Great performances

I watch reruns of The Office (before Pam and Jim got married) and Seinfeld. That's pretty much it. I rarely watch much of anything else on TV and I never listen to music on television.

Until last night when I stumbled across "Great Performaces" on Public Television. If this is the sort of stuff Public TV puts on, I say "The deficit be damned -- Give-em more money!"

Great performances indeed! How about the New York Philharmonic performing:

• Dvorak, "Carnival Overture"
• Beethoven, "Triple concerto" (Gil Shaham, Yo-Yo Ma, and Emanuel Ax)
• Ellington ("Sophisticated lady," "In my solitude," "It don't mean a thing" sung by Audra Macdonald)
• Gershwin, "An American in Paris"

Pretty good, huh?

It's next to impossible to find two composers as good as Dvorak and Beethoven (if you leave Bach and Mozart off the list, that is), but Gershwin stands up surprisingly well.

Footnote: It seemed to me that Mr. Ma was not at the top of his game, but he was still great. I last saw him on TV probably 15 or 20 years playing the Rococo Variations (this was long before all his "Silk Road" silliness) -- his long hair flying this way and that. I like him better now that he looks like Senator Inouye.

Footnote 2: Ma's old recording of Bach's "Suites for Unaccompanied Cello" should be on your Desert Island list.