貝多芬第九首演

去年在圖書館發現了一本由History電視台出版的The Greatest Music Stories Never Told，由於要出門無暇閱讀，所以等到上月才去借，由公元前1400年講到2007年，共一百個音樂故事，第一個就是之前寫過的"The Oldest Known Piece of Music" 而我認為最感人的故事要算是貝多芬親自指揮他的第九交響曲首演，由於已經耳聾，他指揮得比樂團演奏慢了一點，當全曲已奏完，台下觀眾拍爛手掌之際他還繼續，是女歌手Caroline Unger走到他面前請他轉身，接受歡眾的讚美！

Conquering Dystopia

From the YouTube video of the bassist Hugo Doyon-Karout, I "discovered" another band Conquering Dystopia. To my surprise, it is an instrumental death metal band (which has released their album via crowdfunding!) I suppose guitarist Jeff Loomis is probably the most famous musicians in the band 'coz he also played guitar in Arch Enemy and Nevermore. Bassist Alex Webster is from Cannibal Corpse, who really showed off his chops. Check out their album on Spotify. Kinda reminded me of the good old days (late 80s) that shredding was popular.