Most Popular Posts of the Year: March and April

The most popular post in March was one on musical anhedonia, which is simply the inability to derive pleasure from music:

http://themusicsalon.blogspot.mx/2017/03/musical-anhedonia.html

It prompted quite a few interesting comments. The second most popular post was on, believe it or not, neo-Stoicism:

http://themusicsalon.blogspot.mx/2017/03/neo-stoicism.html

Actually, it was more about the ubiquity of pop culture and the idea of detaching oneself from it. As a musical metaphor I put in a Bruckner symphony. Here is another one, the Symphony No. 8 with the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Celibidache:

The most popular post in April with a considerable number of views and comments, was on some radical ideas about music education.

http://themusicsalon.blogspot.mx/2017/04/attacks-on-western-civilization-continue.html

I think my high point in the post came with my reductio ad absurdum of the author's claim that learning to read music notation is over-rated:

If things keep going in the direction they have, then in a few years I fully expect someone to be opining in the Guardian that the idea of requiring students to read at all is unnecessary. English is, after all, a cryptic, tricky language and learning how to read it largely unneeded now that we have audible books. If you are creative, just dictate your novel into your iPad or iPhone. Really, what is the point of requiring anyone to read written languages?

The second most popular post was a very brief one just drawing out attention to the very young soprano Patricia Janečková:

http://themusicsalon.blogspot.mx/2017/04/patricia-janeckova.html

Heck, let's listen to another of her performances. This is the aria "Ombra mai fu" by Handel: