(no subject)

The Montgomery BART station tends to have violinists and cellists busking, and this week I'd been noticing them playing a batch of pop music - Michael Jackson, ABBA, etc. Which made me curious about what string musicians play when they're actually doing stuff intended for them.

It's weird that I like classical music just because it appeals to me - I mean, it was something my parents kinda required me to like, and which of course I could never mention at all around school, as a kid. Admitting to liking anything weird or wussy or any other suggestions of having a shred of personality got you mercilessly ridiculed and bullied. Now that I'm an adult I find it really reassuring that there are other people my age or younger who actually like classical stuff (there's always a steady supply of musicians and musicologists after all). I figure the big thing I got out of being raised with this stuff is that I really like music driven by instrumentals, regardless of genre.

So I've been poking away on YouTube the last day or so, and I was poking into Schubert (someone whose stuff I don't really know very well) thanks to the appearance of Mov. 1 from his violin concerto in The Avengers, and hey, look. Sibelius wrote a violin concerto. I like Sibelius a lot and this was news to me. I really like this; it straddles this line between so melodramatic I can't take it seriously, and being sincerely, heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Here's the video in case y'all are interested.