This is the 2000th Post!

I've been keeping an eye on how many posts are up due to my almost missing my 1000th post way back in 2013. The next big milepost will be my one millionth pageview! That is a couple of hundred thousand down the line, though. So this is my 2000th post and obviously an opportunity to bask in my wonderfulness. Or dedication? Prolificness? How about stamina?

I usually do something like put up links to particularly interesting posts that I feel are neglected. But I've done that enough, plus does anyone ever follow those links? Or I could talk about how wonderful my readers are, but I've done that before too and besides, you know how wonderful you are!

Hm, so what shall I do? Maybe I could reiterate how important it is that there be a place where you can actually criticize music and not just praise it indiscriminately--or ignore it completely. A place where you can actually say this is a good piece of music and that is a bad piece of music and in so doing delve beneath the surface of both. And where someone might agree or disagree and you can have a civilized discussion about it, weighing various factors without bias or favor. How many places does that happen? Sadly, it does not ever seem to happen in the mass media  anymore. Alex Ross in the New Yorker seems to take it as his marching orders to never say an unkind word about anyone--well anyone progressive, at least! Real criticism such as was practiced everywhere as recently as forty or fifty years ago has almost completely disappeared. Instead, writing about music is largely restricted to feebly disguised marketing and promotion. This might be one reason there is so much crappy music around--everyone is afraid to mention that it is.

But I have been gratified to discover that there are quite a few readers out there with an appetite for the kind of writing about music I like to do. And we have even had a few heated disagreements and remained friends despite that.

So in two or three years this blog might even see its 3000th post! And I hope you will all stick around for that.

How about something celebratory by Scarlatti? Here are several sonatas, starting with K. 204a, which I used to play on guitar: