The fourty-ninth classical recording: #564 Richard Strauss - Salome

Recently we went to see ENO's interesting version of Salome. If you've read the reviews, you might have seen that the production is misguided - an effort to modernize it without making use of the modernization and a haphazardly thrown together set of elements that never quite comes off. The music was still great and the performances good, but I do feel the staging may have distracted me from time to time.

The music sounded good, following the emotions of the (original) piece well. The dance of the seven veils sounds good, a nicely middle eastern influenced piece that creates its own images. It's clearly the highlight of the show and works as an amazing centre piece. The vocals weren't always as powerful in this version, but did well to tell its story - wtih some specific settings - which created a great piece of music.

The fourty-eighth classical recording: #119 Joseph Haydn - Symphonies nos. 6-8

A set of three pieces representing morning, day and evening, the pieces represent those times of day well. The morning is an upbeat, active piece, quite exciting and enticing. The second piece is larger, but slower, more leisurely, the evening is calmer. It's a good combination, the three pieces suit each other even if they are mostly separate. There's a liveliness to this that really helps set the mood and creates something to follow along to.

The one hundred thirteenth album: Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland

After enjoying the previous Jimi Hendrix entry on the list, I had half forgotten what this was like by the time I got to it - life's been busy, delays happened, and an extra length album can be harder to fit into my days. Yet listening to it now, it's clear that what struck me before is there. A bluesy rock, the album has several long songs that let the improvisation stand and improve, as well as a number of standard length tracks. There are the psychedelic influences, but again in a way that enhance the song rather than dominating, and it turns into a slow journey through that stays quite gentle. This might well be one of my favourite albums so far, something I wouldn't have expected before starting this list.

The fifty-ninth book: #49 Confessions - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One of the first autobiographies, Confessions feels like it works okay there from the start - better than Rousseau's other works. He's a decent storyteller, willing to make light of himself and with a bunch of interesting events described. I struggled with names sometimes, but it's mostly decently easy to follow and it feels more accepting to just jumping in. It sounds like a lot of this was fabricated, but really, for the most part that doesn't actually matter. Not having any philosophical questions to focus on, the result here feels like a better novel.

The ninety-second TV show: #828 Garrow's Law

I've struggled with historical drama before and have found that a lot of it comes down to the performance - mostly that they can become a bit too theatrical and over the top, which I can find more annoying than interesting. I've seen some on the list by now that don't do that, and play it at a more interesting level - sounding more natural, rather than an exaggerated Shakespeare play. Of course, Garrow's law falls into the more listenable camp, moving at a more modern pace in a way that makes sense. There are, of course, many formal courtroom proceedings, as a historical legal drama, but it makes sense.

Andrew Buchan does a lot for this. He's a compelling actor, imbuing Garrow with a spirit that remains compelling throughout. He cares, he's flawed but he wants to change a system that's not working for everyone and he's amazing at playing that passion. The cast that surrounds him does so as well - Southouse as the barrister keeping him on the right path, Silvester the prosecutor who goes for a win, but who respect each other when it comes to it, and Michael Culkin as judge who works with and against Garrow as the cases develop. The law side is interesting, then, that these are people working in a system, who are adversial because of the system, but respect each other and help when needed. The latter two, especially, pull off a balancing act really well.

But that half is about the reformer of the legal system. He combines many real lawyers, and so while he doesn't follow the historical figure, he probably has elements and represents the cases of everyone who pushed for this.

On the other hand, while Garrow's personal life stories in here are fictionalized as well, although more by embelishing the stories of the real life people they represent, they play a major part through the show as well. The actors involved - Lyndsey Marshal as Lady Sarah, his mistress, and Rupert Graves as Sir Hill, her husband (although she was just his mistress in real life) - play the roles incredibly well, again creating these amazing characters you care about. The storyline, however, isn't always as effective. The platonic relationship, striving for justice, in the first season, work well as an extra impetus to keep moving, but as it develops it has its ups and downs in the story telling. When done well, they're a compelling drive for Garrow to keep pushing, or they create an interesting dilemma on what side Garrow should go for. As often, however, it can feel like a distraction, a 21st century love story inserted into a modern drama where the seams show. I think they hit the balance better in the third season, when the high point of the plot has happened, but in the second season it's clear they have to set up the finale. It's a weaker part of the series, but still played so well it stays a great series.

The fourty-seventh classical recording: #53 John Blow - Venus and Adonis

Today's piece is an early opera, something we would have expected but I didn't quite expect to hear. The differences - English language, using older instruments - are surprising and it took me a while to realise that I could understand the lyrics. Still, it's the music that requires the bigger adjustment - operas so far have always seemed a bit more bombastic, but this makes it sound gentler. The story is fairly straight forward, but translates well to the music and the more delicate score really reflects that well.

The one hundred twelfth album: #112 Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes

Listening to this, I feel like I'm still trying to define where tropicalia fits in. It has elements of samba in it, but with more rock influences and a larger soundscape. Not to the point that psychedelic rock has it, but there are more effects in the album, distortion from guitars and other weird sounds that make it sound like far more than a recording of a concert like samba would be. It's not just a party, there's more in here and the experiments pay off.

There are also parts where it gets more gentle, O Relogio already getting calmer and gentler. It's surprising how that doesn't actually stand out, but there's a spectrum where there might be weird sounds, but it's not full on party. It made for a better than if I were to have the samba-inspired rock playing the whole time. That variety, coming from the many different sources the music draws from, makes for a great, varied album with a good mix of songs.

The one hundred eleventh album: #111 Ravi Shankar - The Sounds of India

For a real change, today I listened to an album of Indian music. Ravi Shankar introduces each piece explaining the music, how it evolves and how it changes, and the context helps me appreciate a bit more what they're actually doing.

With the focus of the music being different, it sounds more supporting - not background music, but not something I felt I focused on as a single thing. It would work as a performance and worked to get me in a mind set - more energetic than that might imply, because of the speed and rhythm changes. The improvisations are compared, to some extent, to jazz on the album, and it does feel similar to that - a basic number that they play around with and extrapolate from. It's good to hear some different music and this was especially worth it, even aside from the influence it has on psychedelic rock after this.

The fifty-eighth book: #48 Dangerous Liaisons - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

While I've enjoyed plenty of early books, it does feel like at the moment, a lot of styles are still evolving for the better. Epistolaries have not been my favourite, but they have been getting better and while Dangerous Liaisons has its faults, it was a lot more readable. The shorter letters help a lot from me getting too lost if I have to stop halfway during my commute. They also keep the narrative focused, it was nice not to have too many digressions and allowing for a more linear action, rather than the letters dealing with multiple events (possibly out of order). By focusing on the duplicitous characters, the story becomes a lot clearer as well. Still, there's a focus on skipping over the action, which means events get lost sometimes and the gaps seem longer than they really do. Still, it was very readable and I'm happy to feel them getting better.

The ninety-first TV show: #630 I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

There are some shows on this list that I know I'm not going to love. Reality shows can be a pretty mixed bag and I'm A Celebrity has always been a bit meh for me. I can see why it would be something people would latch on to and it could have won me over, but they type of production and set up doesn't wow me. Celebrities on these shows can always feel a bit weird, even if they usually know better how to entertain, and the concept feels like it could be quite cringy. I watched the 2016 season, which seems like it was particularly conflict free (although I wasn't too enthusiastic about pursuing others). Mostly it feels like they were sitting around in the jungle, in uncomfortable circumstances, but in the end a camp that's mostly set up for them rather than doing more survivally tasks that you might get.

Instead, there are daily tasks for food and sometimes extras. A lot of it relies on eating weird things - the less weird ones are part of their meals every day, but the bugs and other Fear Factor items are part of these challenges. In others, it's about getting keys or stars (each of which presents a meal) from containers that are bad in some way - filled with gross liquids, weird creatures (that might sting if it's not lethal, or are safely kept track of so they can't do harm) or other things like it. It's from the jungle, but not that jungly. For me the most interesting ones were the ones dealing with fears or heights and such - that requires some skill. I understand none of it is pleasant, but it feels repetitive and mostly seems to require getting past it. It feels like it got quite samey early on, unfortunately - especially with the successes I saw most of the time.

The presenting got to me a bit as well. Ant and Dec are quite charming and I could see why they made it on here, but their ad libs are better than the written jokes, which are terrible - sometimes ackonwledged, but sometimes intentional, but often more annoying than anything. I can see the appeal, and enjoyed this more than I would enjoy Big Brother, but this might just be a bit much.

The ninetieth TV show: #611 Six Feet Under

A TV show about a family whose family business is an undertaker has to start, by dramatic necessity, with the death of a family member. I believe it also ends with one. I'm not sure I could imagine another way in a series where death plays such a major part. There is usually one per week, and aside from the procedures surrounding that, like the service and the body being prepared, often it feeds into the themes of the episode and the problems the other characters face.

While they have a number of standard conflicts, they feel like they got a bit more complex than they would have been. One of the brothers is in a gay relationship that has shades of internalised homophobia that feels right for that era. The playboy settling is dealing with health problems and the troubled daughter feels more developed than mostly any other one I've seen. It's helped by a formidable cast that can handle everything admirably well, with a lot of charm that makes you see all sides of them. Conversing with the dead and the other dream sequences play out amazing (especially when Michael C Hall can bring out his other theatre experience in a fairly early musical number) and give a better insight into these characters.

It makes for an intense series - not something we could binge, but something that's been great to watch when we were up to it. It took a while to get there sometimes, but we're finally getting back to it.