I have a lot of classical music in my collection. There's no way I couldn't, what with the playing piano since age 4 and band and drum corps, etc., etc.

Plus, I just like it. There are pieces that have always spoken to me on such a purely visceral level (the Romantics, in particular, surprise, surprise) like Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, especially the Eighteenth Variation.

Or sticking to Rachmaninoff, the Adagio sostenuto from the Piano Concerto No. 2.

There's Chopin, the Grande Valse Brillante.

Beethoven, Mozart, even Bach and those damnable Fugues and Inventions. (I'm allowed to call them that, I had to learn the suckers. Brilliant to listen to, but OMG, what a pain to learn. I developed a hate/hate relationship with my metronome over those bad boys.)

So lately, I've been back on a classical music kick— Holst's The Planets (and I'm just enough of a snob that it has to be a Leonard Bernstein recording. IMO, he's the only one who does "Jupiter" at the right tempo). And a lot of stuff that's odd to be listening to in the dead of summer: Danse Macabre, Bacchanale, Night on Bald Mountain, Sorcerer's Apprentice...

One would think the Girls in the Basement might be trying to tell me something. What, I'm not sure. But it does make for good listening as I ponder.

(It could just mean that I'm already ready for summer to be over and for fall to arrive, since that's my favorite season, but who knows?)