How many composers do so much with so little?
Anton Webern, Three Little Pieces for Cello and Piano, op. 11 (1914); Juliane Trémoulet (cello), Vincent Planès (piano), live, France (Pau), 2016
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lagniappe
random thoughts
The door is never locked.
more
Julius Eastman (1940-1990), Stay on It (1973), live, Switchboard Music Festival, San Francisco, 2016*
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lagniappe
random thoughts
The paper clip in my desk drawer will outlive me.
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*Annie Phillips, bass clarinet; Jeff Anderle, clarinet; Aram Shelton, alto saxophone; Alisa Rose, violin; Hannah Addario-Berry, cello; Helen Newby, cello; Dominique Leone, piano; Mark Clifford, vibraphone; Jordan Glenn, drums.
In a country that continues to coarsen, delicacy grows ever more precious.
John Luther Adams (1953-), there is no one, not even the wind (2017); Emerald City Music, live (world premiere), Seattle, 9/15/17
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of Iceland
Gyða Valtýsdóttir, “Imago,” live, Iceland (Seltjarnarnes), 2017
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
another take
Once I enter this world I never want to leave.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987; MCOTD Hall of Fame), Piano and String Quartet (1985); Musica Nova Consort, live, Israel (Tel Aviv), 2017
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lagniappe
reading table
Going home,
the horse stumbles
in the winter wind.—Yosa Buson, 1716-1784 (translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
never enough
If I could play like this, I’d never stand up.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, Prelude; Eva Lymenstull (baroque cello), 2017
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lagniappe
reading table
I like this story from the N.Y. Times—a composition by a child in the third grade: ‘I told my little brother that when you die you cannot breathe and he did not say a word. He just kept on playing.’
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), Letter to Robert Lowell, September 8, 1948
sounds of New York
Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (JB, trumpet, compositions; Tomeka Reid, cello; Jason Ajemian, bass; Chad Taylor, drums), live, New York (Rye Bar, Brooklyn), 2016
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Improvised music is like basketball: a great player makes everybody better.
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random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
love it or hate it
Brian Ferneyhough (1943-), String Quartet No. 6 (2010); Arditti Quartet, live, 2010
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, San Francisco (Lands End)
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Tonight, at 1 a.m. (EST), one of the year’s great musical events begins: the annual Bach Festival—now in its 40th year—broadcast on WKCR-FM (Columbia University). All Bach, all the time, until midnight New Year’s Eve. Hope, beauty, inspiration: they aren’t luxuries; they’re necessities.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Mass in B minor (excerpt, “Dona nobis pacem”); Berlin Philharmonic (Ton Koopman, cond.) with RIAS Chamber Choir (Justin Doyle, chorus master), live, Berlin, 10/28/17
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Johann Sebastian Bach, Cello Suite No. 6 in D major; Mischa Maisky (cello), live
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Hear In Now (Mazz Swift, violin; Tomeka Reid, cello; Silvia Bolognesi, bass), “Requiem for Charlie Haden” (S. Bolognesi), live, Italy (Basilica di San Silvestro, Trieste), 2015
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Which is more important: what we listen to—or how?
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random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
music clip of the day 