If you're in the mood for something majestic, bombastic, and otherwise musically rousing, I'd like to recommend some baroque classical music this holiday season to bring out your inner eighteenth century monarch...
I've been on a Handel binge of late...Water Music, Royal Fireworks Music (makes me want to hoist the Union Jack and colonize something in the name of the King and Anglicanism...), and the magnum opus, Messiah. Handel's Messiah is as ecclesiastical as I get these days, but it truly defines masterpiece.
J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are also quite scintillating, if not quite so imperialistic. I also recommend The Passion of St. Matthew, which some of you might recall from the opening and close of "Casino." When asked what music NASA should send into space to introduce our species to other potential lifeforms, William F. Buckley responded, "We could send the complete works of J.S. Bach...but that would be boasting." Word, WFB. In fact, I imagine JSB and WFB doing a jam session in Heaven right now (Buckley allegedly played a mean harpsichord).
I love baroque classical. Some classical makes you want to take a long nap. Baroque music makes you want to conquer something, the seven seas, North America, or in my case, laundry.
