serendipity
This I bumped into the other day on the radio.*
Salvatore Sciarrino (1947-), Piano Trio No. 2 (1987); Alter Ego Ensemble, 1999
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lagniappe
art beat
Paul Strand (1890-1976)
Abstraction, Porch Shadows, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916
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*WKCR-FM (Columbia University), Afternoon New Music (11/25/13).
Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), String Quartet No. 5; Crash Ensemble, live, Ireland (Dublin), 2013
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
All theater is musical and all music theatrical.
mesmerizing
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Lachrymae (1950; arranged for viola and string orchestra, 1976); A Far Cry with Roger Tapping (viola), live, Cambridge, Mass., 2008
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#2
This I could listen to forever.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Piano and String Quartet (1985)
Aki Takahashi (piano) and Kronos Quartet
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Earlier in my life there seemed to be unlimited possibilities, but my mind was closed. Now, years later and with an open mind, possibilities no longer interest me. I seem content to be continually rearranging the same furniture in the same room. My concern at times is nothing more than establishing a series of practical conditions that will enable me to work. For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.
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If a man teaches composition in a university, how can he not be a composer? He has worked hard, learned his craft. Ergo, he is a composer. A professional. Like a doctor. But there is that doctor who opens you up, does exactly the right thing, closes you up—and you die. He failed to take the chance that might have saved you. Art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves. Unless we take a chance, we die in art.
alone
Arthur Russell (1951-1992), “Soon-To-Be Innocent Fun,” 1985
Some folks are intimidated by this stuff. Part of the problem is the label: “classical” music. That sounds like something for graduate students. Nonsense. You don’t need to know anything—anything at all—to connect with this. All you need are two ears, a mind, and a heart.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903), first movement; Chiara String Quartet, live, University of Nebraska, 2013
For over thirty years he’s been taking me places no one else does.
Henry Threadgill’s Zooid, live, New York, 2013
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*****
It’s not just notes on a page. Threadgill really reaches out and grabs you by the lapels. Someone else described it to me as ‘every time Threadgill enters, it’s like the curtains just parted.’ He has this way of cutting right through the texture of the music.
—pianist Vijay Iyer
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lagniappe
reading table: passings
Between my fingers and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.—Seamus Heaney (April 13, 1939-August 30, 2013), “Digging” (excerpt)
alone
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 1 in G major for Unaccompanied Cello; Anner Bylsma, live, Germany (Dornheim), 2000
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*****
As I’ve said, I first encountered Bach’s cello suites in the ’70’s, when I was in college. Since then they’ve lost none of their magnetic power—it’s only increased. Living without them is unimaginable.
MCOTD mailbag
Dear MCOTD,
I need your advice. I’ve developed this mad crush on a musical instrument—the viola. It’s so dark, so mysterious. I’m obsessed! What should I do?
Sincerely,
Desperate in Denver
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Dear Desperate,
There’s only one thing you can do—give in.
Yours,
MCOTD
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Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Lachrymae (1950; arranged for viola and string orchestra, 1976); New York Classical Players (Dongmin Kim, cond.) with Kim Kashkashian (viola), live, New York (Church of the Heavenly Rest), 2011
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Four things are needed to survive: air to breathe; water to drink; food to eat; music to hear.
There are all kinds of blues, too.
Joe McPhee Survival Unit 3 (JM, alto saxophone; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello; Michael Zerang, drums), live, London, 2010
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lagniappe
reading table
Dream Song 40
By John Berryman (1914-1972)I’m scared a lonely. Never see my son,
easy be not to see anyone,
combers out to sea
know they’re goin somewhere but not me.
Got a little poison, got a little gun,
I’m scared a lonely.I’m scared a only one thing, which is me,
from othering I don’t take nothin, see,
for any hound dog’s sake.
But this is where I livin, where I rake
my leaves and cop my promise, this’ where we
cry oursel’s awake.Wishin was dyin but I gotta make
it all this way to that bed on these feet
where peoples said to meet.
Maybe but even if I see my son
forever never, get back on the take,
free, black & forty-one.
Back in the ’70s, when I was in college, I heard John Berryman read his poetry, an experience that opened my ears and mind in all kinds of ways. He moved so swiftly, and gracefully, from one register to another, leaping back and forth between high and low as if nothing could be more natural. Today he joins a select group—tenor saxophonist Von Freeman, trumpeter Lester Bowie, singer Dorothy Love Coates, poets Wislawa Szymborska and William Bronk—in the MCOTD Hall of Fame.
music clip of the day 