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Category: cello

Thursday, March 19th

otherworldly

Turgut Ercetin (1983-), String Quartet No. 1 (“December”); The Jack Quartet, live, Stanford University, 2011


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lagniappe

reading table

Lacan said that there was surely something ironic about Christ’s injunction to love thy neighbour as thyself—because actually, of course, people hate themselves.

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We know almost nothing about ourselves because we judge ourselves before we have a chance to see ourselves.

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Self-criticism is an unforbidden pleasure: we seem to relish the way it makes us suffer.

—Adam Phillips, “Against Self-Criticism,” London Review of Books, 3/5/15

Thursday, March 12th

never enough

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 5 in C minor for Unaccompanied Cello; Anner Bylsma, live, 2000

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lagniappe

reading table

I haven’t got a kopeck, but as I see it, it’s not the person with a lot of money who is rich, but rather the one who has the wherewithal to be alive here and now in the lush, bountiful setting bestowed upon us by early spring.

—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), letter to Lidia Avilova, April 29, 1892 (trans. from Russian by Cathy Popkin [Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories, Cathy Popkin, ed.])

Thursday, March 5th

No matter what, music remains.

Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006), String Quartet No. 1 (1953-54), live (Erica Kiesewetter and Yinbin Qian, violins; Marie Daniels, viola; Jake Hanegan, cello), Texas (Round Top), 2011

Thursday, February 26th

Soundtrack for your day?

Peter Brotzmann Tentet,* live, Atlanta, 2002


*PB, reeds; Ken Vandermark, reeds; Mats Gustafsson, reeds; Mars Williams, reeds; Joe McPhee, trumpet; Jeb Bishop, trombone; Fred Longberg-Holm, cello; Kent Kessler, bass; Hamid Drake, drums; Michael Zerang, drums.

Tuesday, February 24th

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

—Muhammad Ali

Cecil Taylor Quintet (CT, piano; Harri Sjostrom, soprano saxophone; Tristan Honsinger, cello; Thurman Barker, marimba, percussion; Paul Lovens, drums), live, Germany (Hamburg), 1995

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lagniappe

art beat

William Klein (1928-), Blacks + Pepsi (AKA Moves + Pepsi)
Harlem, New York, 1955

Blacks + Pepsi, Harlem, 1955

Saturday, February 21st

Twenty-four hours ago I’d never heard of this piece, nor this composer. Now I’ve listened to it, hungrily, twice. What a world.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze (1925-1991), String Quartet No. 6 (1968)

Thursday, February 5th

sounds of Mali (day three)

Ballake Sissoko (kora) and Vincent Segal (cello), live, Washington D.C., 2011


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lagniappe

random thoughts

Perpetual astonishment is one plausible response to being alive in this world. Abject despair is another. The list goes on.

Wednesday, February 4th

sounds of Mali (day two)

Trio Da Kali and Kronos Quartet, “Diaraby,” live, University of Maryland, 2014

Friday, January 30th

string quartet festival (day five)

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903); Hagen Quartet, live, Austria (Salzburg), 2000

1st movt.

2nd movt.

3rd movt.

4th movt.

Thursday, January 29th

string quartet festival (day four)

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), String Quartet No. 8 in C minor (1960); Borodin Quartet, live