As the opening lyric to Marillion’s song “Script For a Jester’s Tear” goes…
So here I am once more.
I’ve decided I couldn’t go another year – nay, one more day – without involving myself in another of my music projects.
And, since I ain’t gettin’ any younger, I decided to make this one the biggest, most time consuming, most expensive one of all: a musical journey that ranges from the 1500s to the 1900s, and explores the works (in most cases, the complete works) of 27 composers, from Thomas Tallis (1500s) to Leonard Bernstein (1900s), a musical sashay that will take me more than four years to complete, listening to one CD per day, with as few breaks as possible.
And, since I like to rise and get started early, that means I’ll be getting up at 5:00 or 5:30 (that’s in the a.m.) and driving to a restaurant that opens either by 5:30 or by 6:00, where I will settled into a booth, set up my laptop, get out my Sennheiser over-ear headphones (or my Bose QuietComfort 15 noise-cancelling headphones – my favorites), and listen to the next CD in rotation.
This particular project began on March 4, 2024. It will – God willing – end four years from now, somewhere around March 5, 2028. NOTE: God must not have been willing. I took a year off between the last Vivaldi CD (CD 25) and the following Vivaldi CD (CD 26). So, now, it’s anyone guess when I’ll finish. Some time in 2029? Time will tell.
For a list of the composers to which I’ll be listening, visit the page unimaginably titled The Composers.
To Contact me, visit the page equally unimaginably titled Contact.
Oh, by the way, this isn’t my first rodeo. (Well, technically, it would be – if this were a rodeo. I’ve never been to one, and never participated in one. So this truly would be my first rodeo.) I started these type of projects in 2009, and continued them throughout the years, off and on.
My first year-long journey ran June 10th – August 18th, when I started reading Hemingway’s novels, back to back, starting with the first, chronicled here:
70 Days With Hemingway and Me
Next up was every Oscar-winning movie, starting with Wings in 1927 and ending with Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, which covered the dates August 20th – November 8th) chronicled in these sites (all of which are now offline because their platforms were just too old to maintain):
81 Days With Oscar and Me
Then, starting in November (Aristotle (November 10th – December 9th, to be precise), I tackled Aristotle’s Poetics, chronicled here:
30 Days With Aristotle and Me
Finally, I listened to every piece of music Mozart composed, a journey that started on December 11, 2009 and ended June 8, 2010, chronicled here:
180 Days With Mozart and Me
That was grueling. But it was immensely rewarding. O, the things I learned!
More projects followed, some of them abandoned because my desire was bigger than my resolve.
My favorite projects were the ones involving Classical music, an endeavor that elicited a life-long love of that particular art form, with certain composers rising to the top of my favorite’s list: Mozart, Beethoven, and Bruckner. For example, I listened to nine of Anton Bruckner’s most well-known symphonies as interpreted by over a dozen conductors and their orchestras:
And, because I loved Bruckner’s music so much, I found more CD box sets from other conductors and their orchestras and continued, thus:
63 More Days With Bruckner and Me
But I also developed a love for Beethoven by listening to all of his symphonies, from a dozen and a half conductors and their orchestras, on this site:
162 Days With Beethoven and Me
I even bought box sets by conductors such as Wilhelm Furtwängler, Fritz Reiner, and Leonard Bernstein and had planned to listen to their complete works while blogging about them. I didn’t get around to Furtwängler or Berstein. But I did listen to a really fine box set of works conducted by famed maestro Fritz Reiner, here:
63 Days With Fritz Reiner and Me
I loved discovering all that music, from all of those musicians, during all of those musical eras. And I vowed to do it again. That’s why I’ve spared no expense – literally, no expense – to track down all of the 27 CD box sets that comprise this four-year project.
Since much of what I wanted to get my hands on (box sets of complete works – or as complete as possible) was out of print (especially in America, where most things are out of print, it seems), or just plain rare, I searched high and low, buying box sets from as far away as Germany and England to round out my four-year project.
I shudder to think what all of this cost me (likely a number topping $2,000, or more); but, in the end, just think of the bragging rights! Yeah, see? That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
Not really. That’s a distant by-product.
What I’m really after is to explore the works of the world’s greatest composers, and to enjoy what they’ve given us.