Thursday, November 21st
One-word review: Wow!
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), String Quartet No. 3, 1st movt.; Danish String Quartet, live (studio), Seattle, 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: classical
2019
Monday, November 11th
This—more of this 12th-century composer—I could listen to all day.
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), O vis aeternitatis; Eleni-Lydia Stamellou, Aeterna Choir, Teodor Currentzis (director), live, Russia (Perm), 2016
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Thursday, October 31st
never enough
Bela Bartok (1881-1945), String Quartet No. 4 in C major (1928); Quatuor Ebène, live, France (Wissembourg), 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Domestic as
an empty shopping cart
parked on a ledge
above a freeway.—Rae Armantrout (1947-), from “Hang On” (New Yorker, 10/21/19)
2019
Tuesday, October 29th
what’s new
His sound-world is like no other.
Jürg Frey (1953-), Elemental Realities, for orchestra (2019); SWR Symphonieorchester (Tito Ceccherini, cond.), live (world premiere), Germany (Donaueschinger), 10/20/19
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lagnaippe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Thursday, October 24th
can’t wait
They’re playing Sunday afternoon at Chicago’s Symphony Center—Beethoven, Shostakovich, Franck, Kurtág.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Scherzo (from F-A-E Sonata); Christian Tetzlaff (1966-, violin), Lars Vogt (1970-, piano), live, Germany (Bremen), 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Tuesday, October 22nd
sounds of New York
Jason Kao Hwang (1957-), If We Live in Forgetfulness, We Die in a Dream (2011); Momenta Quartet, live, New York, 2012
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
If you have some photos of yourself when you were four or eight or twelve or fifteen, hold them up against the mirror. Are you the four-year-old, the eight-year-old, the fifteen-year-old, the twenty-five-year-old, or the one who is looking into the mirror, or all of them? If you are all of them, then by now you must be thousands of different people.
—Ayya Khema (1923-1997), Being Nobody, Going Nowhere: Meditations on the Buddhist Path (1987)
2019
Thursday, October 17th
lucid, adj. clear, transparent, luminous. E.g., Víkingur Ólafsson playing Bach.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Aria variata (alla maniera italiana) in A minor; Víkingur Ólafsson (piano), live, Berlin, 2018
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random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
[B]y the latest count, there are 70 million persons displaced from their homes worldwide.
—J. M. Coetzee, “Australia’s Shame” (review of No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani), New York Review of Books, 9/26/19
2019
Wednesday, October 9th
sounds of the 14th century
Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377), Messe de Notre Dame (begins at 6:15; preceded by Introit [polyphonic chant]); Ensemble Gilles Binchois, live, France (Le Thoronet Abbey, Provence), published 2011
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reading table
Identity is made
of select experiences.***
If you are genuinely sick,
the leaves recedeand the flickering holes between them
come forward—not angels, but
unnamed objects—Rae Armantrout (1947-), from “Vultures” (Poetry, 10/19)
2019
Tuesday, October 8th
more sounds of Ukraine
Valentin Silvestrov (1937-), Requiem for Larissa (1997-1998, written for the composer’s wife); National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, National Academic Choir of Ukraine, live, Kiev, 2000
In this world of too much, too fast, too loud, something slow and deliberate can seem subversive.
,
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
2019
Monday, October 7th
sounds of the 12th century
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), excerpts from O quam mirabilis, O tu suavissima virga, Ave Maria; Hirundo Maris (Arianna Savall, vocals, et al.), live, 2014
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)
music clip of the day 