Being on a real Sibelius kick lately (one of the nice thngs about being a Napster subscriber is access to a couple dozen or so different recordings of just about every major work in classical music), and given Linz's recent admission to being wowed by Sibelius's Seventh (1924), I figured it was necessary to start a separate topic for this remarkable composer.

Encountered in the RateBeer.com "off-topic" forums of all places.

Excerpt:

Howard Hanson, Symphony No. 2, titled "Romantic." (On the first movement right now.) Add it to the list of Romantic music works to be listening to!

[Second movement of his Symphony No. 3 isn't shabby, either.]

Came up with this idea more of less on the spot.

I'm at around p. 140 now, just past the chapter that seems to me to be the core of PARC, chapter 4, titled "The Exploiters and the Exploited." Looks to me to be so thoroughly damning and riveting compared to what came before, that the rest of the book could only be post-climactic.

Maybe this has been discussed to death already, but I was wondering how those making the case against the Brandens (led by Valliant's PARC) viewed the portrayal of Rand in their final meeting together in Barbara's PAR -- the one in 1981. Is it the view of those critics of the Brandens that Barbara doesn't have enough credibility to make this account believable (that they had a meeting at all, much less a reasonably happy one), or is it granted as one of those times that Miss Rand is shown in a very positive light? Rand is portrayed as a very warm person, warm enough to put aside past differences enough to the extent of spending a pleasant day together. I'm also thinking of the account provided by Devers Branden in her meeting with Rand -- that Rand, instead of angrily turning Devers away at the door, was trusting enough to eventually invite her in and have a civil conversation.

This ties into a couple recent SOLO blog posts, one titled The proof there is no god and another on Spinoza on Freedom, Ethics, and Politics. The thoughts here are those occurring to me as I've been recently coming down quite hard on Kant's metaphysics on HPO. I won't speak to the apparent naturalistic pantheism of Spinoza; rather, I'm concerned here with a non-naturalist, transcendent God, the kind which Kant held out a metaphysical possibility for.