fasten your seatbelt
Here’s another take on a piece we listened to the other day.
Alfred Schnittke (1934-98), Concerto Grosso No. 1 (excerpt); A Far Cry with guests Nelson Lee (violin), Meg Freivogel (violin), and Andrus Masden (harpsichord, prepared piano); live, Boston, 2009
(This entire performance can be heard here.)
Alfred Schnittke (1934-98), Concerto Grosso No. 1, live, Russia, 2004
Kremerata Baltica (Gidon Kremer & Tatiana Grindenko, violins)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
What do we want from music—a mirror or a window?
riveting
Anton Bruckner (1824-96), Symphony No. 5 in B flat major; Berlin Philharmonic (Wilhelm Furtwangler, cond.), live, Berlin, 1942
(Yeah, I realize this performance took place in Nazi Germany during World War II and, no, I don’t have anything profound, or even interesting, to say about how such beauty and such horror could coexist.)
Sometimes more is more.
Anton Bruckner (1824-96), Symphony No. 8 in C minor; Vienna Philharmonic (Herbert von Karajan, cond.), live, Austria (Abbey of St. Florian), 1979
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Once upon a time, before the human attention span began to shrink, people could actually sit still and pay attention to something—a single thing—for over an hour.
You don’t need to be asleep to be lost in a dream.
Maurice Ravel, Piano Concerto in G Major (1929-31); Martha Argerich, piano; Orchestre National de France (Charles Dutoit, cond.); live, Germany (Frankfurt), 1990
Julius Hemphill (alto saxophone), with Abdul Wadud (cello), Baikida E.J. Carroll (trumpet), Phillip Wilson (drums), “Dogon A.D.” (Dogon A.D.), 1972
The drumming is genius—he’s like the Zigaboo Modeliste of free-jazz. . . . Any musician who doesn’t like this should just stop—this is what it’s all about. It’s such a raw sound, right up in your face. This is the perfect introduction to someone who’s never heard free-jazz before. I wouldn’t mind if this piece went on for a couple hours.
George Lewis (1952-), “Will to Adorn” (2011)
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Chicago, 2012
[W]hen writing “The Will To Adorn,” Lewis was especially “interested in this idea of adornment—color, color, color everywhere.” The piece represents Lewis’ current musical goal to get “more color energy into the pieces.”
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
In February, when I left this concert, which took place on a Sunday afternoon at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, I felt both exhilarated and wistful. This performance, which had been such a joy to hear, I would never be able to experience again. Or so I thought, until, just the other day, I discovered this recording online. Young people, many of them, anyway, would see nothing remarkable in being able, thanks to the ’net, to return to a musical experience whenever, and wherever, you want. To me it seems a small miracle.
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reading table
I was trying to assert myself as the man in the house, taking charge of things no one could control.
—Richard Ford, Canada (2012)
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Wach (excerpt)
The Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar
Live (rehearsal), Austria (Klosterneuberg), 2009
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Would I want to listen to this every day?
Nah.
But I don’t feel like listening to Junior Wells every day either.
Why shouldn’t our music be as various as our days?
ready to levitate?
Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet,* “Aziz” (M. Zerang), recorded live in Chicago (Empty Bottle), 9/17/97 (Okka Disk OD-12022)
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after meeting with a client at the nearby federal jail)
Utagawe Hiroshige, Suijin Shrine and Massaki on the Sumida River (from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo), c. 1856
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reading table
Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose . . . the sudden agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world, showing that with all his gravity he has the secret of lightness, and that what many consider to be the vitality of the times—noisy, aggressive, revving and roaring—belongs to the realm of death, like a cemetery for rusty old cars.
—Italo Calvino, “Lightness,” in Six Memos for the New Millenium (1988, translated from Italian by Patrick Creagh)
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*PB, tenor sax/clarinet/tarogato; Mars Williams, tenor/alto/soprano sax/clarinet; Ken Vandermark, tenor sax/clarinet/bass clarinet; Mats Gustafsson, baritone sax/fluteophone; Joe McPhee, pocket cornet/valve trombone/soprano sax; Jeb Bishop, trombone; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello; Kent Kessler, bass; Michael Zerang, drums/percussion; Hamid Drake, drums/percussion.
Peter Brötzmann, reed player, composer, bandleader
German Blues, performances 1999-2002, interview 2000
You can have the blues even if you’re German . . .
—Peter Brötzmann
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lagniappe
found words: AOL Headlines
Autistic Cheerleader Inspires Her Squad
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Kayaker Drowns After Swan Attack
music clip of the day 