Classical rest

 

It's been an odd week here not least for feeling rather under the weather really but one thing I had spent some of the evenings doing laying very much in the catbasket has been listening to the last week of this years Sir Henry Wood promenade concerts that this year have included an orchestrated Florence and The Machine concert, a evening of Henry Mancini, the film and stage show composer who gave us Peter Gunn, Moon River and the Pink Panther theme beloved as a child, even played on Saturday in the second half of the Last Night with Sir Steven Hough playing piano.

Talking of him the classical music label Hyperion last month did issue five brand new classical lps, something they hadn't done since the very late 1980's drawn from their modern catalogue and I did get his brilliant account of Chopin's Waltzes in that format.

Classical music on vinyl isn't where rock and pop is - in the centre of a revival - with lots of reissues and many new titles being issued at the same time on record, cd and digital mediums, being more of a nostalgia driven thing with "classic" accounts from the late 1950's to the end of the 1970's often highly regarded by hifi types being issued by specialist companies so it is rare we get modern recordings.

That one sounded great with silent surfaces and I'd like to see them issue around fifteen to twenty a year a mixture of back catalogue and the most desired brand new recordings so we can have a wider choice of in print new classical pressings.

Away and past memories

 

Well I'm just sat here with an achy back having been on my feet for most of the day and having spent ten hours on the move with the twisted section also quite warm.

Really it should of been corrected by a surgical custom made jacket when I was in my teens but for some reason that never happened and my folks never really pursued that matter which is why most people I know in similar circumstances don't have the same level of discomfort as I do.

The trip out generally went well with no traffic issues unlike last trip out but while the last time we've been leaving around four pm allowing for just under a two hour journey an initial offer of leaving at half four got extended to 5pm which meant we arrived back at 7 and had to get something to eat when you just feel shattered.

And his Grumpness had walked his shortish legs off while I stocked up on Coconut Ice and battled with the steep stairs to on set of conveniences, something patrons did notice strangely enough. 

 

On Tuesday September 3rd, we lost Brian Truman, aged 92, who wrote Dangermouse, Count Duckula its spin off series, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Cockleshell Bay plus Chorlton and the Wheelies all of which were amongst our favourite cartoons growing up.

He also presented Children's Hour, Clitheroe Kid, Scene at 6.30, Granada Reports, Brass Tacks and the much missed Screen Test that mixed quizes on current children's films with features on making your own short films.

He will be sadly missed by many of us.

Back to class with tape

 

Funny old week in a number of ways as the post F.A. business has resolved itself so things have gotten more to back to normal and I get ready to be away this weekend so i'll be sorting stuff out for that and obviously school returns which tugs at me never really have mentally at least left that.

Having fixed the power unit issue on my Sony portable stereo recorder I have been continuing with remaking a number of tapes that went around 1997-9 when MiniDisc moved in and pushed its predecessors and their tapes out, not least as I couldn't operate the Tandberg 62 stereo reel deck.

Back in the days you had a variety of tapes you could use and some could be difficult to use to their best because the coating wasn't what most Japanese tape manufacturers used and Japan set their machines based on what what they made. 

Many pre-recorded cassettes used Basf genuine chromedioxide tape as it not only sounded really good but it was really quiet and in the early to mid 80's I did use their domestic blank tape version as it least the machines I had then did a decent job of recording on them.

What did for that and lead me to switch to Maxell XLII  and TDK SA was changing machines to Japanese machines that sound bad on them and because of the impact of that, reduced availability in the high street.

In 1993 I did try one Basf Chrome type as an experiment and that didn't turn out well as the volume as a lot lower than what I recorded it at.

Recently though in a bundle of mainly Japanese tapes I found some late 90's early 2000's ones and I did experiment with them.

While these were mainly pure chrome they had added a small amount of  cobalt oxide japanese type II tapes used and actually they worked well straightaway on one of the Yamaha decks from the mid 1990's keeping much of the the low noise advantage I liked.

So with that I redid Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge of Town albums given I like listening to his albums rather a lot.