With the new year, comes a new project. I'm giving myself just one year to build this; if it never takes off, that's fine. It will be a learning experience. In this podcast, I will explore examples of "good music." My usual thing here on biberfan.org has been to review music, critically. This isn't the aim of the podcast. Instead I'll only talk about recordings I really like and the emphasis will be on the music. In this first episode, I thought it was appropriate to talk about something by Biber. I chose the Romanesca recording from 1994 of Biber violin works. * Biber: Violin Sonatas I will be feeling my way through this enterprise; I can take several routes: 1. My audience might be the general public, who needs more background on technical terms and an understanding of the music, and they may not want a technical explanation about the music at all; 2. My audience is made up of connoisseurs of music who are well-versed in the music and/or recordings, and they want to know more about the music; 3. My audience could be a mixture of the two, which means try to reach for the middle. This all hinges upon the idea that I bring something to the conversation. You might already listen to a podcast of a respected expert, let's say to the editor of Gramophone Magazine, who has a reputation in the field of recorded music. What does John bring to the table? This idea came about because a friend of mine who is not an early-music fan in the least, remarked about spending some time in my house. "We had such a good conversation, and your house is always so nice... the music playing in the background was really good; you have excellent taste in music." Another friend who likes jazz said the same thing, basically. "Your taste in music is really good." So, that's the germ. I bring to light examples of my good taste. If no one else agrees about my taste, that's fine. In this first episode, I try to introduce you to the format and the composer, Biber. I play some examples from the Romanesca release, but lay the groundwork for understanding the historical context of Biber's writing. Leave me comments on this crazy new undertaking.