User Details - Geohominid

recommendations

Name:
   John Miller
Details:
   Retired geologist (BSc, PhD) and former Senior Lecturer and Director of Open Studies, Edinburgh University. Published a number of geological research papers, but Classical music has been a life-long love. I played piano and church organ as a youth, bought my first "hifi" at the age of 15 and have been upgrading ever since. I taught music courses in the Edinburgh Adult Education programme for many years, especially social history of music, illustrated studies of composers including Bach, Beethoven, Elgar, Sibelius, Richard Strauss and Mahler. Several courses attempted to introduce people to post-Impressionism musical developments, and I also ran courses on Scottish classical music history. I was particularly interested in the period instrument movement and did extensive research on this. Gave pre-concert talks for the then Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow and Edinburgh and Festival Lectures on featured composers at the Edinburgh Festival for over 10 years. Despite the classical bias, I have wide tastes in music. Also, I enjoy painting in watercolour, pastel, acrylic and oils.
Location:
   Edinburgh, Scotland
HiFi:
   Having had to take early retirement, I sold my 2800+ CD teaching collection in 2005 to take up high-definition multichannel and begin an SACD and DVD-A collection (much smaller!). Have upgraded several components since then, and present system is approaching personal nirvana... or so I think at the moment!

Changed to an Oppo BDP 93, suprisingly superior in SACD to a former Denon DBP-4010 UD Universal Player (DSD over Denon Link 4, almost jitter free); Denon 4810 multichannel receiver.
Magnaplanar MG 1.7 front speakers, Magnaplanar CC3 centre, Magnaplanar wall-mounted LM1 surround speakers, Quad Lite subwoofer. I consistently use the Marigold Signature Mat v2 when playing discs, it helps the transport recover more information and makes an astonishing improvement in definition, ambient information, instrument location and sheer musicality. Power cables - Russ Andrews PowerMax Plus, Interconnects - Chord Active Silver HDMI cables, QED optical cable. Power Conditioning - Monster power block and Russ Andrews 'The Silencer'. QED speaker cables.
Email:
  
Web:
  
Posts:
   144
 
 
Reviews
Found: 541 show all
  June 13, 2013

Having turned from being first violinist of the Frankfurt Opera's string section in 1919 and re-tooling himself as a violist, Paul Hindemith was soon frustrated by the relative lack of repertoire for the larger instrument. He set about composing a whole new spectrum of viola pieces, from solo ... more
  June 9, 2013

Heinrich Hofmann is new to me too. The excellent Berolina Ensemble, based in Berlin, have a mission to discover and restore the music of forgotten late Classical and Romantic composers as an adjunct to their concert work. Hoffman (1842-1902), also a Berliner, was himself a late Romantic composer who ... more
  June 4, 2013

Janson's Mahler cycle with RCO Live has been received with variable enthusiasm. Certainly there is no dispute over the famously high quality of the sound drawn from the Concertgebouw players. But from the interpretive point of view, Mahler's bitter ironies and nightmarish grotesqueness are more ... more
  May 30, 2013

Bruckner, a deeply pious Roman Catholic, wrote at least eight masses, mostly in the period of his musical studies. Three of them were for local parishes, and did not always contain the full Ordinary rubric of the Catholic Mass. The Requiem in D minor of 1849 was the first Mass which he allowed to be ... more
  May 8, 2013

"As far as I can see this symphony presents no particularly successful ideas, but in workmanship it is a step forward. I am satisfied above all with the first movement and the two scherzos". Tchaikovsky said this after the première of his Third Symphony, perhaps stung by the vitriolic dismissal of ... more
 
 
Latest Posts
Sir Colin Davis
April 16, 2013
A great loss. I heard the news just after listening to his LSO Live and Boston Sibelius Symphony 4 accounts, and they became even more poignant. Reviewers might sometimes have complained about Sir Colin's audible vocalisations when conducting, but somehow they reminded us, when hearing his records, of the very human presence completely at one with ... more
Discussion: Mozart, Hummel, Weber: Bassoon Concertos - Matthias Rácz
April 7, 2013
Looks like a possible winner. It's on the way to me so I will review asap. Geo ... more
BIS thread
February 23, 2013
Congratulations and thanks to everyone involved - a true magnum opus - and JS Bach might just have had a hand in it too! Regards, John ... more
Discussion: Honegger, Strauss, Casterede - Brogli-Sacher
February 18, 2013
While it is perfectly possible to enjoy Strauss's 'Also sprach Zarathustra' without bothering about its decoding and meaning, knowledge of what motivated Strauss and how he responded does add an extra dimension to enjoying the music. There is an excellent radio talk by Steven Johnson in his BBC programme "Discovering Music" - around 22 mins. It ... more
Discussion: Honegger, Strauss, Casterede - Brogli-Sacher
February 18, 2013
Thanks - I suspected it might be there, but after several hearings, I wasn't quite convinced. There is no indication in the score for the trumpet to play quieter than the strings. I've updated the review. John ... more