Heaven isn’t somewhere else. It’s right here, right now. Don’t believe me? Put on a pair of headphones. Close your eyes. Listen.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite No. 5 in C minor for Unaccompanied Cello; Anner Bylsma, live, Germany (Dornheim), 2000
#1
#2 (ends at 9:15)
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lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander (1934-), Kyoto, 1984
soundtrack to a dream
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994), String Quartet (1964); Tetris Quartet, live, Thailand (Bangkok), 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander (1934-), Japan (Kyoto), 1981
career plans for the next life
If none of those other things pan out (tap dancer, rubboard player, reggae bassist, guitarist in a Malian band), I might give cellist-in-a-string-quartet a shot.
Keller String Quartet, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), The Art of the Fugue (excerpts); György Kurtág (1926-), Officium Breve (excerpts)
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
*****
*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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#2
*****
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)
music clip of the day 