GershWins the award for awesome

I don't know anything about music, which is unfortunate because I know a lot about liking it. But besides some ill-fated piano lessons when I was young and an unsuccessful bid playing the trumpet in middle school, I've got nothing. This is strange because I only know a handful of people that spend more time finding and listening to CDs than I do. And I mean CDs--I do it the old-fashioned way, complete with liner notes and all. But because I know so little about music, I can't be a snob, even though I am, and I can't tell you anything useful, even though I will try to convince you to listen to the stuff I am listening to. Another strange thing about the frightening ratio of love for music to knowledge about it is that I think, like any good Protestant even though I am a Mormon and really don't identify with Protestants as much as I identify with Catholics, that music is the supreme artform. In fact, if there was a race around the bases between innings and the racers weren't ketchup, mustard, and relish but visual art, literary art, and musical art, respectively, I would go with the relish every time. It is just that much more affecting.

This is all to say that I like music a lot, usually of the classical variety, although I suppose I will talk about other music too if I continue to write in this blog consistently. Lately I have been listening to a newish recording of Gershwin's Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue by pianist Jon Nakamatsu and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. I'd credit Rhapsody in Blue with really taking my interest in classical music to the next step: when I was in fourth grade, and already a fan of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Mrs. Case, the mom of a classmate, came to class and played for us the opening carinet trill of Rhapsody in Blue and I was awestruck. I'd never heard anything that suited my tastes better. I went out and bought a tape of some Gershwin pieces played by Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops, and listened to it for most of fourth grade and did a "Great Person" report on Gershwin in the fifth grade. So Gershwin has always been on my shortlist.

Yet up until two weeks ago, I had never found a recording of the Concerto in F that I really liked, so I bought this CD from a gift certificate I had to a bookstore (it was on discount for five dollars, which is twenty dollars less than its going price on Amazon). The sound is incredibly clear, which is typical for the Harmonia Mundi label but not so typical for other classical music labels, and Nakamatsu nails the piano in the Rhapsody. And who knew about the Rochester Philharmonic? They seem to understand the way the Rhapsody moves. I can't describe it, as I said before, and I have no good reasons for saying what I am saying, but just trust me on this one--this recording is phenomenal. And by the way, I have yet to find a more thrilling piece of music than the third movement of the Concerto in F.