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Mozart, the masterworks

Friday, June 9, 2006 ★ 14:13 ★ Category Music ★ Permanent url

I received the 40 cd box Mozart, the Masterworks (follow link for a listing) as a gift from my parents. Great pieces of classical music, thanks!

Mozart, the masterworks

I now have 3 different recordings of the horn concertos to choose from…

Currently playing: Piano concerto No. 13 in C major, KV 415

Zero 7, The Garden

Thursday, June 1, 2006 ★ 11:09 ★ Category Music ★ Permanent url

Wow, several days before the official release I’m the proud owner of the new Zero 7 (no flash info about zero 7 on Wikipedia) album ‘The Garden’. Yay for import cds!

Zero 7, The Garden

The album is a bit more progressive and less ‘loungy’ compared to the previous albums. Some of the songs resemble the style of the solo album “Colour the Small One” by singer Sia Furler. Other guest singer is José González (once again for no flash crap: José Gonzáles in Wikipedia), well known from the song used in Sony’s bouncing balls commercial.

Once again, Zero 7 produced a really good album that will definitely not leave my cd player for the rest of the week.

Quantus tremor est futurus

Friday, February 3, 2006 ★ 21:16 ★ Category Music ★ Permanent url

This year Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would’ve turned 250 years old. To celebrate his birthday, I’ve made a desktop wallpaper dedicated to the last piece of music he wrote, but didn’t finish: his famous Requiem in D minor. A requiem is not really a piece of music one would expect to hear at a birthday party, but I’ve not been in the mood for parties lately (for various reasons).

Quantus tremor est futurus

A full-scale version is also available.

Trivia: Did you know Mozart’s grave was reopened ten years after his death? His skull was taken out by the man who buried him. It seems several of the successive owners heard music and screaming coming from the room where the skull was kept. It is kept safely in a museum nowadays, hidden from public view. Read more about this ghost story at the Castle of Spirits.

Update: The image looks good on my laptop screen, but can hardly be seen on my Iiyama CRT monitor… the contrast is too low to read the text. The high contrast version may look better, depending on your monitor.

Uitmarkt

Tuesday, August 30, 2005 ★ 00:46 ★ Category Music ★ Permanent url

Last weekend I visited the yearly Uitmarkt cultural open air festival in Amsterdam.

Jazzanova

Jazzanova playing some jazzy dj stuff.

Orkest van het oosten

Orkest van het oosten, covering some well-known Queen songs.

It was fun, although I liked the music at Lowlands a lot more.

I wanna fall in love

Monday, August 22, 2005 ★ 00:37 ★ Category Music ★ Permanent url

This will hurt my girlfriend: I’m falling in love with Heather Nova. Or maybe I’m just enchanted by the voice of this siren…

Update: The enchantment is broken.

The sun wants to shine

Saturday, August 20, 2005 ★ 19:05 ★ Category Music ★ Permanent url

At the moment I’m at Lowlands enjoying a variété of cool music. Best shows ‘til now are The Polyphonic Spree (the sun wants to shine, hallelujah! the music is not religious however) and Zita Swoon.

Kris, Berend and Tijmen (amongst others in our group) are really enjoying the weekend.

Thievery Corporation

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 ★ 18:18 ★ Categories Music, Travelling ★ Permanent url

During our stay in Berlin, we visited a Thievery Corporation gig in Maria am Ostbahnhof, at that time known to us as “Maria am Ufer”. None of the ticket agencies sold tickets or were even able to tell us where to find the club, but after we found out the offical name had Ostbahnhof in it, we managed to get there.

Thievery Corporation

Thievery Corporation

Chill music and nice dancing people surrounding us made us have a really good night.

Play the music!

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 ★ 01:32 ★ Category Music ★ Permanent url

Last friday I shortly attended a (private) party in the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam. We had some free beer (free as in beer, not as in speech!) and watched the Dutch rapper Brainpower. Not quite the music I like, but it was nice nonetheless.

Brainpower

Brainpower on stage

This year I will probably visit A campingflight to Lowlands paradise, more often referred to as Lowlands. This three-day music festival features a lot of nice bands like Incubus, Foo Fighters, The Prodigy and my all-time favourite singer Heather Nova. I’ve seen all these bands before, but am really looking forward to seeing them again.

Note to people who know me personally: if you want to go to Lowlands and don’t have anyone to join you, my group is open!

Deception is brutal

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 ★ 01:01 ★ Categories Films, Music ★ Permanent url

Well, that movie quote is basically what’s being told in Closer, a film by Mike Nichols, based on a play by Patrick Marber. The film tells the story of two couples in an ever-getting-more-complicated relationship, giving a detailed account on their love—and sex—lifes. In the end the truth seems just as much a lie as all the lies told.

As the movie is based on a play, it has very few actors, few different sets and a lot of—sometimes rather explicit—dialogue. Although the plot was amusing enough to keep my attention, it really lacked the beautiful shots that make films a pleasure to watch. I guess films based on small plays are just a little too boring for my eyes.

The complete cast

Photo by Clive Coote, copyright 2004 Columbia Pictures Industries, shamelessly ripped from The Internet Movie Database

The beautiful music by Damien Rice (be sure to check out his album called `O’!) in the movie (and the trailer I saw while visiting Hotel Rwanda) was my main reason to visit this film. The soundtrack features `The Blower’s Daughter’ (played twice, almost full length!) and ‘Cannonball’ (only the piano parts if I recall correctly).