music clip of the day

What you want, sometimes, is to lose yourself, even if only briefly, in beauty.

Leo Janacek (1854-1928), String Quartet No. 1, “The Kreutzer Sonata,” excerpt (arr. Tognetti), Australian Chamber Orchestra

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lagniappe

random thoughts

When you’re young you want to find yourself; when you’re old you want to lose yourself.

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reading table

Variations for Two Pianos

for Thomas Higgins, pianist

by Donald Justice

There is no music now in all of Arkansas.
Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.

Movers dismantled the instruments, away
Sped the vans. The first detour untuned the strings.

There is no music now in all of Arkansas.

Up Main Street, past the cold shopfronts of Conway,
The brash, self-important brick of the college,

Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.

Warm evenings, the windows open, he would play
Something of Mozart’s for his pupils, the birds.

There is no music now in all of Arkansas.

How shall the mockingbird mend her trill, the jay
His eccentric attack, lacking a teacher?

Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.
There is no music now in all of Arkansas.