Positively Puzzled

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The Italian The Italian (Итальянец) (2005) Chariots of Fire (1981) Gallipoli (1981) Best in Show (2000) Quantum of Solace (2008) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 2010 (1984) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Lost in America (1985) The Bridges of Toko-Ri (1954)

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, June 18, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) It was an (almost) all-Bach program, as sometimes happens. I start with Bach, and then just can't pull myself away. Must be those sunglasses. J.S. Bach in shades, artist unknown . Bach did not specify the instrumentation for the Art of the Fugue. The show begins with an arrangement for harpsichord, four hands, Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot sharing the bench. The last of the four selections is the famous unfinished fugue, played as it often is,in its uncompleted form, the voices dropping out one by one, until the last one stops in the middle...eerie. Evidently Bach became too ill to finish it and died some months later. It was the only piece where he used the musical letters of his name as a theme. (In German notation, B-flat A C B-natural is rendered as B A C H) This tidbit fro...

My friend and colleague Gypsy Flores asked me to fill in for her on Saturday to do her world music radio show Musical Migrations , KUSP FM, Santa Cruz. Gypsy is leaving the area, and we wish her well. She and her great show will be greatly missed. The playlist for Saturday's show is here , and can currently be heard on demand via The KUSP Music Show Player in the Global category. It will only be available till next Saturday (June 13, 2009). I started with a duet between Ry Cooder, playing bottleneck guitar, and V.M. Bhatt on vina, a plucked string instrument of India, from an album called A Meeting by the River . This led me to mine KUSP's dusty LP archives in search of my old classical Indian favorites from when I hosted the world music shows, Ringing True and Sound in Time in the early 80s. Hariprasad Chaurasia, classical bamboo flute master In fact, Hariprasad Chaurasia's performance of "Raga Madhuvanti" was something of an epiphany for me. It was pla...