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Reviewer's Bio
Jim Tobin
Several of my paternal ancestors were musicians and I am told that even in my cradle I responded with enthusiasm to classical music and with indifference to other kinds. That is pretty much the way I still am, though I have a passing interest in jazz and folk music. My serious concert going and record collecting began when I was fourteen, with visits to Carnegie Hall and the nearest record store, early in the age of vinyl LPs.
Since then I have attended concerts in Boston, where I lived for six years, Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago and Milwaukee, where I worked for many years and where I regularly attend the Milwaukee Symphony. I have also attended concerts or opera in London, Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Heidelberg, Vienna, Prague, Milan and Florence. My collection of CD's and vinyl recordings has grown to a degree I think my wife regards as beyond all reason. Generally I do not collect multiple versions of particular works, except for a few favorites, but rather try to expand my personal listening repertoire to everything I think I might like, since that appears to be the only way to hear most classical music these days.
What I mostly collect is 20th Century orchestral music from the United States, England, France, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, especially music in neoclassical style. Baroque music also appeals to me strongly, but I tended to overdo the repertoire in the classical and romantic styles when I was young, so it no longer seems fresh to me. Probably this accounts for my voracious pursuit of music new to me. I still find Mahler exciting and I have made some personal discoveries in post-romantic music.
I am self-taught in musical history and theory. My performance and score-reading skills are rudimentary at most. I played the Bb tuba for a couple of years when young and took a couple of years of piano in my middle years, getting to the point where my fingers could find the keys more easily than my eyes could find the right place in the score, something which helps me understand the amazing feats of memory that virtuosos display.
Now retired, my careers have included teaching European history and philosophy as well as library management, and along the way I managed to complete five academic degrees. In 1975 I completed a dissertation called "Judging the Avant-garde: Originality and Value in the Arts," not all of which I am sure I would want to defend today.
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