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One of my best friends turned 25 today. Depending on the source, the first CD pressed was either a recording of Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie, or ABBA. Either way, what is known for sure is that the compact disc was a brilliant idea, and, to me, remains the best medium for recorded music. It sounds good, it’s portable, and it’s pretty durable, at least compared to tape or vinyl. MP3 is not for serious music listening.

Well-known fact: the CD was designed to be able to accommodate a complete performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which, under the baton of Wilhelm Furtwängler, could be as long as 74 minutes.

Happy birthday, CD!

On Thursday’s edition of All Things Considered, Nate DiMeo addressed an issue that has been bothering me for years, namely the dearth of fine arts programming on television. He specifically refers to A&E and Bravo, two networks that were once devoted to ballet, classical music, opera and the visual arts. I can distinctly recall watching a complete Carmen on Bravo, and DiMeo mentions a Bernstein-conducted Fidelio in prime-time on A&E.

But that was then. “A&E” used to stand for “Arts and Entertainment”, but I noticed a while ago that they have modified that to “The Art of Entertainment”. “Breakfast with the Arts” is history, and their nightly installments of Biography are a thing of the past, though, even before they disappeared altogether they had shifted exclusively to portraits of celebrities. With the rise of “reality” television, both of those networks–as well as TLC, Discovery and others–reverted to pointless, inexpensively-produced garbage.

What I find a little hard to believe about DiMeo’s report is the idea that fine arts programming was a victim of its own success. I am not saying that nobody watches the more intellectually-challenging fare, but if something is going right, it seems unlikely that a TV network would change it. Now, if the argument is that these shows were more expensive to produce, and, thus, didn’t generate as good a return on the investment, well, I’d believe that. The Metropolitan Opera is apparently having considerable success with their high-definition simulcasts in movie theaters. But I’d be interested in seeing how many are tuning in to the telecasts on PBS. For that matter, I’d love to see how many people are watching any of PBS’ wonderful edutainment. I have a feeling I’d be disappointed.

Meanwhile, cable networks continue to move toward nearly identical programming. Look through your program guide and you’ll see the same movies over and over again on several channels. Even The History Channel is showing movies that you could see any night on TNT or TBS. We used to have the luxury of two commercial-free classic movie channels, but AMC sold out. I think the trend is for television networks to abandon their original focus in favor of the cheap and common. That’s bad news for fine arts programming.

Meanwhile, it should come as no surprise that the two channels I know that do broadcast serious music and programs related to the visual arts, Ovation and Classic Arts Showcase, are nowhere to be found on the Cox Cable lineup.

The Kubelik recording of Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler that was listed on eBay last week sold.  Final price: $91.01.  That’s cheaper than I have seen it go for before.  Maybe I’ll have a copy sooner than later.

Some extraordinary wanker hacked my site last night, placing malicious javascript in many of my PHP and HTML files.  Only thanks to Steve was I able to really discern what it was that had happened, and he spent an hour or so going through my directory and deleting the offending code.

I discovered the problem, coincidentally, while talking to Steve on the phone.  I had gone to log-in to my site to write a new post, when I saw some gibberish in the place of the normal log-in screen.  I tried another browser and it was the same.  Then I tried Internet Explorer, and my anti-virus program pops up, saying a virus was detected.

So, my apologies to anyone who attempted to read my posts and had trouble.  Endless thanks again to Steve for resolving what could have been an enormous headache.  Furthermore, instant Axis of Evil status for the loathsome computer vandal.