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Hi, I have a bunch of books, music and at least one movie to review but work and family have consumed almost all my time.

Carlos Kleiber: Tribute to a Unique Artist

I recently picked up Carlos Kleiber: Tribute to a Unique Artist. I was excited about this recording because I have found that Carlos Kleiber was one of those great conductors, along with Otto Klemperer and Jascha Horenstein, whose work I really enjoy. I certainly enjoy other conductors but those three really stand out for me.

Kleiber lived from 1930-2004 and conducted some of the world's greatest orchestras. Kleiber was a perfectionist and considered by many the greatest conductor of his age but he never consented to take a permanent position with an Orchestra even though he was courted to replace Karajan when he retired. He also did not like to record, so there are only a few of his works that were recorded. The last a recording of the opera Tristan und Isolde in 1980. This is a tribute album and contains some great recordings that he did.

On the CD is Schubert's Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished" recorded with the Wiener Philharmoniker. It is a wonderful performance that I thoroughly enjoyed. Next is Brahms Symphony No. 4 also with the Wiener Philharmonkier. I love this symphony and this is an excellent performance. Both of these performances moved me, the sound is excellent, and you will be enriched by listening to them. The last pieces on the CD are from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde recorded with the Staatskapelle Dresden. This is opera, and I'm not a huge fan, but these pieces are enjoyable. I highly recommend this recording along with Kleiber's recording of Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies which are also considered classics.

5 stars out of 5

The English Puritans by John Brown

The English Puritans by John Brown is an excellent little work on the Puritans. The subtitle of this work is: "The Rise and Fall of the Puritan Movement." The subtitle is a bit of a misnomer as the book deals more with the rise of the Puritans and very little with their fall. In fact my biggest criticism of the book is that it seems too short by about 25 pages.

John Brown was a Congregational pastor who lived from 1830 to 1922 in England. As well as a pastor he was an accomplished author and historian. He wrote this little book (154 pages) to explain the origins of the Puritans and I believe he does a commendable job.

Brown begins his book by setting the stage for the rise of Puritanism by dealing with the English Reformation. He deals briefly with Henry, Edward, and Mary before he gets to Elizabeth. Brown spends most of his time dealing with the Elizabethan age, for it is here that Puritanism began and a major villain arises. This villain was surprising to me as it is Elizabeth herself. Growing up as I have with tales of heroic Elizabeth who restored Protestantism to England and withstood the Spanish and protected England it was a surprise to me about her enmity to the complete reformation of the Church in England. Elizabeth, as was the other Tutors and the Stuart that followed her were determined to be the head of the Church in England; and to that end they imprisoned and even executed those desired to have the worship, life, and government of the Church according to be in accordance with the scriptures.

In the first chapter Brown deals with the origins of Puritanism which begins with the English Reformation under Henry follows events up to the ascension of Elizabeth and her first acts as Queen and head of the Church.

In the second chapter Brown addresses the issue of vestments and ceremonies. Elizabeth insisted that her clergy wear the clothes and follow ceremonies that many of the protestants viewed as Roman Catholic and therefore anathema. In our day and age we often forget how deadly the contention between Protestants and Romanists was and how the Protestants were adamant about not having anything that smacked of Rome unless it could be shown from scriptures.

The third chapter discusses the struggle of the Puritans with the Archbishops, Bishops, and others in the Church hierarchy. Here we see the Puritans attempt to work within the system to bring about changes in the Church. There were many appeals to Elizabeth from within the Church and from Parliament, but all to nought. In fact, Elizabeth had pastors dismissed from their churches, some thrown in to jail and some of those executed. She had members of Parliament likewise jailed. All because they encroached on what she believed was her prerogative as head of the English Church.

In the fourth chapter Brown deals with the attempt of the protestants to change the hierarchy of the Church to a Presbyterian model. They failed and only set up more conflict within the Church.

In the fifth chapter Brown deals with the absolutist claims of the crown against that of the scriptures and religious toleration. There was a truce in the last couple of years in Elizabeth's reign because everyone knew that James would become King and they believed that he would be of the Presbyterian persuasion. They were wrong. James came in and picked up where Elizabeth left off. The history of the Stuarts (James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II) showed that they were masters of playing to the Protestants to gain power and then persecuting them once in power.

The sixth and last chapter deals in rapid secession the tyranny of Charles I, the English civil war, the short lived triumph of the Presbyterians, their errors, and the return of the Stuart Kings. This is the most disappointing chapter. Brown has shown himself to be an expert at a brief yet full overview of events but here he falls down. This chapter is too brief.

All in all this is an excellent little book and worth the time spent with it. You will get a real sense of the issues facing the English Church and how our forefathers and mothers responded, often giving of their livelihood, liberty, and in some cases their lives.

4 out of 5 stars

Ansel Adams: The Camera

Ansel Adams is considered one of the great American Photographers. And he is, and he is also a master teacher. Toward the end of his life he wrote a trilogy on Photography: The Camera, The Negative, and The Print. I recently completed The Camera and hope to read the other two books in the series soon.

The Camera is the introductory volume and it is about the equipment of photography but Adams also begins to teach about composing and taking the picture. But as that topic will occupy much of the second volume he just briefly touches on it here.

This is an excellent book and well worth the time to read it. Now, you may ask yourself, what can a book over 25 years old teach me about cameras? Aren't we in a digital world now. Well, yes we are, but the fundamental design of cameras and lenes haven't changed. Now, instead of film you shoot on sensors, and instead of sending out your pictures to a lab you download them to your computer. And then the fun starts...but that's another story. Also, much of the world has gone to digital, but not all the world. As you read this book you might be encouraged to try other formats of cameras besides the digital 35mm or maybe dust off your old 35mm film camera and give it a try again.

A bit of background that I didn't know before I read this book is that the 35mm is considered a small format camera. There are also medium and large format cameras (and some specialty cameras like a panorama camera). The 35mm camera produces a negative that is 24x36mm in size. Medium format cameras can produce negatives in several different sizes; some popular ones are 4.5x6cm, 6x6cm, and 6x7cm. Many professional photographers use a medium format camera for their work. For example Annie Leibowitz uses a medium format Mamiya camera. Then there are large format camera. They produce negatives typically 4x5inches and 8x10inches. If you remember pictures of a camera with the photographer under a dark cloth or have been to a portrait studio then you most likely have seen a large format camera. They have little changed in 100 years but still produce spectacular pictures. There are many more adjustments you can make with a large format camera (also known as a view camera) than you can make with any other type of camera.

Ansel Adams has a chapters on each camera type, on what he calls visualization, which is looking at a scene and visualizing what the finished photograph will look like. He also has a long chapter on lenses, basic image management and using camera in different situations, such as handheld or on a tripod. He has a chapter on view-camera adjustments, and here you learn of the power and flexibility of the large format camera. This chapter engaged me so much that I would like to eventually get a large format camera and see what I can do with one. Throughout the text Adams explains the mechanics of taking good pictures as he talks about the different cameras, lenes and other equipment. Adams talks about how to compose pictures, camera position (near and far, how would the image look if the camera were shifted left or right, etc.), depth of field and hyper-focus. I found his discussion of depth of field very clear and I believe I understand this important photographic concept much better. Adams encourages you to think of the photographic possibilities where ever you are, even if you never take out your camera.

Another great thing about this book is that it is filled with Adams's pictures that illustrate the text. All in all this is a wonderful work.

Where to get the books: I initially borrowed the set from a friend of mine but I saw that it would be useful for me to have my own copies. New in hard back these are $40-$50 a piece. Now there are also paperback versions for about half that. I went to the used book market and got the hardback books from 3 different vendors for $29 total including shipping so I recommend that route.

I highly recommend this book, it will give you a solid grounding in photographic equipment and the basics of taking a good pictures...even in a digital world.

5 out of 5 stars

James Durham's Lectures on Job

I must confess, the biblical book of Job always gave me fits, I had a pretty good understanding what was going on in the first couple of chapters and the last couple of chapters, and chapter 29 has been called by some “the Proverbs 31” chapter for men. But there were all those discourses in the middle of the book that didn’t make sense. Job’s friends would be trying to convince him of sin and sometime use correct theological arguments, yet when God appears on the scene we know that they were wrong. I just had a hard time wrapping my head around it. Enter James Durham and his slim volume on Job entitled “Lectures on Job.”

James Durham lived from 1622-1658 and was a Scottish Presbyterian minister. In addition to this work on Job I own several of his other works: his exposition on the 10 commandments, his book on scandal in the church, a book of sermons on Christ and his volume of 72 sermons on Isaiah 53.

Durham’s “Lectures on Job” is a relatively short work (Joseph Caryl’s massive work on Job runs to 12 volumes) but it is rich and very helpful. Durham does not go verse by verse through the book of Job but instead chapter by chapter. In each chapter Durham explains what is happening and then expounds some of the biblical truths contained in the chapter, and completes his lecture on that chapter by giving what are called “Observations” but we would call them applications. And this is part of the real treasure of the work. You not only come to understand what God is teaching us in each chapter, but Durham then applies it to us. Durham is an excellent expositor and is able to get to the heart of the message without wasting a lot of words. He is also a pastor and so his applications are very helpful

The last time my family went through Job in family worship I used this book to prepare with. I didn’t read the whole chapter to them but I went through beforehand and highlighted those things I wanted them to understand about the chapter and then used the observations to apply it to their lives. It was a wonderful experience.

Now, you might be concerned that a book written in the 17th century would be difficult to read but Naphtali Press has done of great job of preparing it for a contemporary audience. They say of their method, “It [the book] has been revised in so far as possible without marring the author’s work, to reflect contemporary spelling, punctuation, and usage.” And I think they do a great job. Where there are words that Durham used that they felt that they needed to leave in but that would be foreign to modern readers they provide a translation. The book itself is hardback and printed on acid-free paper. It contains a scripture index and a name and subject index.

Is this a easy book to read? Yes and No. Durham’s writing is from a different age and sometime you need to think through how he is saying something. But this is not that very difficult. A well educated reader will have no trouble with this book and any time you spend wrestling with it will be time well spent. And Durham does not write in a dense prose like some of the puritans could (John Owen I’m looking at you!), but he is also not as terse and vigorous as Thomas Watson.

You need to understand the book of Job, Durham’s lectures are a good way to give you a good understanding of Job. I highly recommend this work. Go get it now!

5 out of 5 stars.

Renee's Drawing

Ok, so this isn't a review but I had to post this picture. My daughter Renee (#7 of 8) drew a picture of Carol and me. Carol had me take a picture to capture the moment.

Technical Details:
I used my Cannon SD400 and a bean bag to stabilize the camera (instead of a tripod). I learned this trick from a podcast I listen to called "Tips From the Top Floor." I cropped and sharpened the picture using a free (as in beer) program from Google called Picasa, which I am also using to publish to this blog.

This picture shows you one of the myriad reasons it is fantastic being a dad. With 8 kids I am greatly blessed by God. 

Operation Red Jericho

Operation Red Jericho by Joshua Mowll is a youth adventure book. I recently read it and found it to be very enjoyable as well as quite creative. There are several aspects of this book to take into account. First there is the physical book itself. It is a hardback book in the style of a Moleskine notebook complete with an elastic band to keep it closed. Inside the book there are fold out maps, charts, diagrams, and pictures. It is well constructed and very inventive. Ok, so the book itself is pretty cool, what about the story. It is a good story that moves along at a good clip. The story takes place in 1920 follow a brother and sister as they seek to understand what has happened to their parents who have disappeared. They join their mysterious uncle on his boat and fall into some adventures involving Chinese pirates, submarines, exotic science, an American aviator, a tiger, a sect of Chinese warriors, a secret guild of scientists and explorers (called the Guild of Specialists) and much more. The conceit of the book is that it is taken from one of the hero's notes in 2002 and so has a lot of additional materials. These extra materials are in the form of the foldouts I mentioned above as well as other pictures, diagrams, and explanations. This allows for information to be given to the reader without an artificial break in the action to explain something to the heroes just so the reader has the information. It works very well. Many chapters begin with a journal entry from Becca (one of the heroes) and goes into the narrative. As is common with this type of story character development is kept to a minimum for the sake of action. What is uncommon is that the adults are important to the story and usually do the real heavily lifting of the work. Often in these type of stories the adult world is separate from the kid world. The kids are along for the ride and do contribute but the adults are an important part of the story. The kids are intelligent, but not overly so. The kids are disobedient (as is usual in this type of story or nothing would ever happen) but they also face consequences for the actions, though not lasting. There is the modern feminist viewpoint that there is no real difference between men and women (or boys and girls) in any ability. I understand how Joshua (or his publisher) would like to have this in the story so that girls and boys both are able to identify with the heroes, and it is not overstated so it does not detract from the story. This is the first book of a trilogy and I look forward to reading the other two. The good:

• The physical book with its charts, maps, etc. is very engaging.
• The story is interesting.
• The story moves at a brisk pace and is not too predictable.
• It does a good job of trying to paint the period of the 1920s.
• Adults are not just props but important to the story, the kids inhabit their world, not just visit it.

The bad:

• The characters tend to be one dimensional. The good guys are good, the bad guys bad with very little in the way of gray areas.
• The kids don't really understand the concept of obedience.
• There is the common feminist outlook that there is no difference between the abilities of men and women. But it is not overdone.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading the other two in the series. 4 out of 5 stars.

Update 10/6/06: The next book of the series "Operation Typhoon Shore" is scheduled to be published 10/24/06. You can preorder from Amazon at this link: Preorder Operation Typhoon Shore

Naxos Musical Subscription

One day I was looking for some music by Arvo Part. I decided to see if the music label Naxos had a website and the music available. Not only did they have a website, but I found that they had a subscription service. They have two versions: free and paid. For free you can hear 25% of any track of their library. For $20 (that's USD) per year you can hear all of the track of any of their published works. It is a deal not to be missed. If you don't know of the Naxos label, they started in the classical world and became known for inexpensive high quality recordings; and they publish a lot of different things, not just the standard repertory but many works by second and third level composers.

With the Naxos subscription you log in, choose a composer and then choose the piece you are interested in. Each composer has a caricature of them and a brief description of their life and work, then a list of their works that Naxos publishes. Here is one of the downsides, you may only choose one track at a time, if you want to hear a whole CDs worth you have to keep clicking on the next track. This isn’t so bad for a work like a Mahler or Bruckner symphony but if you are listening to some CD with many short pieces it can be annoying.

One of the great things is that Naxos publishes a lot of different kinds of music, and they have other labels (like BIS) under their umbrella. They also are publishing many historical works, books on CD, Jazz, educational information and DVDs. In the US you may not listen to many of the historical works or Jazz due to copyright concerns (thanks congress), but there is still over 5000 pieces you can listen to. Their growing body of audio books is very nice. I have listen to several Sherlock Holmes stories and they are well done.

Naxos also has a sister service called Naxos Radio where for $10 (USD) a year you get an internet radio station with several channels playing different flavors of Naxos music. I have not tried this but it does look interesting.

Naxos also has two free podcasts. One for new music and one for their audio books. They are mainly marketing efforts playing different pieces from new releases. It is a good way to sample what is coming out.

One of the great things about Naxos is discovering new composers. I recently started listening to works by Alla Pavlova (more on her later) that I discovered on Naxos. Also, if you have hear of a composer but don’t know if you would like their music it is great to go to Naxos and listen to them.

Things that would make Naxos better:

1. A playlist option where you could choose a bunch of tracks and then play them.
2. A “wishlist” option that you could add CDs to. I would love to email a link to someone when they ask “what do you want for Christmas…”
3. The ability to purchase and download music directly from Naxos. Yes, iTunes has some of their CDs but not everything.
4. A super subscription where in the same login you could choose the CDs or the Radio option.

Bottom line: 4/5 stars, a great service for the classical music lover.

Go to Naxos

Who am I and why am I here?

I am a father of 8 great kids, have been married 23 years, I've been in the tech world even longer. I used to be a developer but now manage developers. I am an old school Presbyterian, a ruling elder in my church and have a passion for classical music. The intent of this site is to share my reviews of different books and music.

Now for some questions:

1. Why "Fat Psalm Singer"?

Well, because I am. Actually several years ago in another church, I was told that I would never become an elder because I was a fat psalm singer (though they said it nicer). I always thought that was kind of funny so I am using that name. If you do not understand any of this, don't worry it's not important.

2. Is this a blog about Psalm Singing?

No. Unless I am reviewing a book about Psalm Singing or a CD of Psalm Singing.

3. Do you play any musical instruments?

Sadly no.

4. What kinds of things will you be reviewing?

I hope to reivew music CDs and performances (mostly classical), movies, and books of different kinds (e.g. Science Fiction and Theology).

5. Are you an expert in any of these things?

No. I konw what I like and I hope to be able to express some good opinions about different things. But remember, opinions are like noses, everyone has one and they all smell. (I know, I altered it, but I hope to keep this a family friendly blog.)

6. Why should I care?

You shouldn't, go away.