"The Music" for Giftmas, Days Four and Five: Suzi

Ah, devoted readers. Let's keep it shortish today, as the clock ticks toward Gift Giving Celebration Time. Focus of the day: Classical music. (Or, as New Yorker music critic Alex Ross said in his famous/infamous February 16, 2004 essay "Listen To This," "I wish there were another name. I envy jazz people who speak simply of 'the music.' Some jazz aficionados also call their art 'America’s classical music,' and I propose a trade: they can have 'classical,' I’ll take 'the music.'" Gotcha, Alex [I interviewed Alex Ross in October about his new book, The Rest Is Noise.])

So on to the gifties:

1. I met three of the New York Times classical music writers whilst in NY (James Oestriech ["That's 'East-rike!'"] gave us a tour of the new building and sat us in the Page One conference room for a bit — that was exciting!). And all of the writers (staff writers and freelancers) did one of those last minute gift guides slash best of the year lists. If you're interested, here is the link. Me, I'm interested in Bernard Holland and Allan Kozinn's picks, especially Marc-André Hamelin's Haydn: Piano Sonatas; the Berlin Soloists/Brandis String Quartet's Schubert: Octet, String Quartet; Paul O'Dette's Bach: Lute Works, Vol. 1; and Alexandre Theraud's Couperin: Tic Toc Choc. But there are lots of other interesting things on the list too! Check it out.

2. Tonight, my household got kind of addicted to NPR's new music site. I had noodled around on it before, but I was showing off my knowledge (small as it was) about Paul Potts singing 'Nessun Dorma' on that Brit talent search show, and we ended up listening to his interview on NPR's Day to Day. And that (through the magic of suggested links on the smart NPR player — OMG, NPR people, that was a brilliant idea, BTW) led to our listening to an interview with opera megastar Ceceilia Bartoli about her obsession with 19th century mezzo soprano Maria Malibran.
Suzi, what does this have to do with Giftmas? Well, Bartoli recorded a CD (with a deluxe edition available, complete with DVD and book and etc. special etc.). And I think that would be a fine Giftmas gift for someone, um, like me, for instance. More tomorrow or Monday, depending.