The Fredösphere

I do not suffer from CD obsession anything like the miserable wretches described by David Hurwitz:

There are two principal dangers with this phase (not including possible bankruptcy). The first is the inevitable and chronic lack of shelf space, a difficulty avoided as you make your first trips to that fabulous musical safety-valve, the used CD shop. The second danger is the tendency, similar to what happens in phase 3 above, to make exaggerated claims for music that really isn’t all that special or interesting just because its novelty excites your fancy. People will look at you strangely as you vigorously try to defend the assertion that Havergal Brian was England’s greatest composer, Sorabji a genius, or that Beethoven was a musical pygmy compared to Ferdinand Ries.

My safty valve is a local library with a large and growing CD collection.  I borrow, then return.

The best part of this is the shameful truth that I admit to you now:  I know who Havergal Brian is, and I've heard some of his music.  He's the guy you read about when you were 11 and still paid attention to the Guiness Book of World Records.  Yes, he's the guy who wrote the world's longest symphony.

I seem to be drawn to these matchstick cathedral guys, these antipopes, these people who devote their time and passion to some heroic, but unappreciated (because it's kooky), task.  All those notes, and no one ever performs them.  It's particularly sad when you consider they've organized a group to promote his music full-time.