I live in Hamburg and work as a software engineer. The first instrument in our house when I was small was a turntable — my parents kept Sunday afternoons for it, and I learned, without ever being told, that an LP side is roughly the length of an unhurried conversation. I never picked up a real instrument myself, beyond a year of recorder in primary school, but the listening habit stuck.
This notebook started during the pandemic. With nowhere to be on a Saturday, I would put on a single piece — usually something I half-remembered from my parents' shelves — and sit with it from start to finish, the way I had been taught. After a few months I had a stack of post-it notes on my desk and started moving them somewhere more durable. That somewhere became this site.
What you'll find
Mostly classical, because that is what I grew up with and what I still gravitate to in winter. There is a smaller jazz section, and a still-smaller corner for ambient and slow electronic music, which is what I usually have on while I write code. I do not pretend any of these are reviews. They are listening notes — sometimes a paragraph about a single phrase, sometimes a thought about why a particular pianist's tempo feels right and another's does not.
What you won't find
No streaming embeds, no audio files, no affiliate links. If a recording is worth your time I will say so, but I am not in the business of selling anything. I also do not write about new releases on a schedule; I write about whatever is on the desk, which is sometimes a record from 1962 and sometimes one from last month.
Contact
I have, deliberately, not put a contact form here. If you know me, you know how to reach me. If you don't and you want to send me something, the postcard format has not gone out of style.