I'd been wondering about igor for a while now. I hope he and his wife are doing ok, I always enjoyed his recommendations. Led me down some fantastic alleys in music that I would never have found otherwise.

Edit: 
If you are a complete noob, as well as the classical fm best of stuff, maybe try the Spotify playlists, Philip Glass, and William Orbit's album, then maybe some of the film-music composers such as John Williams, then back through Holst, Wagner, Prokofiev, all the people from whom modern film composers relentlessly copy.

M0stly harm13ss wrote:

I'd been wondering about igor for a while now. I hope he and his wife are doing ok, I always enjoyed his recommendations. Led me down some fantastic alleys in music that I would never have found otherwise.

@igorgetmeabrain

Hello Igor. I miss your pointers on classical music, it'd be good to see you back.

Thanks for the kind words.

and that one.

Anyone know owt about pianos? Specifically whether a 1920s Zimmerman upright piano is a good purchase? We found one that looks great and is ~£300, but googling seems to show that at some point last century, Zimmerman moved production to East Germany and the quality dropped quite significantly. We've seen a photo of the serial number and it dates it between 1919 - 1930, so should be okay, although I've heard some serial numbers can be faked.

Any clues?

Pianos are much of a muchness at that kind of price but as voices says, the only important thing really is to find out what kind of condition it's in. For £300 you could get lucky and find something that's still holding together reasonably well or it could be a clapped-out honkey-tonk pile of wood and metal. Even if it sounds reasonably in tune with itself, it's also worth checking if it's at A440 or if it's too old to take the strain and can only comfortably reach 420 or whatever.

For comparison purposes, a pro-level second-hand upright will set you back £5k+ so you have to be canny to get something worthwhile for £300.

Also well worth considering a Clavinova (digital upright), which has the advantages not only of having the weighted touch of an upright but also doesn't require a fraction of the maintenance, never goes out of tune, can be played with headphones in, can be connected to all manner of other devices and/or PAs, and is more portable and takes up less room. You'd get a decent second-hand one if you could stretch to £600+.

Hello g.man

Went to Space Spectacular last year or maybe year before. Highly recommended.

And Distant Worlds? Went with our very own DynamiteReaddy a couple of years back. Even more highlier recommended er.

I still haven't finished the eleventh season of The Simpsons. Of course, I prefer their early work.

krs wrote:

The History of Classical Music in 1200 Tracks: From Gregorian Chant to Górecki (100 Hours of Audio)

Hah, someone took the time to do what I never got around to finishing. Nice.

Just bought tickets for a classical music concert for the first time. One of my bucket list things is to hear something played in the Royal Albert Hall - so I'm starting small to see if it is something I really would like before looking further into it.

Have booked 2 seats in the Ulster Hall for the Ulster Orchestra playing Beethoven's 7th.  2nd movement is well known as it's used in films - was used in King's Speech for example.

Not until March - but nice to know it's in the pipeline.

Con Brio by Jorg Widmann
Violin Concerto by Mendelssohnn
then the 7th.

A German soloist called Veronika Eberie

Wow, I'm really quite annoying.

hylian_elf wrote:

I went to a Final Fantasy Symphony concert in Royal Albert Hall. Was bloody great!

Indeed... That concert cultivated a burgeoning interest somewhere deep within me.
It's not going to completely (or indeed, ever) wash out all the rap, but I've gotten into Prokofiev recently... 

Thing is, outside of his work, I don't know what's good.

Any recommendations?