Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to explore and enjoy The Complete Liszt Piano Music box set. After a solid week of digesting the collection I found myself hungry for more classical listening material.
For a first-time listener the scope of classical music is daunting. In which century should I begin? Other than my Baroque 100-disc set (which is overwhelming both in content and in volume) I had little experience with Early Music, Romantic, and other pre-recording-industry-era musics.
I quickly scanned the classical subreddit, read the sidebar, and perused Rateyourmusic’s classical pages. It didn’t take long to arrive at a decision – Deutsche Grammophon offers an expansive library of well-recorded, expertly-pressed, and reasonably-priced compositions from a variety of respected conductors and performers.
As I was not nearly equipped to make individual purchasing selections from their catalog, I opted for the archival collection. 111 Years of Deutsche Grammophon is a two-volume collection of the finest albums in their library. Each disc is housed in a sleeve featuring the release’s original artwork.
I am currently on my 8th day of listening, taking in 8 hours of content each day. My favorite highlight thus far is Claudio Monteverdi’s Magnificat.
And by sheer coincidence, a fellow audiophile visited from out of town this weekend and provided me with another hauntingly beautiful choral recording. Ondine Records released a Super Audio CD of The Latvian Radio Choir performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
And the great music just kept on coming. Friday evening, after a month of waiting my copy of the new Miles at the Fillmore, Bootleg Series Vol 3 finally arrived at my local record shop from the Netherlands.
I had previously purchased the Japan-only issued Black Beauty album – a much abbreviated version of one of Davis’ four Fillmore concerts. At the time it was the closest I could get to an official vinyl release capturing Mile’s live sound from that era.
When this set was announced, featuring all four performances complete and uncut, and mastered and pressed by Music On Vinyl, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. This release is the PERFECT gift for the Miles Davis fan who has everything.
Before walking out of the shop, I heard that a stack of used jazz had also come in, and I snatched up a $10 early pressing of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme in superb condition.
And to finish off the week in style, I gave myself a challenge. I decided to teach myself data visualization. A friend recommended Gephi as a free visualization tool and I got to work building and importing a .CSV.
I chose to visually map my library’s top 550 artists by genre as a preliminary exercise in data visualization. The result isn’t fantastic, (there is far too much information to represent in this method), but it was fun learning how to make it work.
Click to enlarge.
The Innerspace Connection 
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