-enactment wearing the attire, typically a school uniform that connects with your childhood past where you might explore or otherwise 'play' scenes from your past gaining enjoyment from doing just that.

For others such as myself there is a strong sense of "the eternal child" in many respects emotionally and mentally in a child's mindset that even if you took away that uniform, would still be there.

With me it also links to having a disability where I am permanently child-like having the development of an actual child which is fixed and is therefore not something that one could switch off from.

Everything for me stems from that child's mind in a adults physical body so it isn't 'pure' regression with a point you enter into it and can exit and even less can it be considered age playing where for some brief and specified period I 'become' that little and then go into full adulthood.

I always am it.

I generally prefer to call myself an Adult Little as that is just it with nothing involving being 'little' with any kind of sexual relationship or bdsm connections.

It doesn't matter how I present, I am still that little.

Actually it is quite fine to be coming from things from whatever angle actually applies to you.