Complex? Yes. But its complexity is matched by its clarity. It breathes.
Milton Babbitt (1916-2011), Composition for Twelve Instruments (1948, rev. 1954): Ensemble conducted by Ralph Shapey (1921-2002), 1962
**********
lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of New York
last night, Brooklyn: Daniel Carter (reeds), Claire De Brunner (bassoon), Aron Namewirth (guitar), Adam Caine (bass), Jeff Pearring (alto saxophone)
**********
lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
Why not begin the week with something beautiful?
Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble and Alarm Will Sound, “Anthem” (M. Monk), published 8/22/20
**********
lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, outside Chicago
mysterious, adj. Exciting wonder, curiosity, or surprise while baffling efforts to comprehend or identify. E.g., Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Sequences.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir (1977-), Sequences (bass flute, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, contrabassoon), 2016; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), live, New York, 2016
**********
lagniappe
reading table
in the big rain
gushing down
little butterfly—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
not the same old stuff
Dana Jessen (bassoon), Points Against Fields (Sam Pluta), live, Chicago, 2016
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
So many sounds, made by so many people, we’ll never hear, no matter how much we listen.
*****
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of Chicago (day two)
Sometimes encountering a new piece of music can turn your whole day around, which is what happened to me the other day when I bumped into this.
Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), In Vain (2000)
Ensemble Dal Niente, live, Chicago, 2013
**********
lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Cliff Walk at Pourville (1882)
***
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Seascape (1879)
*****
random thoughts
Eyes taste paintings no less than mouths taste food.
love it or hate it
Anthony Braxton 12+1tet, Composition 355, live, Italy (Venice), 2012
*****
Anthony, a MacArthur “genius” award winner (1994) and professor at Wesleyan University, talks about this and that:
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music can take us places we’ve never been before, if we’re willing to listen to sounds we’ve never heard before.
one thing after
another after another
after another after another after . . .
John Cage (1912-1992), Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1958); Variable Geometry (Jean-Phillippe Calvin, director), live, London, 2011
A performance like this can go wrong in so many ways. This one, to these ears, works wonderfully. Momentum, tautness, immediacy—it has them all.
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
Everything we do is music.
The other night, as Mitsuko Uchida was performing two of Mozart’s piano concertos (17, 27) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, there were moments so pure, so open, I would have liked nothing more than to disappear into one of the spaces between the notes and stay there.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, KV. 466; Mitsuko Uchida (piano and conducting), Camerata Salzburg, live, Germany (Salzburg), 2001
riveting
Anton Bruckner (1824-96), Symphony No. 5 in B flat major; Berlin Philharmonic (Wilhelm Furtwangler, cond.), live, Berlin, 1942
(Yeah, I realize this performance took place in Nazi Germany during World War II and, no, I don’t have anything profound, or even interesting, to say about how such beauty and such horror could coexist.)
music clip of the day 