>When the format was first being developed by >Phillips and Sony, the boss at Sony, a classicial music listener, >insisted that a single disk have enough capacity to hold Beethoven's 5th, >or 9th--a symphony, anway [sic], of about an hour's length.
Whatever the merits of the analog versus digital, the one brilliant decision in the whole matter was the insistence that a single CD hold the Ninth uninterrupted. As good as is the Fifth, it is the Ninth that is the first among equals of the world's great symphonies, and in no way ever to be described just as "...a symphony, anyway..."!!!! It is THE symphony, indelibly ingrained into western, as well as the world's civilization at this point, as the music to several favorite hymns in various hymnals of various denominations, as the Theme to the legendary Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC, as the symphony of choice for momentous public occasions, whether of gladness or tragedy, to the trivial usages in commercial advertising. Lyrics by Schiller; music by Beethoven. ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
