Walking on 34th Street this afternoon on my way to TONY‘s palacial west side HQ, I was startled to see a photograph of Lorin Maazel staring out from the front page of the New York Sun. (The photo, left, is credited to Stephen Chernin/AP.) Immediately alarmed, I rushed over to the newsstand to see what it was that had landed our maestro on page one.

Turns out it was nothing more — and nothing less — than Maazel’s return to the Metropolitan Opera podium after a 45-year absence, for tonight’s performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre. The newspaper actually started George Loomis’s feature interview on the front page — above the fold.

I must say, for some reason I find that very inspiring.

Playlist:

Kyle Gann – Private Dances; Time Does Not Exist; On Reading Emerson – Sarah Cahill; Hovenweep; The Day Revisited* – Bernard Gann*, Kyle Gann*, Da Capo Chamber Players (New Albion)

Olivier Messiaen – La Nativité du Seigneur – Hans-Ola Ericsson (Bis)

Jonny Greenwood – There Will Be Blood (original soundtrack) (Nonesuch)

Anaal Nathrakh – Domine Non Es Dignus (Season of Mist) and Hell Is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (FETO)

Black Flag – Damaged and My War (SST)

Wayne Shorter – Introducing Wayne Shorter (Vee-Jay/Koch Jazz)

Mikel Rouse – International Cloud Atlas (Exitmusic)

Saliva Bastards – Saliva Bastards (Durian)

Black Sabbath – Reunion (Epic)

Radiohead – In Rainbows (W.A.S.T.E.)

Vincenzo Bellini – I Puritani – Anna Netrebko, Eric Cutler, Franco Vassallo, John Relyea, Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Patrick Summers (Deutsche Grammophon)