San Francisco Symphony Mahler recordings on eMusic

I was browsing eMusic the other day, as suggested over at The Abstract Factory, and discovered that all of the recent Mahler recordings of the San Francisco Symphony are available. Talk about a sweet way to use your 25 track free trial! Anyway, I grabbed Symphonies No. 1, 2, 4, and 9 (I already owned tbe 6 recording). All are really good, but I highly recommend Symphony No. 2, if only for the absolutely stunning singing of the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. The recording of course can't reproduce the live experience (one of the best concerts I've ever attended), but it's still very nice. I'm pretty seriously considering staying on as an eMusic member; with the entire Naxos catalog, they have quite a broad classical selection, and the price is right.

couple classical music things

First, Joshua Kosman, the classical music critic for the SF Chronicle, is also now blogging (via Alex Ross). Second, the BBC Proms is now happening, and you can listen to a bunch of recent concerts for free. Finally, Bayreuth is also going on. Anthony Tommasini is keeping a journal of his experiences, and Operacast has a schedule of online broadcasts.

Behind the Scenes for The Wire Season 4

So...it's been a while. Those who know me know I've been busy. Anyway, here's something that whet my appetite for the upcoming season of The Wire: they've started a behind-the-scenes feature on the web site, with lots of interesting information. I can't wait until the season starts. In other HBO-related news, The first 4 episodes of Season 3 of Deadwood have been great. I also went back and watched some episodes from Season 1 a while back, and found them even better than when I watched the first time. I definitely plan to re-watch the whole series when I have time.

Incidentally, Tim Goodman, the television critic for the SF Chronicle, has a nice blog on television. He has lots of interesting tidbits on HBO shows in this post, and posts on the The Sopranos here.