Monday, April 17th
sounds of Ukraine
The only thing better than one cello is two.
Valentin Silvestrov (1937-), Hiéroglyphes de la nuit; Anja Lechner (cello), Agnès Vesterman (cello), Valentin Silvestrov (piano), live, Paris, 2015
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: cello
2017
Wednesday, April 5th
Another take.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903)
Hagen Quartet, live, Austria (Salzburg), 2000
1st movt.
2nd movt.
3rd movt.
4th movt.
2017
Tuesday, April 4th
Sometimes I just want to be swept away.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903), 1st Mvt.
Takács Quartet, live, New York, 2017
**********
lagniappe
reading table
cloud becomes a mountain
becomes
a cloud—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
2017
Monday, March 13th
Saturday night, in Chicago, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, I heard the Spektral Quartet. They performed a single piece, this one, which lasted not one, or two, or three, or four, but five hours. Awash in sounds and silences, I got up out of my metal chair, I looked at my watch, I checked my text messages, my email, not once.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame*), String Quartet No. 2 (excerpt), Flux Quartet, live, 2013
**********
lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
***
*****
*With saxophonists Von Freeman and Henry Threadgill; trumpeter Lester Bowie; drummer Hamid Drake; gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates; poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska; and photographer Helen Levitt.
2017
Thursday, February 2nd
Last night, in Chicago, worn out by work and the world, I walked from my office to Symphony Center, where I heard these folks perform pieces by, among others, this composer—and I’m so glad I did.
Kremerata Baltica with Gidon Kremer (violin), live; Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), Sinfonietta No. 2, excerpt (3rd mvt., Adagio)
**********
lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
2017
Tuesday, January 24th
In a world so noisy what’s more precious than sounds so quiet?
Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), Piano and string quartet (1985), Sed Contra Ensemble, live (performance begins at 4:11), Ukraine (Lviv), 2016
**********
lagniappe
art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Edward Hopper (1882-1967), A Woman in the Sun, 1961
2017
Monday, January 23rd
three takes
Mica Levi, “Love” (soundtrack, Under the Skin)
Oliver Coates (cello and electronics), live, London, 2014
***
Stargaze, live, Netherlands (The Hague), 2016
***
Recording, 2014
2016
Thursday, December 29th
more
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 6 in D major, excerpt (Sarabande); Paolo Pandolfo, viola da gamba
**********
lagniappe
radio
Bach Festival, WKCR-FM (see 12/22/16 post): Day Seven.
*****
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
2016
Friday, December 23rd
more
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007), cello
If I had to list a dozen recordings I couldn’t live without, surely a set of Bach’s cello suites would be among them. I first heard them in the early ’70s, when I was in college—and I’ve been living with them ever since.
**********
lagniappe
radio
Bach Festival, WKCR-FM (see yesterday’s post): Day One.
2016
Wednesday, December 7th
Sometimes I want to hear something that will quicken my pulse; sometimes I want something that will slow it—like this, for instance, which I heard the other night in Chicago, played by the group for whom it was written (a.pe.ri.od.ic). One sound . . . another . . . another . . .
Jürg Frey (1953-), Fragile Balance (2014), excerpt; Ensemble Grizzana (Jürg Frey, clarinet; Mira Benjamin, violin; Richard Craig, flute; Emma Richards, viola; Philip Thomas, piano; Seth Woods, cello); 2015
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Winter seclusion—
sitting propped against
the same worn post—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill (The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets)
music clip of the day 