Jeroen's Micro Blog

The two hundred and fiftieth album: #250 Yes - Close to the Edge

As I think we've come to expect from Yes and other prog rock bands, this 43 minute album contains three tracks. It opens, in fact, with the eighteen minute behemoth Close to the Edge, which starts with the sounds of birds and nature before coming together into a set of songs that stays remarkably coherent throughout - the throughline is there, unlike a lot of other lengthy songs like it, while moving through different movements with their different moods. It's a far more impressive feat than most, feeling in how it's built like a classical piece while staying a rock number. The album pulls off this amazing feat of keeping the three tracks focused like this - with an identity they don't lose - and never wears out their welcome. This might be the first album with these long tracks that really succeeded at this for me and I'm glad to hear that it can be done.

The ninety-eighth classical recording: #108 Domenico Scarlatti - Keyboard Sonatas

Looking at the works that surround this one on the list, we're at a point where classical music has really left the choral and is moving on, but isn't at the bombastic stages we later get. Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas are delicate, not using fancy tricks to impress but instead playing beautiful, light pieces that impact with a relative simplicity.

The list only gives a selection of the over 500 keyboard sonatas written by Scarlatti, but they already give the impression of someone working on something delicate and sweet, with a clear view of what he's doing with his works, but creating beauty out of all of that.